EXACTO demonstrates first-ever guided .50-caliber bullets - <AUTHOR> http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2014/07/10a.aspx <comment><USER2> The video and program page[1] don't reveal anything about how this works. I remember watching a documentary a few years ago on Discovery channel where this project was discussed. The bullet was essentially divided into a front and back portion, which could twist independently. The twisting then allows for corrections in the air. There's another design by Sandia labs where the bullets has little "fins" (like a missile)[2], however judging by the render provided on the DARPA page[3] it's not the bullet by Sandia.

Either way we now have IRL aimbot.

[1] [http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Extreme_Accuracy_...](http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Extreme_Accuracy_Tasked_Ordnance_%28EXACTO%29.aspx) [2] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmAzAmYv364](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmAzAmYv364) [3] [http://www.darpa.mil/uploadedImages/Content/Our_Work/TTO/Pro...](http://www.darpa.mil/uploadedImages/Content/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Exacto/exacto%20projectile_full.jpg)

<comment><USER3> That may explain how the target corrects its trajectory towards the actual target, but how does the bullet determine what the "actual target" is in the first place?

I would imagine this would be simple in test cases, but in the real world, what about a hostile target may differentiate it from a friendly ally that is nearby?

<comment><USER2> I commented below that it's marked by laser, but the counterargument was that if you can aim a laser you can aim a rifle. Let me rephrase: the goal of this system is to correct for deviations from the actual target which occur in the air. Because of wind, temperature, rotation of the earth (when taking really long shots) and other factors a marksman might have to adjust his or her aim and actually aim off-target to get the bullet on target. However, using this system you would just keep the crosshairs on target and the bullet will correct itself in the air to hit that target. I think that aiming the rifle in a different spot is only done for test purposes. I can't imagine why you would want to create a system that automatically determines the target instead of letting a trained marksman determine the target and help that marksman.

<comment><USER4> Why would the rotation of the earth matter? It's a constant speed and the person that fires it is rotating with the earth so the rotation is already part of the trajectory of the bullet. So is the wind for that matter.

<comment><USER5> At long ranges (1 km+), the rotation of the earth affects both the horizontal and vertical point of impact. A summary is here: [http://thearmsguide.com/5329/external-ballistics-the- corioli...](http://thearmsguide.com/5329/external-ballistics-the-coriolis- effect-6-theory-section/)

Wind has a larger effect that is evident even at shorter ranges. Bullets are fast, but during their time of flight they are blown around by the wind just like any other object passing through the air.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder what each bullet will cost once production starts?

I sometimes think about the origins of the second amendment and if it's intent was to empower citizens against a potentially oppressive government then it has failed. US military technology might as well be black magic. What can a "well regulated militia" do against smart bullets, M1 Abrams, Apache helicopters, etc?

Thank goodness we are kept fat and happy.

<comment><USER7> The basis of American freedom isn't some libertarians with rifles. Its the fact that the U.S. military consists of poorly-paid kids who care more about family and community than they do about abstract ideas. That and the fact that the military and its arsenal is physicislly distributed over numerous states. More powerful military technology makes us more free, not less. It just means it takes fewer people to break ranks from an oppressive government and effectively oppose it.

The biggest threat is well paid mercenaries. It always has been.

<comment><USER8> That also relates to the why the police is generally enforcing whatever a government wants, while the military always sides with the people when things go really wrong.

<comment><USER9> Counter examples. Civil war, Japanese internment, numerous actions against native Americans although you may not consider them protected by bill of rights.

<comment><USER7> In the context of "oppressive government" I'm thinking of the classic 1984 type situation, with a small faction suppressing the will of the majority. I.e. subversion of majoritarian will through military power.

Civil war was a civil war, with the country split into two sides. Regional bonds took precedence over national ones but the military of each faction sided with the people of their region. Japanese internment and native Americans involved minorities. The soldiers didn't come from those communities, and native americans were barely considered people much less Americans. It doesn't take much to get the majority to take action against a minority, but that's not an existential threat to democracy.

<comment><USER10> I can't even begin to express how ass-backwards this comment is. Genocide of natives and internment not only constitute existential _threats_ to democracy; by the time either of these happens, democracy is already long dead (excluding voting and other basic human rights to only the demographics most aligned with your interests generally doesn't count as democracy. The US today would probably impose massive sanctions on the domestic US of WWII or especially the US of westward expansion).

What you're saying, albeit you managed at least a bit of tact, is that Japanese internment and the genocide of Native Americans don't count as military-assisted oppression because "it was just the minorities".

<comment><USER7> Democracy is nothing more or less than rule by the will of the majority, either directly or indirectly. If the will of "the people" is to exterminate a minority, and the military carries out that intent, that's not anti- democratic. It's lots of other things, it's definitely oppression, but it's not anti-democratic. It doesn't represent an existential threat to a political system rooted in rule by the majority.

The genocide of native Americans, slavery, segregation, and Japanese internment were all carried out consistently with the desires of the relevant polity of the time. When George Wallace stood in front of the school house and shouted "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" he didn't do it to try and impose his idiosyncratic view of the world. He did it because he knew it would endear him to "the people" of Alabama.

<comment><USER10> > If the will of "the people" is to exterminate a minority, and the military > carries out that intent, that's not anti-democratic.

Well then, I don't care much for your notion of "democracy", and don't particularly understand why it would be worth defending or even necessarily better than minority rule in the first place.

Most reasonable definitions of democracy delineate between mere mob rule, and democracy as a governmental philosophy (including aspects like equality before the law).

<comment><USER7> > don't particularly understand why it would be worth defending or even > necessarily better than minority rule in the first place.

The word "minority" conjures up images of the oppressed, but through most of human history, the minority have been the oppressors. The majority were, historically, ruled by the will of a minority of people that made up royal families, etc. Saudi Arabia, for example, is a society in which a minority rules the majority.

Now, of course, in a democracy the majority can use violence to suppress the minority. But that is in fact the bulwark of democracy: the majority using violence or the threat thereof to suppress royal families, warlords, etc. And while ideally the majority does not do this, oppressive rule by the majority is almost certainly preferable to any situation where the minority is in power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here is a decent overview of the different approaches to the problem ranging from consumer (TrackingPoint) to military (DARPA/Sandia): [http://www.army- technology.com/features/featurelock-and-laun...](http://www.army- technology.com/features/featurelock-and-launch-future-elite-marksmanship- sniper/)

The TrackingPoint system is pretty awesome especially since it's tech which is available today and has some pretty neat applications such aiming through another device: [http://www.military.com/video/guns/rifles/trackingpoint- shot...](http://www.military.com/video/guns/rifles/trackingpoint-shotview-no- look-shot/3656239752001/)

<comment><USER12> That system is impressive. The website has a slightly more explanatory video - I wasn't quite sure what I'd seen from the DARPA link.

So basically the gun has a LIDAR for range, IMU for gun attitude and a Linux computer inside. You tag your target and it will use some kind of machine vision algo to track it even if it moves. You hold down the trigger and it will automatically fire when you put the gun in the right place. It's not truly guided like the parent, so if it's a windy day you're still likely to miss, but under calm conditions you can pretty much guarantee a perfect shot.

[http://tracking-point.com/](http://tracking-point.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can't decide if this will be mounted on the robots that take over ... or we will need them to fight the robots

<comment><USER14> Realizing that the United States' military capabilities are good enough, DARPA employees have turned their attention to replicating scenes from video game boss battles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's sad how much effort and talent is directed toward killing.

</comment><comment><USER16> This rifle by TrackingPoint takes another approach but seems similarly effective, the main thing that it doesn't account for is wind changes. I think you basically hold down the trigger and it fires when it thinks it'll hit the target.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVLmf_CBHKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVLmf_CBHKM)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBC8IFWC1P0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBC8IFWC1P0) "Vice - The Rifle That Aims Itself"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mZB6NtCx38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mZB6NtCx38) Moving targets

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA_ndsi5wnA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA_ndsi5wnA)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xleHVuj2uGQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xleHVuj2uGQ)

</comment><comment><USER17> I imagine you pair this with a Tracking Point ([http://tracking- point.com/](http://tracking-point.com/)) rifle and you'll get some impressive performance. Thinking through how this would work .. would the sniper's spotter also become the painter? Or would it take a team of three Sniper+Spotter+Painter to combine these two technologies?

<comment><USER18> You could probably use the Spotter as the Painter in the scenarios where there's s Sniper and a Spotter (e.g. SEALs don't use Spotters, whereas Army SF does).

However, having a Spotter in a different location than the Sniper (or Sniper + Spotter team) leads to other interesting capabilities. Things like, "I have the target marked, based on your current GPS position, just aim to the West."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder what is the technology behind this? Does the bullet have a small GPS module along with small motors that change the form of the bullet so that it can be guided by the rifle over radio frequency? What about the radio waves being interrupted or jammed etc.

Or is it something more ground-breakingly advanced?

<comment><USER20> It says "optical guidance system" in the article. I suspect that the sniper needs to light up the target with a laser sight, and there's a small computer and microchip that adjusts the form of the bullet (per other commenter's description here) so that the laser dot is always directly ahead.

The article also says it's designed to compensate for "weather, wind, or target movement", so my assumption is that the sniper has to keep the target in their sight at all times, but it can compensate for the bullet ending up off-course after it has left the barrel.

<comment><USER21> "It says "optical guidance system" in the article."

It doesn't make much sense that if you were developing an advanced weapons system that, other than to get out disinformation, it would be a good thing to tell exactly what you are doing in any detail at all.

What is the advantage of releasing any information at all other than:

1) To insure support and funding for projects

2) To scare the enemy.

3) To get the enemy to spend resources on the wrong thing

..etc.

<comment><USER20> This article sounds like a PR piece designed to get out in front of news and control the messaging. Likely they have reason to believe the project will leak shortly, and rather than having the media spin it as "Secret military lab designing killer guided sniper bullets! Police state imminent!", they want it out in public as "Your tax dollars are going toward some very advanced technology to ensure American military supremacy."

Just a hunch, having worked with some PR people before.

<comment><USER21> Good point. I agree that's a possibility that instead of being a fresh "discovery" it becomes old news (if not reported right away). [1] But I'm wondering whether if that were the strategy it wouldn't make more sense to provide easier to understand (for layman) information? It was hard for me to follow from the visual I can't see any reporter simply writing about it or getting interested from what appears there. In other words it doesn't look very "sexy" visually. And presents as if it's in a very basic form (but then maybe that is exactly your point..)

[1] Obama did this with revelations of cocaine usage. Once it was out there it wasn't a big juicy story to present. Media likes scoops, exclusives not just digging up old info (ala some HN posts) of things that perhaps people missed (unless there is an angle that they can work).

I guess here is the thing about old news. People must assume that if something were said in 2012 and nobody made a fuss about it then it's because it's not a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Fascinating, I thought it was the finned bullet but this doesn't seem to be that. There was an interesting, if somewhat forgettable, movie staring Tom Selleck called 'Runaway' which posited "tracker" bullets and use the of quad copters for remote surveillance.

I expect the next step will be fabrics that fluoresce in the visible spectrum when hit by IR or UV laser light to help warn people they are being 'designated.'

</comment><comment><USER23> "by compensating for weather, wind, target movement and other factors that could impede successful hits."

Translation: those poor suckers who try running sideways will still get hit with these new bullets.

</comment><comment><USER24> Now get your targets and guidance from an overhead drone and shoot at people you can't even see!

<comment><USER25> or arm the drone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if there are any startups in weapon technology.

<comment><USER27> > startups in weapon technology

Metal Storm: old but interesting. Mike O'Dwyer conceived of an idea for _" a rapid-fire gun prototype ... can fire up to 1,000,000 rounds per minute, or 16,000 rounds per second."_ [0] to give extra fire-power for Special Forces soldiers. More details can be read here: [http://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s167329.htm](http://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s167329.htm)

cf: [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Mike_O%27Dwyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Mike_O%27Dwyer)

<comment><USER28> Were these the guys who adapted their technology to fire fertiliser pellets into the ground from the air, for agricultural purposes?

<comment><USER27> @prawn, not sure but probably not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Another thing for killing. Just what the world needed.

<comment><USER30> This is what I initially thought, but there is always a flip-side.

Unless, humans agreed to complete cessation of violence (intentional or not), which to my knowledge has never lasted more than a week in recorded history (of wars), someone will always try to kill someone else.

Although I don't support the Military Industry, I think projects like this have the potential to get less people killed in battle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Countdown to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jVsQToSfag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jVsQToSfag)

<comment><USER32> Bah, 1984 called and Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons want their self-guided bullets back: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA6ybohAVq8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA6ybohAVq8)

<comment><USER32> This is being voted down, why? The entire subject of _Runaway_ is self guiding bullets and killer drones, and it came out in 1984.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> How did Tom Selleck defeat these things?

<comment><USER34> By being barely smarter than Gene Simmons. Michael Crichton directed IIRC.</comment></comment>


You Don't Need a Full-Size Pickup Truck, You Need a Cowboy Costume - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-size-pickup-truck-you-need-a-cowboy-costume <comment><USER2> I'm not so sure that the market really demands large cars.

If you go to a new car dealer looking for a small car you will find they have some excuse why the only small cars they have are used -- the factory that made them got washed out in a storm or something.

They'll tell you it is no problem because you can get $5000 or more off a huge vehicle.

E.g. it's clear to me that automakers are hell bent on selling big vehicles, not so clear that it is what consumers really want.

<comment><USER3> idk where you live, but Hyundai has been making a killing selling smaller cars (Elentra et al).

I do know that the American car manufacturers are looking to stop making smaller cars though.

<comment><USER2> Upstate NY.

I owned an Elantra and I am not a fan. (Just the scheduled maintenance for the first 100,000 miles is expensive, and I was getting a $200 or so repair bill every month for the last few months with my Elantra)

American dealerships have always tried to talk people out of buying a small car, even at times when there have been great American small cars such as the Neon at the end of it's run or the current Chevy Sonic.

Lately I have been getting this treatment from Honda and Toyota dealerships too. Nissan Sentras are available but I don't want to drive a Sentra.

<comment><USER3> See, I've had the exact opposite experience here in Canada.

My family owns a range of Hyundai cars (Elentra -> Sonata, Veolster -> Kona, Santa Fe -> Palisade when it releases) and all those cars have been driven to ~100-200k each. The most we've ever paid is $200/yr for the yearly service (apart from tire cost) + $150 / 2 yrs for interior + HVAC cleaning (for that new car smell).

I've never had a bad experience at the Hyundai dealership (can't say the same for Kia, Nissan and Ford).

Every single thing else (maintenance, oil change etc.) was included when I got my car (for 8 yrs or 200k km).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a 4 cylinder, rear-wheel drive pickup truck from that gets pretty good mpg and has a 6" truck bed. It's been invaluable when having to move anything. If I had the option to buy an electric one at my price point, I would have. Much of the CC-causing pollution from transportation is caused by semi trucks. You can try to consider how your purchases incur transportation needs, but until those trucks stop burning gas, it'll continue to be a problem.

There's not really a whole lot of electric trucks on the market (at the time I bought mine three years ago, IIRC there was one early 2000s Silverado hybrid model), and there's a ridiculous 25% tariff on imported light trucks. [0] As others have pointed out, manufacturers are not interested in making smaller vehicles. I think they would be popular because having a truck (or having a friend that has a truck) can make several situations a lot easier.

One thing I've done (that you can do too!) that's way better for an individual person to help combat climate change is to switch to a plant-based diet. [1]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax)

[1] [https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/18/health/plant-based-diet- clima...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/18/health/plant-based-diet-climate- change-food-drayer/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> I personally hate trucks and think that we should disincentivize them (here in USA) by adding a federal fee on them to counteract their terrible gas mileage and the wear and tear they induce on roadways.

Trucks are simply terrible for traffic. In LA, I see a huge amount of base model trucks that have been outfitted with tow mirrors and lift kits, just to sit in traffic and commute to a non-manual-labor job. It's offensive and wasteful. A smaller crossover would be far more practical. Trucks are also much larger and heavier and therefore more dangerous for other road users. As a motorcyclist, I freaking hate their stupid tow mirrors sticking out into the next damn lane. They're dangerous to people around them.

They look terrible and have terrible fuel economy. And lastly, most aren't even useful. If you've got the standard truck with a 6-foot bed, what the hell do you even have a truck for? Trucks are for hauling things. Like motorcycles, cement, sheets of plywood, etc. If you're not actually using a truck for what they're intended for, why do you own a truck? Sorry, I meant finance on an 84-month loan.

If you don't use it for hauling or offroading, you're just a (P|L)oser. Drive a lifted truck and don't offroad? Poser. Got light bars, skid plates, and push bars and don't offroad? That's some mighty fine overcompensation you got there, mall crawler. Purposefully modded your exhaust so you can "roll coal"? You're an asshole and also a pathetic loser. Tow mirrors when you don't even have a trailer? Poser.

Truck nuts? Actually, whatever. They're silly imo, but that's about it. If you're thinking about a truck, get a goddamn crossover and put your ruler away.

</comment><comment><USER6> 13 paragraphs, and only one has a justifiable reason anyone should give a shit what anyone else drives - fuel economy.

I don't have a truck. I don't get the appeal. It would be totally impractical for my life. I think it's a stupid purchase for people who don't do work that requires a truck. But I'm not their Dad or anything, so I don't really bother myself with their choices.

This article is just the author telling me about himself, it says nothing about trucks nor their drivers.

<comment><USER5> > only one has a justifiable reason anyone should give a shit what anyone else > drives - fuel economy.

I give a shit about what other people drive. I hate trucks with a passion because they are: bigger, taller, heavier, slower, and handle poorly. They are dangerous for other road users for all those reasons.

Larger vehicles do a disproportionate amount of wear and tear on road surfaces. Another strike against trucks.

Lastly (aside from fuel economy), they're likely to be lifted or have accessories like tow mirrors on trucks that never tow a thing. Trucks are stupid, impractical garbage boxes for the vast majority of people who own them __in urban areas__. I freaking hate trucks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Preachiness and statistical weasel-language aside, the author is correct. I have a beat-up longbed ram 1500, and my usage statistics look pretty close to the ones cited. I bought this truck because I work on cars, and a handful of times I'll do something that no smaller vehicle could do (towing, hauling many tons of metal, etc). But mostly, it chugs gas like it's going out of style and forces me to avoid even attempting to park in downtown seattle.

That said, my favorite parts of the truck have less to do with raw power or hauling, and more to do with the "always on" parts of the truck owner costume. (The author's point about "all cars are drag" really resonates with me).

1) Cabin room. The bench seat in my truck is effectively a couch. I'm a heavy guy, and while I have no trouble fitting in something compact like a VW Golf, the truck is a different experience. It's the only class of vehicle where I feel that I have room to stretch my legs a little, literally. The bench seat doubles as a cargo space and lets me haul more fragile things with my arm around them, which I do considerably more often. The Dashboard shape and UI is straightforward and uncluttered, there's no bulky center console or strange contours the way you'd find in a modern vehicle. It's roomy in a way that goes beyond utility, and into more of a mental feeling of unrestrictedness that I really enjoy. It's more like a living room than a cockpit. I have found no other class of vehicle that does this. If I could get a BMW 3 series with the interior proportions of a 2008 pickup, I would be _very_ interested.

2) Similar to that cognitive effect, I find that one of my favorite parts of owning a truck is the idea of "the answer's always yes".

It's a constant surplus of optionality. If I find a cool piece of furniture, someone's giving away something interesting at the office or on the side of the road, there are various "once in a lifetime" or just "right place right time" things I'm always allowed to consider. I say no to most of these anyway, because they're silly regardless of whether you can actually pull off the logistics. But the times I've said yes have come close to paying for the truck with just the cash value of what I've picked up. When this is good, it's really good. Having a crappier truck helps too. I beat the hell out of it with no remorse. Scratched the paint loading a grill the other day. Glanced to assess the damage, moved on. That's what I bought it for. This isn't truck exclusive, but it's peaceful.

3) Being "that friend with a truck" is kinda nice. Sure it's a pain in the ass to be asked, and worse, expected, to help with so-and-so's move by some coworker you've hardly ever spoken to. But many of my more urban friends are really kind and generous to me in ways that better suit their ways of life – inviting me to events or consulting on hipster things that are out of my wheelhouse. I feel like a bit of a misfit sometimes, since my hobbies and ambitions are decidedly more redneck than most of my friends. So I appreciate that I have something from the other side that I can offer in return. Junk removal especially – random crap piling up seems to be a legitimate stressor on a lot of my friends and their relationships. Pulling off a dump run is a big feat for them, and it's simple for me to do for free. I'm amused by how grateful some of these people are. You'd think I paid for their kid's college when all I did was make a chair disappear. This dynamic probably disappears in rural america, but it's nice in a big city.

\---

If I had to do it over, I'd buy a smaller truck, like a vintage tacoma or raptor. If this size of truck comes back, electric or otherwise, I think there's a lot of demand.

As car sharing gets really good, this might get easier. Sure I can rent a pickup from home depot for $20/hr, but that requires getting to home depot, filling out a bunch of paperwork, it's a whole affair that feels very constraining. As this friction is innovated away, I definitely see "truck on demand" as a function of the gig economy, and I look forward to feeling like this this is a thing I don't need to own full time.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Being "that friend with a truck" is kinda nice. Sure it's a pain in the ass to be asked, and worse, expected, to help with so-and-so's move by some coworker you've hardly ever spoken to._

I hate being that friend with a truck.

Moving furniture for a barely-know-them coworker is bad enough, but when they don't bring help and expect you to haul their heavy ass table up flights of steps. Yeah, no.

<comment><USER8> > ...but when they don't bring help and expect you to haul their heavy ass > table up flights of steps. Yeah, no.

Imagine being the friend with the F250 and a powerlifter...I get asked to help move all the time and some expect me to help move furniture because, as they sometimes jokingly say, "you like to move heavy objects in your spare time anyway"...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If I build and sell a bigger shed, I get more profit per unit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh man! I love how climate change pushers (not saying I don't believe in Climate Change - I do) love to point at something we can do to matter about CC. I feel even if every. single. person. on the planet works towards CC improvement, it'd not matter as much as improvements in commercial transportation - trucks, ships and airplanes - all of which if we seriously tackle, will raise price of our current QoL by such a massive amount that no one wants to deal with so it's easier to just point at consumer habits.

Drive a truck. Enjoy your life. It's too short to matter in the long run. But do be contentious about your consumption when doing so. Think about others (if not your kids' future, other people's future).

Disclaimer: I love cars and driving (going on a 7 day driving road trip in a few weeks) but I'm a bit tired of CC pushing me to change my lifestyle for changes that have minimal impact from the looks of it but my QoL keeps getting worse.

<comment><USER10> The scenarios for humanity are quite grim if climate change isn't addressed in a major coordinated effort in the next few years.

Water scarcity, the death of _all_ coral reefs, sea-level cities everywhere being flooded, massive species die-offs (including ones crucial to human survival, like pollinating insects), oceanic fisheries collapse. . . with more severe scenarios seeing the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of South Asia becoming uninhabitable.

Avoiding this scenario is going require every intervention, large and small, that humanity can muster. This is serious stuff. There's a reason that climatologists sound like doomsday prophets these days.

And part of any successful effort is combating the selfishness and denial of the average person. So pardon me if I'm somewhat unsympathetic to your attitude of self-interested helplessness - "Drive a truck. Enjoy your life. It's too short to matter in the long run." We're literally concerned with the fates of hundreds of millions of human beings here.

<comment><USER11> They were just as doomsday as they were 10 years ago. Except Florida still has a coastline between the gulf and Atlantic

<comment><USER10> They're pessimistic because the problem hasn't changed - either the rising temps or the lack of political/popular will to take action.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tell people to upgrade their browsers - <AUTHOR> http://www.old-browser.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> We could use help with translation too! [https://github.com/evantahler/old- browser.org](https://github.com/evantahler/old-browser.org)</comment>


What Defines a Stem Cell? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/67/reboot/what-defines-a-stem-cell <comment><USER2> Expression of CD34 and CD117 (aka stem cell growth factor receptor) and blast morphology are pretty definitive, no? Sox2, Oct3/4 and Nanog are good too, but using transcription factors for cell sorting isn't going to get you very far...

<comment><USER3> I think The most unequivocal way to establish you've got stem cells is a transplantation experiment on irradiated mice. If you can replenish the cell types of interest after the transplantation experiment, it is convincing that you've got a stem fell.</comment></comment>


Six per cent of bots spread 31 per cent of fake information on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3066892/six-per-cent-of-bots-spread-31-per-cent-of-fake-information-on-twitter <comment><AUTHOR> "People tend to put greater trust in messages that appear to originate from many people. Bots prey upon this trust by making messages seem so popular that real people are tricked into spreading their messages for them."</comment>


Google sent him a CR 48 with Windows 7 On It - <AUTHOR> http://www.mustangevolution.com/forum/f99/t284626/#post808237

<comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr Guy receives a CR48 with windows 7. Contacts google/google groups. No one has any real answer how this could have happened. Google product guy sends him an email with RMA details. Participant complies. But before sending it back he dumps the BIOS out. Some one from chromeOS forums successfully flashed their BIOS with this one. So this works.

I fully understand that one should use these CR 48 laptops for what they are intended to be for. That is testing purposes.

ChromeOS forums: [http://www.chromeoslounge.com/cr-48-chrome- notebook/607-wind...](http://www.chromeoslounge.com/cr-48-chrome- notebook/607-windows-7-installed-cr-48-then-shipped-user-6.html#post3458)

Youtube link: www.youtube.com/?v=sy9JzYTP4xc

Right now google uses Verified Boot, meaning that only Google-signed images will be bootable. More info on this process here. [http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design- docs/v...](http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design- docs/verified-boot)

CR48 doesnt have a regular bootloader like grub or lilo. Some more info on CR48 BIOS from their site. [https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chromium- os/deve...](https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chromium-os/developer- information-for-chrome-os-devices/cr-48-chrome-notebook-developer- information/how-to-boot-ubuntu-on-a-cr-48)

 _initrd is typically handled by the bootloader, which reads the specified image from the disk into RAM and passes the address to the kernel as it's invoked.

The Chrome OS BIOS is a modified EFI BIOS. The bootstub is a standard EFI Application, but it's embedded in the kernel image in a dedicated partition type, rather than accessible through a FAT filesystem. To decrease boot time, the BIOS does not discover or pass the standard disk drive handles to the bootstub, so the bootstub doesn't know anything about disks or filesystems. There is also no Compatibility Support Module in the BIOS. In theory elilo or grub2 could replace the bootstub, but they would have to reimplement some of the device discovery functions normally done by an EFI BIOS.

If you want to take this on, go for it. That would let us create a kernel partition that just contained an EFI bootloader, which could then chain-boot to external USB drives, etc. That might be kind of cool._

<comment><USER2> _Right now google uses Verified Boot, meaning that only Google-signed images will be bootable_

Yes, but there's a switch to turn it off. I hope that continues to be true with production devices.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops. I reread what I wrote and now I am confused. Maybe you are right. In developer mode, self signed images work. But I will leave the post.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

If you are talking about developer mode, Yes. I am pretty sure they intend to have that option in production devices. No. I think, even in developer mode the boot process checks for google signature.

From their site; "The first time a Chrome Notebook boots in Developer Mode after leaving Normal Mode it will: \- Show a scary warning that its software cannot be trusted, since verified boot is disabled (press Ctrl-D or wait 30 seconds to dismiss). \- Erase all personal data on the "stateful partition" (i.e., user accounts and settings - no worries, though, since all data is in the cloud!). Make you wait between 5 and 10 minutes to while it erases the data. \- Boot from any self-signed image on its SSD, _negating the security of verified boot._

[https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chromium- os/deve...](https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chromium-os/developer- information-for-chrome-os-devices/cr-48-chrome-notebook-developer-information)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow. The site this link takes one to is perhaps the most annoying website I've seen all month. Possibly all year.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologize. I even screwed up the URL. I cant edit it. Its my first thread.

<comment><USER4> Don't worry. :-)

Just for the record, the best url to submit would have been the permalink to the first post in this case. So [http://www.mustangevolution.com/forum/f99/t284626/#post80823...](http://www.mustangevolution.com/forum/f99/t284626/#post808237)

Welcome to Hacker News!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> ok, I think the chromeos forums deleted the thread. They are not in any way affiliated with google btw. Here is the screenshot which has instructions from the guy who said he flashed. <http://imgur.com/TN21R>

Here is the BIOS which came with that CR48 Windows 7 laptop. <http://www.sendspace.com/file/wp9nb6>

This guy flashed his regular CR 48 bios with the above one and was able to boot back into Chrome. [http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10302232&postcoun...](http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10302232&postcount=407)

 _Ok, just got done with this. I can verify 100% working. Instead of installing another OS though, I just rebooted after the BIOS flash and surprisingly Chrome started up! It erased the stateful partition and then reboot and voila I am back in Chrome -- with the notable exception -- of now being able to get into the BIOS.

Simply awesome._

<comment><USER5> Naw. They just merged the two threads.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, Thanks for testing out the dubious image.. Happy new year.!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's more: [http://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/group/chromium-os- di...](http://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/group/chromium-os- discuss/browse_thread/thread/aace309e727ec5c3/2f3e9811f48801ea?show_docid=2f3e9811f48801ea&pli=1)

</comment><comment><USER7> Figures. No CR-48 over here, and I was even planning to really and truly only run Chrome OS on it.

Then again, maybe Google is waiting to send me their gTablet... yeah, that's got to be it :-)

</comment><comment><USER8> (Off-topic) On the last screenshot in Ubuntu section, the guy had accidentally photoed his own credit card, laying near CR48, with number and expiry date almost clearly readable. I don't know whenever this is secure (his bank may disallow CNP transactions), but, maybe, someone should notify him about this.

</comment><comment><USER9> That's the downside of basing the Cr-48 on an Atom or other non-Windows-proof processor... ;-)

I find the x86 space very boring.</comment>


IBM Apologizes for "Hack a Hair Dryer" - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ibm-apology-hack-a-hair-dryer_5665a739e4b08e945ff004c9 <comment><USER2> IBM get criticized by a bunch of SJW because they tried to sell STEM to women in a way that hurt their feelings. In a day in age where people are just looking to be offended by something this saddens me.

Even if 1 women became more interested in STEM it would have been a net positive.

I am not sure why making math pink is mutually exclusive with removing the stigma. By being effective it may naturally remove the stigma.

My fiancee would never be interested in making Google, it is just too dry for a lot of people. But she would love to work on more feminine products like jewelry and definitely hair dryers. That is just who she is and appealing to that seems like a logical choice to me.

It sounds like they are marginalizing her interests because they are more feminine.

</comment><comment><USER3> To play Devil's advocate here, it's a very non-engineering mindset to discard the possibilities in revolutionizing the hair dryer. Sure, it's not as glamorous as working on the top Node.js module on Github, but you know what's in nearly every household in America? A hair dryer. I'm not aware of any significant changes in hair dryers beyond safety for a good long while (though, as a short haired person, I don't use them often so I could be mistaken). It seems like a good thing to work on. I don't believe the circuitry is very complicated, and the ceiling for complexity you could work with is fairly high (i.e. is there some combination of heat, air pressure, and air directionality that could cause curlier hair?). It gives an entry point to people at various skill levels.

I think there was a gap in communication. Women felt as though IBM were implying that they should stick to their gender roles, when really IBM was saying that women are in a unique opportunity to improve on womens products. Not that they can't work on more "serious" subjects, but rather that they welcome both genders to work on all of their projects but this one is something women are going to be better at due to experience. It would have been far more impressive if the project had ended with a far more efficient or featureful hair dryer than burned down amidst cries of sexism.

</comment><comment><USER4> I see at least two real problems here.

1\. A hair dryer is considered a female only item.

2\. Hacking something only women use is considered no real engineering.

This is seems to go in the whole "lean in" direction again. Women need to do something "real" (read: male) to be considered real engineers.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can see the blunder, but aren't the reactions from the women already in the tech sector a non-sequitur? They're not the target audience.

The SMBC comic is right on, but "removing the stigma of math as unfeminine" is HARD, and "making math pink" is much easier, and potentially lures in more girls - maybe some of them will discover that they like math.

<comment><USER6> I agree with you. One of the tweets in the article says, "Yikes @IBM! I'm a girl & actually know OS Assembler language & have "hacked" your MVS operating systems." Well, sure, if you're already in tech, "hacking a hairdryer" might seem patronising, similar to "making math pink." But if you're _not_ already in tech, a hairdryer is a relatively simple, common, and familiar device. It has potential and I'd bet it's mostly untapped[0]. It seems like the perfect kind of thing to get started with, IMO. To me, the fact that it's a "beauty product" to is irrelevant.

[0] For curiosity, I thought I'd check out results from HackADay for hairdryer hacks, there isn't much to see: [https://www.google.com/search?q=site:hackaday.com+hairdryer](https://www.google.com/search?q=site:hackaday.com+hairdryer)</comment></comment>


Number Tested in U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/testing-in-us.html <comment><AUTHOR> In contrast, Russia has tested around 250,000...</comment>


Ask HN: Getting a new job: Recruiter, Hired.com, or By Myself? - <AUTHOR>

What is the best way for getting a new job? I've heard that recruiters end up taking part of your potential salary, but I know it's difficult to get a job on your own. There's also online apps like Hired.com, how do those fit into the equation? <comment><USER2> Depends where you are and what your situation is.

My personal experiences with recruiters (free range as opposed to company- employed) have been very bad over the years, so I'd recommend avoiding them if possible. Every one of them will testify how they are "different", too. Yeah, right.

I don't think the online tech hiring startups have proved themselves yet. My experience, again, is that that they're more a pretty face over the same old "technical interview" crud that we know and love. Your mileage may vary of course...

</comment><comment><USER3> They all vary. Why not just do them all and see what sticks. It isn't much effort to use Hired.com, the recruiter does much of the legwork for you, and you should be out networking anyways. Just cast a wider net.

</comment><comment><USER4> I got a job through Hired.com about a year ago at a series B start-up in Mountain View. It was a great experience, they connected me with 11 companies and I got offers from half of them within 2 weeks.

</comment><comment><USER5> Have you thought about attending tech Meetups (if there are any in your area), in my experience there are often individuals looking to hire devs.</comment>


Google suffers blow as age-discrimination suit clears first hurdle - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconbeat.com/2016/10/05/google-suffers-blow-as-age-discrimination-suit-clears-hurdle/ <comment><USER2> Of course there is age discrimination in tech. But most of it is somewhat warranted.

People want more money the longer they stay in a role... older people cost more. Salaries, vacation time, maternity / paternity leave... we are more demanding than recent college grads.

Also older people are more prone to being nay-sayers. Which is shit for us to do, but yeah... we do it. We don't want to see others make mistakes like we made... and really we just need to let others try their ideas and see what sticks. But... realize we've been burned and aren't keen on staying up until 4 AM to get something out on time, or living off pizza and beer, or hanging with co-workers when we could be spending our evenings with family or real friends (who we met at previous jobs by going to happy hours and staying up until 4 AM to get things out on time).

<comment><USER3> Isn't that like saying "preferring to hire men over women is mostly warranted. Men can't get pregnant and take maternity leave!"</comment></comment>


Boxfish - Discover on-air TV content in real-time - <AUTHOR> http://www.boxfish.com

<comment><USER2> This is a great example of making a landing page support your problem. The background makes you feel like there's a flood of options, while the Twitter stream makes you feel like no one thinks anything is on. This is the first landing page I've seen that uses Twitter to demonstrate a cultural opinion. Really nice work!</comment>


Visualize Execution with Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.pythontutor.com/visualize.html#mode=edit

<comment><USER2> this is cute. I prefer the way it is implemented in LightTable (for clojure and eventually python) where you don't actually have to click anything. The execution is visualized as you type.</comment>


Trap Rooms: Deliberate errors to catch copyright infringement - <AUTHOR> http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/trap-rooms.html <comment><USER3> Related: MapQuest is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. It used to be that if you searched Google Maps for MapQuest, it would point you to the wrong location.... which gave MapQuest a good idea of which MapQuest job candidates used Google for directions to their place.

<comment><USER4> I wonder how much this counted against an applicant.

In every substantial way, Google Maps was simply a better product than MapQuest from day one. Shockingly better. Would it be such an affront that MapQuest applicants should have a sense of taste?

Especially on the road to making their product better, if anything, using Google Maps should've been a bonus in an applicant's favor. Their sense of taste could move the organization forward.

<comment><USER5> But it would demonstrate a homework well done and a genuine interest in the company.

<comment><USER4> Eh. It would demonstrate obedience.

It comes down to this bit of dialogue written by Aaron Sorkin: "If you're stupid, surround yourself with smart people. If you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you."

The Google Maps debut product was so astonishingly good it instantly changed user behavior. You had to use it just once to realize everything that came before was insultingly bad. Immediate loyalty. It was a cataclysmic shift in the space.

So, if it's me, and I'm hiring at MapQuest, and I have IQ that's expressed with at least two digits, I'm in a desperate search for smart people to come help me turn the ship. If they're using the competitor's product, that's _fucking awesome_. We're going to need as much competitive insight as we can get to make this turd into something people want to use again.

<comment><USER6> The problem is that they can't change the UI model without pissing off their existing userbase that likes clicking cardinal arrows to shift the map tiles around. Google's never going to implement that interface, even their nojs interface uses a different UI model.

If Mapquest's users wanted GMaps, they'd have switched by now. Aping that would only infuriate them, and since Google will always do a better job of implementing the rich JS interface than Mapquest can, the previously- recalcitrant users would just switch.

<comment><USER4> OP suggested this was happening back in the day. Either way:

MapQuest didn't suck because of its UI model. MapQuest sucked because it was clunky, slow, and cluttered. Its implementation was crap.

When you look at today's MapQuest, they've largely corrected this. The maps are much less ugly, they now pick a (somewhat) reasonable level of detail based on your zoom level and moving around the map is fast whether you're using their joystick control or dragging the map.

The sad thing is, none of this is rocket science. It shouldn't have taken them this long to figure out. Google Maps steadily, inevitably eroded their market share and last I heard, they were 10% behind.

<comment><USER7> I stopped using MapQuest because I got tired of the errors in it - <USER2> were often a mile or more away from where MapQuest said they were, leaving me driving around in circles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> According to Wikipedia, trap streets are not copyrightable:

 _In Nester's Map & Guide Corp. v. Hagstrom Map Co., 796 F.Supp. 729, E.D.N.Y., 1992, a United States federal court found that copyright traps are not themselves protectable by copyright. There, the court stated: "[t]o treat 'false' facts interspersed among actual facts and represented as actual facts as fiction would mean that no one could ever reproduce or copy actual facts without risk of reproducing a false fact and thereby violating a copyright . . . . If such were the law, information could never be reproduced or widely disseminated." (Id. at 733)_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street#Legal_issues>

</comment><comment><USER9> I was just talking to an old school journalist last night about the same topic. A perhaps apocryphal story (it's not on Google, so it can't be _true_ , can it?) but good nonetheless:

Years ago, well before even Murdoch ownership, the NY Post was knicking sports scores from the New York Daily News. Competition being what it was, the Daily News went so far as to not only falsify some scores, but to falsify some schools, making up new institutes of education throughout the 5 boroughs.

I can only imagine the page one headlines once the Post was outed.

</comment><comment><USER10> Neat, this is like a reverse shibboleth.

This sort of stuff has been around for a while. One of the big Supreme Court rulings on the copyrightability of datasets (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural>) concerned a company that got sued for copying 4000 entries from a competitor's phone book. They got busted because they'd unknowingly copied fake entries.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't call it getting busted. The court held that they were allowed to copy the data, overturning the sweat of the brow doctrine:

 _The Court ruled that information contained in Rural's phone directory was not copyrightable, and that therefore no infringement existed.

Prior to this case, the substance of copyright in United States law followed the sweat of the brow doctrine, which gave copyright to anyone who invested significant amount of time and energy into their work. At trial and appeal level the courts followed this doctrine, siding with Rural. _

<comment><USER12> The phrase "got busted" can mean merely "was discovered".

<comment><USER13> This is a term that can lead to mis-communication. Most of the context I know the term "got busted" implies punishment. The exact usage and implications vary from place to place, often varying by very large amounts, so care is required in the usage of such informal terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > it's actually there for copyright protection

Not really - you can't copyright facts. IANAL, but if you want to create a map based on another map's information, you're free to do so. Google Feist v. Rural for more info.

<comment><USER15> A map isn't an abstract collection of facts -- it's a picture drawn by a team of cartographers. You can definitely copyright that picture.

<comment><USER14> Correct. You can't just photocopy the map, but you can recreate it.

iSubwayMaps.com ran into copyright problems with the MTA in New York a while back. Instead of paying the MTA to use their official maps they just recreated the map themselves, using the official map as the only source. This, apparently, doesn't violate copyright law, even though the resulting maps are very similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This type of thing shows up in a lot of fiction books (always as an original idea). Check "Patriot Games" for an example.

<comment><USER17> The "Canary Trap". I don't remember the original source, but there was a real world version that Bruce Schneier linked to some months ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apple took advantage of this in its lawsuit against Apple II cloner Franklin Computer. Franklin claimed it had independently developed its ROM and OS code. On examining Franklin's code, Apple found some no-op string variables containing, e.g., the name of an Apple developer and "Appleworks." See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Frankli...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Franklin_Computer_Corp).

</comment><comment><USER19> I can't really resist saying, because it's such a coincidence, that I _live_ in this picture and walk up Lavender Sweep. The trap street wasn't there in Google maps last time I looked, I assume they must move them around.</comment>


Adobe blocking publication of latest HTML5 draft? - <AUTHOR> http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1265967771&count=1 <comment><USER2> Mark Pilgrim makes a good point that I wonder about (<http://twitter.com/diveintomark/status/9013587732>): why are there member- only lists at all? That is, HTML is an open standard. I had no idea there were secret holds. Was this a known part of the process? Is it done often? Are there any precedents?

<comment><USER3> It has been a long time since I was involved in the W3C, but I can tell you that the public lists are plagued with clueless people who jump onto, e.g., the XHTML 2.0 standards definition list and ask for help with converting their BMPs into GIFs for their homepage. Even without those, there are legions of self-important blowhards who will spend weeks arguing whether "<section>" is the semantically best name for a tag.

W3C is not terribly quick at getting things done at the best of times, but the public lists are even more so.

All that said, I've never heard of a "hold" before, but then I was only ever on the public lists.

<comment><USER4> I agree that allowing users to post to the lists might be harmful in some cases, but I can't think of a good reason why these lists aren't readable by the public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like they want RDFa, microformats and Canvas (2D) to be stripped: [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public- html/2010Feb/0349...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public- html/2010Feb/0349.html) and [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www- archive/2010Feb/0002...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www- archive/2010Feb/0002.html)

<comment><USER6> It appears that representatives from Google and Opera are the ones playing politics:

 _At least two members of this team, Ian Hickson[1] and Anne van Kesteren[2], representing Google and Opera, respectively, have been writing this morning that Adobe is officially blocking publication of HTML5. This type of communication could cause FUD among the community of users, and should be addressed as soon as possible._

<comment><USER7> How does it appear that _they_ are playing politics, rather than (say) that Larry Masinter (representing Adobe) is playing politics by claiming that canvas etc. are out of scope for the WG?

Other participants in the email discussion linked by the parent have said that these things have already been determined to be in scope for the WG. Larry Masinter says otherwise. I have no inside information or expertise and do not propose to try to resolve that dispute :-), but the claims being made by (it seems) everyone other than Larry Masinter seem plausible prima facie.

<comment><USER6> We don't know the full debate. Masinter's actions, even if completely wrong, still fall within the process.

In contrast, posting inflammatory comments on one's blog does nothing more than fuel more fanaticism.

<comment><USER6> ...and lead to massive karma drop for anyone willing to refute the HTML5 fanatics...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Regardless of this being light on the details it's the responsibility of the web community to keep this potential issue in the spotlight until Adobe decides they need to respond and clarify their intentions.

</comment><comment><USER9> So we don't know anything about the content of their objection, but we're going to call Adobe assholes anyway? Maybe it's the W3C blocking the release of objections, who knows. This article is woefully thin on actual information, don't jump to any conclusions just yet.

<comment><USER10> Certainly recent comments by Adobe's CTO see a future with HTML5 [http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/02/open_access_to_...](http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/02/open_access_to_content_and_app.html)

Although Apple's policy is beginning to worry them, it reads more like a HTML5 is a complementary technology rather than a competitor.

<comment><USER11> But it's so much easier to redefine HTML5 to compliment Flash than it is for Flash to compliment a complete HTML5 spec.

<comment><USER10> HTML may represent new business for adobe. HTML5 has more to worry about from O/S vendors and browser makers in my view. An example of this is indecision about video codecs. A rich html spec makes life easier for adobe: their primary business is tools (I was told this by a Flex evangelist as he gave people copies of the FlexSDK).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The links in the post go to password protected pages, so I can't get much context on this post.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe that's the point of the post, to show how it's all taking place behind closed doors.

<comment><USER6> Or it may possible he forgot the links are password protected because he's part of the discussion and doesn't sign in everyday...

Occam's or conspiracy? _you decide..._

<comment><AUTHOR> Or his intended audience is people on that list, I suppose.

<comment><USER13> No, he's complained publicly about the very existence of these secret lists before. They links you can't follow are there to drive home the point that youcant follow them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The more things change the more they stay the same.

The standards process is basically _designed_ for this kind of hold up.

</comment><comment><USER15> This post is so thin on real content that it seems like a FUD. I'm not saying it is, but almost feels like crying wolf.

I will reserve my opinion till some details are made available and not just take the word of hixie who is after all an involved and hence non-neutral party.

</comment><comment><USER16> The article is very thin on the particulars, but my guess is that they're reading the draft on Scribd and a well-known plugin keeps crashing. You can't approve something if you can't read it IMHO!

</comment><comment><USER17> Must be hard to be Adobe these days. These guys just cannot get a break.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not easy trying to hold back the web and prevent open standards from making expensive authoring tools redundant, especially when it's in everyone else's interests for them to fail.

They're doing the best they can. We should admire their persistence.

<comment><USER18> It's a funny situation, in the sense that Microsoft did exactly the same thing on the ECMAScript 4 standard on which Actionscript 3 is based and managed instead to stall the evolution of the ES standard...

[http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/08/ru-roh-adobe- screwe...](http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/08/ru-roh-adobe-screwed-by- ecmascript.html)

<comment><USER19> Everyone focused on Microsoft at the time but Yahoo and others also dissented. I think for good reason; ES4 is nearly completely different from normal Javascript (static types, class-based inheritance).

Also Adobe was getting a standard that was what they already had and Mozilla had a AS3 VM runtime from Adobe. Microsoft would have been starting from scratch. I don't blame them for blocking it.

(EDIT: If you look at this Apple also marked red to much of ES4: [http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pFIHldY_CkszsFxMkQORe...](http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pFIHldY_CkszsFxMkQOReAQ&gid=2))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> They still refuse to approve that what they should make was a browser instead of investing in an outdated middle-layer, or say it differently, a modern browser now is what flash or java was ought to be? =)

The game of "You need our special VM here" is over.

</comment><comment><USER21> Also, I heard that Adobe's CEO totally wore the same shirt three days in a row! Gross!</comment>


Nintendo 64 Joystick Pinout for Arduino - <AUTHOR> http://dpedu.io/article/2015-03-11/nintendo-64-joystick-pinout-arduino

<comment><USER2> Ah! I've been building out a couple raspberry pi console-emulators and settled on using some original SNES controllers along with the buffalo USB clones of them. In the process I dug out my childhood N64 as well, and I put it in the "to-ebay/garage sale" pile without reservation mostly because of how much I despise those controllers!

<comment><USER3> That controller has to be one the strangest design choices nintendo has ever made. I'm pretty sure I used that d-pad in <= 1 game

<comment><USER4> It was the biggest launch to date of thumb sticks, I think they wanted people to not worry about whether they would like them or not.

<comment><USER3> That makes sense. If people ended up not liking them or they broke easily developers could fall back to using the d-pad instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey,

there is also some Arduino code ported to make up a Tetris game with Composide Video Out and N64 controller: [https://github.com/pothos/arduino-n64-controller- library](https://github.com/pothos/arduino-n64-controller-library)</comment>


8 "frat-boy" business ideas - <AUTHOR> http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/8-stupid-frat-boy-business-ideas/ <comment><USER3> The problem he's describing is certainly real. There are characteristic traps young founders fall into when thinking of startup ideas.

I don't think he's gotten to the root of the problem, though. The root of the problem is not certain categories of ideas. It's a half-baked way of looking at the world.

As long as you avoid that, there are good ideas to be had in several of the categories he describes. For example, I'm sure there will be huge new businesses that depend mainly on advertising. Is Google going to be the last, ever? And if "Flickr + ___" is a recipe for failure, it wasn't always. YouTube's goal was to be the Flickr of video, and that worked out well for them.

<comment><USER4> _For example, I'm sure there will be huge new businesses that depend mainly on advertising. Is Google going to be the last, ever?_

For better or worse, Google defines the baseline in online advertising. New companies can't compete on ubiquity, so their service has to be superior in how it targets specific demographics. Assuming that succeeds, they then have to then figure out how to leverage that limited dominance into something broader.

It's certainly possible, but it's also certainly more difficult than it was ten years ago.

<comment><USER5> The problem with startups comparing their potential success to Google is that your business model probably isn't Google-like at all.

The standard startup ad-based model is: offer content, show ads. This is _not_ Google's model.

Google's model is rather: build up a _massive_ 3rd-party network of ad displays, and then broker ads onto this ginormous network.

Google is not a ad-displayer, they're an ad-broker. Unless you want to tackle things much the same way, you won't be replicating the success of Google.

<comment><USER4> I thought about pointing this out, but Google displayed ads on their site before anything else, and the ad network was an outgrowth of their initial success.

Anyone who has enough people wanting to advertise with them can create an affiliate network. Creating that initial demand strikes me as much more difficult.

<comment><USER5> It's true they did - but bear in mind that (AFAIK) displaying ads _just_ on their own pages was never profitable. Google didn't actually start raking in the cash until they got into adwords and adsense.

IMHO it's more difficult to create the affiliate network by virtue of the fact that to be profitable, your affiliate network needs to be obscenely large.

<comment><USER6> You overestimate the importance of AdSense.

Search ads have much more clicks per page view because they are better targeted. Google generated 67% of their revenues in Q4 2008 from their own site and just 30% from the AdSense network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _NO BOOK EXCHANGE HAS EVER REALLY SUCCEEDED._

I did a variation of this my freshman year, by actually buying about $10k of books from students on campus and then selling them on Amazon. We made about $3k all told... I guess the author is right that it didn't "really succeed" and become a huge business, but I definitely learned a ton. (And notably, Chegg is in this space and seems to be doing well enough to get Kleiner Perkins to join their $25m series B.)

 _THERE IS NO MONEY IN T-SHIRTS._

Nonsense. There's a lot of competition, but plenty of people are making tons of money.

 _Anything where you plan to make your money exclusively from ads_

Bashing ad-supported business seems to be popular these days, but somehow those people are overlooking the fact that Google made $21B last year doing just this. Making significant money from ads requires getting to scale, but if you have the drive and the right mindset, getting there isn't as hard as you might think.

<comment><USER8> Google is an ad broker. A better comparison would be MySpace, which displays ads.

<comment><USER7> Most of Google's revenue comes from AdWords, the ads they run next to their search results, not from AdSense, their content network.

From their 2008 Q4 earnings report ( [http://investor.google.com/releases/2008Q4_google_earnings.h...](http://investor.google.com/releases/2008Q4_google_earnings.html) ), Google-owned sites generated $3.81B while partner sites generated $1.69B.

<comment><USER9> _Google-owned sites generated $3.81B while partner sites generated $1.69B._

I think the act of comparing the amount Google makes from AdWords to AdSense is moot -- Both of these channels are very successful. Both of these numbers end with a capital _"B"_.

So question: Do I become an ad broker and take on Google or simply utilize Google to display ads on my property and make some coin?

At this point, I don't care how much Google is making off of me as a percentage, but I do care how much money I actually do put in my own pocket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Now that the article mentions coffee shops: A good friend of mine started a coffeeshop six years ago, and today he has four of them. He drives a mercedes and has a huge house overlooking the ocean. He started with nothing.

<comment><USER11> It's a good anecdote, but the data seems to overwhelmingly favor his argument.

<comment><USER12> Counter-anecdote: "My Coffeehouse Nightmare". <http://www.slate.com/id/2132576/>

<comment><USER13> They should have read "The E Myth Revisited" first, about the "turnkey revolution".

I think it is still possible too succeed with coffeehouses, but one shouldn't be romantic about it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every idea is a "frat-boy idea" until it succeeds. Ignoring the naysayers is one of the necessities for being successful (I think, from my unsuccessful perspective...).

<comment><USER14> Even though I had none of the ideas he mentioned, reading this article gives me a strange urge to start a business in each of these categories, just to prove him wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I stopped reading at t-shirts because that's (kinda) my business. While it's not just about the t-shirts, I run a video game community and we sell legally unofficial merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies to support the website. If you have something you cannot advertise to (because there's no money in ads), and you cannot provide a 37signals style of direct service, never underestimate the power of merchandising.

<comment><USER16> If you're making money on merch, your business is your brand, not the t-shirts themselves. The article's only critical of people who think they're witty enough to sell t-shirts based just on the screen-printed content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article started well, but the list of "frat-boy ideas" was actually quite poor and unhelpful... seemed more like examples of business types the author doesn't like rather than inherently stupid ideas.

Also, he seems under the fallacious impression that better ideas are somehow easier to implement. Sorry, pal - good ideas are just as hard to pull off as bad ideas.

<comment><USER12> You lost me. What differentiates good and bad ideas other than the difficulty of pulling them off?

Speaking in the abstract, of course. In reality difficulty is relative, because we all have different resources to draw on.

<comment><USER17> Good ideas have a better chance of success - but they also take stupid amounts of work, luck, timing, skill, etc.

The t-shirt idea that he mentions, for instance, is a good example of an idea that is neither good nor bad. Basing a business around a handful of t-shirts is obviously a bad move, but a t-shirt business can certainly be created - <USER2> in fact that has been done many times already. There's nothing inherently bad about the idea.

You could say that building a search engine in 1996 is an very difficult idea - lots of hard work, little chance of success, lots of established competitors, and requires a rare breakthrough, incredible amounts of work marketing the new engine and getting all sorts of larger companies to use it, etc, etc. Does that make it a bad idea? Hardly.

Ideas are only a small component of success - execution is far more important. If the aforementioned frat boy are willing to give it their all and are competent enough, they can likely make any of these ideas succeed. Even if they fail, it's at least a great learning experience. I say go frat boys, go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is more a screed against a "frat-boy" -- i.e. naive, un-thought-through -- approach to business ideas than a useful list of ideas to avoid.

</comment><comment><USER19> Actually, I threw together a book exchange in a weekend and sold most of my books on it. Quite a few people are still using it. Granted, it doesn't make any money, and it's operated through the Engineering Student Society, so I guess it doesn't count.

</comment><comment><USER20> There was an article linked to from there on Slate where this quote ended the piece "The most dangerous species of owner ... is the one who gets into the business for love."

That quote is both very true and very wrong. It's true that you can get into entrepreneurship with very idealistic values that drive you to ignore some of the more important financial aspects of running a business, and wrong in that if you don't do it for at least some type of love then you are probably going to fail for lack of passion.

</comment><comment><USER21> Loved the article. Going to school during the internet bubble, I heard most of these a lot. People want the independent business lifestyle, but don't spend more than 90 seconds thinking of the business idea. Then they convince themselves on the concept by how much they'll enjoy the lifestyle, not how viable the business idea is.

Hence the lack of analysis on if the business has been tried before, has current competitors, or what your costs per product would be comparatively.

<comment><USER22> > Then they convince themselves on the concept by how much they'll enjoy the > lifestyle, not how viable the business idea is.

On the other hand, if you don't price out the lifestyle you want (in terms of money and _time_ ), then you have no metric to determine whether a given business will be viable for _you_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> _> Anything that is "the Netflix of ___," "Flickr + ___," or "MySpace + ___." >_

Those are just ways to describe an idea, not necessarily the idea itself. People do this to quickly convey their message or business; it's straight out of the excellent book _Made to Stick_.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I read this article about 3 years ago. I found it again today while googling around or something of the sorts. Hacker News wasn't around the first time I found the article, so I was curious to see the HN comments around the article, hence the submission. Some of my notes:

* These ideas aren't destined to fail. Look at chegg. * Just because it's been done before, doesn't mean you can't. ie- busted tees. This goes back to our is there room for another photo sharing site discussion from last week.

Here's why I don't particularly agee with the article, despite Ramit being a badass:

*It focuses on the business types MORE than it focuses on why they won't work. It doesn't focus on things like: uniqueness, execution, design, segmenting growth at first to niches,etc.

</comment><comment><USER24> Also remember: There's rarely money in the most glamorous stuff. Simple supply and demand there: Everyone wants to run an airline, no one wants to run a sanitation company. If you're in tech, it's cool to play for first-mover, but don't forgot about markets people don't want.

"What are other people unwilling or unable to do?"

That's your play. After social networking has been firmly established, everyone wants to Lord over the next Facebook. "Yeah, I could see myself running a social networking empire" they say. Yeah, you and 150,000 other people. Good luck with that.

Things other people are unable to do - because you're better, or think "outside the box", play on. Things other people are unwilling to do - sanitation, rehab, WYSIWYG website creators for people who are bad with computers - play on. T-shirts, coffeeshops, airlines, social networks? Might want to go back to the drawing board there...

</comment><comment><USER25> As long as an idea can make things more efficient or provide a useful service people are willing to pay for, it's a viable idea.

This is an illogical argument: "NO BOOK EXCHANGE HAS EVER REALLY SUCCEEDED. I HATE TO CRUSH DREAMS BUT PLEASE FORGET ABOUT THIS."

</comment><comment><USER26> This is one of my all-time favourite entrepreneurial articles. I still think of it all the time, especially when I see a new business being pitched.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think the point is that the "frat boy" ideas come most often to people who have a romantic idea of business, but lack the will to actually make it happen.

So if they don't really have the will to do it, then yes, one should discourage them from doing it. For their own good.

People with will will ignore the advice anyway. (Will will will!)

That said, the desire to build a book exchange is like a nerd disease.</comment>


Show HN: A Chip-8 disassembler in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/prophittcorey/c8d <comment><USER2> Nice work and thanks for sharing. I'd like to add this blog post [1] I read a while ago that explains a bit how to write a disassembler and emulator for Chip-8. The source is not as clean as yours and written in C but it's still worthwhile to check out.

[1] [http://emulator101.com/chip-8-disassembler/](http://emulator101.com/chip-8-disassembler/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks-- my code isn't the cleanest either! I still have a lot of cleanup to do. I will certainly check it out though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wrote a disassembler as part of my own Chip8 IDE[1]

It doesn't look like it impacts this disassembler, but it's worth noting that _Cowgod 's Chip8 technical reference_ gets the shift and load/store instructions wrong. A much better reference is _Mastering Chip8_ [2].

[1] [https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Octo](https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Octo)

[2] [http://mattmik.com/chip8.html](http://mattmik.com/chip8.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks-- I will certainly look into those instructions</comment></comment>


People who use BSD as their desktop os, why do you choose BSD over Linux? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/BSD/comments/gkvcs6/people_who_use_bsd_as_their_desktop_os_why_do_you/ <comment> blaser-waffle Security, simplicity (at least in principle...), plus an excuse to understand other OS's. FreeBSD had a cool history, and its, like 80% of the way to OSX, right?

In practice getting help or fixing things usually required more deeper thinking than it should.

Laptop drivers, esp. wifi were problematic.

I liked FreeBSD as a server OS, but Fedora runs Steam and AMD graphics out of the box, and finding Red-Hat-related solutions is easy.

</comment><comment><USER2> If I could use OpenBSD as my primary OS, I would. Unfortunately, the performance isn't there and sometimes you run into compatibility issues. The OS itself is absolutely beautiful though. Great documentation and you get the feeling that someone actually designed it, unlike Linux that has man pages from like 1992.

</comment><comment><USER3> Because Linux is now fat, bloated and in bed with a few enterprises loosely named as Microsoft and Google.

I reject Linux for the same reason as people rejected Windows back in the 80's.

Once it went main stream and people went "I use Linux, it's Ubuntu" which is only commercialised version of Debian. I decided to switch.

I'm not a big gamer so that was never a requirement for me. I just want an operating system that turns on when I press the power button. Linux fails at that. The drama, noise..

</comment><comment><USER4> Well OS X is a BSD, so I use BSD for my desktop OS because that's what comes on my Mac...

But seriously, the only successful desktop Unix or "Unix like" OS has been OS X, and it's really a joy to use. I don't have to fight it like I do Linux.

If one of the BSDs would offer a better windowing system than X, I'd consider switching. For now, OS X is pretty much where it's at if you want Unix on the desktop.

</comment><comment><USER5> Unfortunately I stopped using freebsd some 10-12 years ago, due to lack of compatibility and modern applications. I wouldn't have minded contributing with tooling but it lags so much behind linux that it would have been a waste of time. It's a shame tho because I really liked its structure, performance and generally speaking the philosophy around freebsd and bsd os' in general.

</comment><comment><USER6> For me Void Linux hits the sweet spot, between BSD philosophy and Linux compatibility. Really enjoyable desktop distro.

<comment><USER2> You know what bugs me, Void Linux claims to be BSD inspired but uses a sysv- style init system (runit). I don't like systemd, but sysvinit is even worse. If Void Linux used an rc init system, I would probably switch from Arch Linux. I like OpenBSD's init system: super simple and best of all, no bs runlevels!

<comment><USER7> 1\. Void Linux doesn't claim its BSD inspired, BSD inspired could mean 100 different things.

2\. runit is not a "sysv-style" init, its the complete opposite. runit is a supervisor and inspired by daemontools. A "rc init" is more closely related to "sysv-style" than runit is.

3\. > I like OpenBSD's init system: super simple and best of all, no bs runlevels!

Runit has no runlevels, can actually automatically restart services when they die, can signal services without relying on pid files (which are prone to race conditions) and can create a pipe between a service and a log service that will never lose any logs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> because root on ZFS (for Linux) is a painful endeavour that is best avoided</comment>


Unicode 13.0 - <AUTHOR> https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ <comment><USER2> Possibly the most important addition is this:

> Symbols added in this release (which aren't implemented as emojis) include a > Creative Commons symbol, as well as other related glyphs for non-commercial > licences, or to indicate where attribution is required.

So you can now indicate license requirements, such as attribution, share- alike, or non-commercial use only. Those can apply to a vast number of works, so does nice to have easily-accessed standard symbols for it.

It also adds symbols for some older machines, which will make discussing them easier.

And yes, it has new emojis. But it is worth noting that the total number of emojis is a very small portion of the Unicode characters.

<comment><USER3> Was excited when I read your comment, but then looked at the new update and couldn't find an encircled, vertically-flipped C (i.e. copyleft licenses) among the new additions :(

<comment><USER4> That's because U+1F12F 🄯 was already added in Unicode 11.0.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Page down. So I read that instead: [https://blog.emojipedia.org/whats-new-in- unicode-13-0/](https://blog.emojipedia.org/whats-new-in-unicode-13-0/)

I'm personally hyped by the new characters for Creative Common, that could come in handy in data processing (at least in my field).

It's cool the Bopomofo was extended to support Cantonese (didn't know this existed tbh), because it means multilingual Madanrin-Hokkien-Cantonese can use a uniform spelling for word and character readings.

And finally Khitan small script, while ghetto, was an interesting offspring of the Chinese script that targeted a Mongolian language.

PS: I won't comment on the ridiculous emoji shitshow.

</comment><comment><USER6> > Unicode 13.0 adds 5,930 characters, for a total of 143,859 characters. These > additions include 4 new scripts, for a total of 154 scripts, as well as 55 > new emoji characters.

So how far off is Unicode from being 'done'? At what point will they be able to stop adding characters and scripts?

<comment><USER7> German, a European language that has been more or less standardized for several centuries, with a Latin-based alphabet, added a new letter (ẞ) to its alphabet in 2017. As long as that continues to happen, Unicode will have to add new characters, even if no more ancient scripts are discovered and no new writing systems are developed for currently unwritten languages.

<comment><USER5> Small precision for those who don't know the context: the Eszett (which comes from the ligature of 'ss') existed for centuries already in German writing. 2017 is just the date of its official integration in the alphabet, so it's not a 'new' letter created from scratch. I say that because I remember learning it at school a few decades ago (even if at the time we were warned the subject was touchy), and I was surprised it wasn't standardized that earlier.

<comment><USER8> The Eszett (ß) has been already standardized for several decades (since 1986: with ISO 8859-1 aka latin-1).

The newly added letter is the "capital letter Eszett", which did not exist until recently. One could argue that this new letter is not really needed, as Eszett does not appear in capitalized form except when a word is in all-caps, and was then simply written as "SS".

<comment><USER9> The capital version has existed in uncommon use since the early 1900s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Found some additional info on the legacy computing symbols - chapter 22, page 856 - [https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch22.pdf](https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch22.pdf)

"Support for these legacy computing symbols includes 212 characters added in Version 13.0 to provide compatibility with a wide range of early home computers, or "microcomputers," manufactured from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. These symbols also cover the teletext broadcasting standard originally developed in the early 1970s, and the Minitel standard developed in the 1980s. This collection of early microcomputer symbols includes support for the character sets of Amstrad CPC, Apple 8-bit, Atari 8 and 16- bit, Commodore 8 and 16-bit, MSX, Yamaha, RISC OS, and Tandy"

</comment><comment><USER11> It's down - Google Cache [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Iu6MWZ...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Iu6MWZBs9CoJ:https://unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/)

<comment><USER11> What's new: [https://blog.emojipedia.org/whats-new-in- unicode-13-0/](https://blog.emojipedia.org/whats-new-in-unicode-13-0/)

<comment><USER12> I hope it's not just new emojis...

<comment><USER13> More bopomofo. Several more historic scripts. The new teletext symbols and 8-segment display digits look interesting.

I need to check my combining class stuff, it seems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anybody know what had happen with _George Douros ' «Ancient Sripts» and «Symbola» fonts_ development?[0]

For a long time on its homepage placed message banner:

> _New versions of all fonts will be posted the release of Unicode 13, March > 2020._

[0] [https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ttf- symbola](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ttf-symbola)

[1] [http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/](http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/)

</comment><comment><USER15> adding the "lungs" emoji at the right time

</comment><comment><USER16> > Black Cat: a combination of Cat and ⬛ Black Large Square

I predict that within 10 years, some group will start a new simplified text encoding standard which is just for _text_.

<comment><USER17> And I predict that within 10 years after that, they'll add emojis to their new standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is the server down for anyone else?

</comment><comment><USER19> For those that cannot access the link: [https://home.unicode.org/announcing- the-unicode-standard-ver...](https://home.unicode.org/announcing-the-unicode- standard-version-13-0/)

</comment><comment><USER20> You just gotta feel for the Unicode staff, setting out to improve communication across all of humanity. Turns out what we're REALLY interested in are funny emojis.

<comment><USER21> I suspect emojis as characters will soon be replaced with graphics. Consumers are annoyed or confused when emojis look slightly different on different platforms.

<comment><USER22> I think if you ship the font in your app to get consistent emoji renderings across platforms (no need to dump unicode for this) you might have appeased the people who want emojis to look the same on all platforms, but then you will enrage the people who want emojis on all of their apps to look the same.

<comment><USER23> So how much space will be wasted shipping a bunch of fonts that all include however many goddamned emojis there are?

<comment><USER24> Seems like the number is about 7MB[1] per font, looking at a real world example.

1\. [https://imgur.com/a/iMHYtjB](https://imgur.com/a/iMHYtjB)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What's the code point for uppercase superscript Z?

</comment><comment><USER26> Still no coat hangar symbol.</comment>


Please don't learn to code - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/10/please-dont-learn-to-code/?sr_share=facebook <comment><USER2> 'coding' is the new 'web', just 16+ years later. How many 'webmaster' and 'web developers' degrees, wanabees and 'experts' did it take for people to realize that it's not a /given/ and that some people are actually made for /that/ job while many others are not?

It'll just ruin the lives of quite a few people who'll, again, invest time, money, and come down crashing down to earth a little while later.

And, I agree with the author. Most of the time spent 'coding' (god I hate that word, I feel like my job is transcoding ASCII to EBCDIC by hand when I read that) should be spent sitting down looking at the ceiling instead.</comment>