Bill Gates: In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/06/bill-gates-education/ <comment><USER2> Why shouldn't it be?

For most of my college career, I was taught in a non-interactive lecture (from 15 to 300 students at a time). Sometimes the lectures were even being recorded or simulcast to remote locations. The lecturer often had no idea who I was. In graduate school, I got a good look at the "sausage factory" of how many core computer science class lectures are really developed. Unless it's an area of research and publication for the professor, they do a minimal amount of work on their lecture notes and exams. In some cases, the same professor taught the same subject year after year. Sometimes this resulted in progressively better notes, but sometimes not. In other cases, the class rotated among professors. They often took each other's lecture notes and used them with varying degrees of revision. Only when a course was a true passion of the professor was the lecture anything much more than what could be gleaned from a couple of textbooks on the topic.

Beyond the lectures, most of the labs and assignments were handled by grad student teaching assistants. I also got to see many of my friends go through the TA machine in grad school. The rare lucky ones got to TA a course related to their research, but most TAs were assigned to courses where they only knew as much as they'd learned in their own undergrad experience in that course. A few TAs would scramble to get up to speed. The smart ones would do the bare minimum for the course and focus on their research.

Then there are the textbooks. I look at the dead tree debris that on my bookshelves from my nearly dozen years of higher education and very few books contain anything beyond what's on Wikipedia today.

I can look back at a topic like "operating systems" and cringe. This was a undergraduate course that rotated amongst professors. At the time I took it, I'd already been on a dozen operating systems including VMS, NeXTStep and Dynix, played with Minix code, read Bach and Tanenbaum, etc. The PhD student assigned to _teach_ my class had an undergrad in linguistics. I believe he'd never even logged into any unix system, much less had an operating systems course himself. He even dropped out late in the semester and disappeared. I damn near asked for a refund, but I took my grade and moved on.

There's no reason that a few passionate people on the web couldn't top that.

<comment><USER3> I feel the complete opposite for my courses in mechanical engineering. The teachers really worked at it and I still use the text books to this day. It wasn't all about the lectures themselves but how they taught us to think which has become invaluable. For me college wasn't about the courses, but the curriculum which was really the value added experience. Something like computer science may be learned strictly from reading but this isn't universal. Gates argument is course specific.

<comment><USER4> I like to daydream about a scenario like yours, but by and large it's an exception to the rule, and one that is even most frustrating in light of high education costs.

<comment><USER5> It really depends on where you go and what you do. At most big public schools, I suspect the "TAs do everything / uninterested faculty" is the norm, chiefly because the faculty are rewarded for research, not teaching. If you go to liberal arts colleges (I went to Clark University: <http://www.clarku.edu>) and engineering schools like Harvey Mudd, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, etc., then undergrads are the focus, professors are rewarded for teaching, and you're more likely to have a better and in-depth experience.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I should have made that clear. Almost all of my academic career was at large research schools. A number of my fellow grad students instead went on to smaller schools where they are fairly happy teaching more and researching / publishing less. Without very many (or any) grad students to be TAs, they end up covering all the bases on their classes. In smaller departments, they tend to own all their classes year after year rather than rotating.

The classes are also smaller, which helps tremendously. At one point, I actually took a differential equations class at a junior college. We had 5 students. It was a great setting in an unexpected place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well this is true if you want to be a software developer. You can get very skilled and competent just learning online. For everything else I don't know... I sure would get a little uncomfortable if my surgeon told me he skipped college and learned everything from tutorials before he gave me my anesthesia.

<comment><USER7> _I sure would get a little uncomfortable if my $x told me he skipped college and learned everything from tutorials before $y_

$x = "software developer" $y = "we made him head of this huge project without even evaluating his skills"

I don't think it's so unreasonable for a surgeon to learn the traditional body of knowledge online, learn his way around an operating table IRL, take a test, and then go do his residency like every other doctor.

<comment><USER6> I think there just isn't enough good information out there for a surgeon. It's already hard to find good information on some obscurer topics of software development, like for example windows driver programming, where you won't go far without books and/or learning inside a company with knowledge about it. Now jump into a complete different profession and suddenly the web isn't all that big. How many useful & high-quality surgeon sites do you think are out there? Maybe 2-3?

On the other hand learning iPhone programming, which may be all you need to get a job as a developer, is significant easier than any learning any other profession online, just given by how much information is available on the topic and how well it's presented.

<comment><USER8> Right. But you're talking about 'as-is.' Someone could easily come along and change all of that with an amazing way to instruct people online. All of a sudden we have people that know a lot about medical topics or windows drivers instructing classes online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A few loosely related thoughts as to why I'm fond of the University system (in response to the negative tone of some of the comments here and at techcrunch):

\- It's the only socially acceptable way to spend years simply learning as a full time job.

\- The argument that "lectures will soon be online" only makes sense if you believe that physically being present in lectures is the way that people gain knowledge in school.

\- University admissions maintain a level of intelligence in incoming classes that I don't think an online community ever could - so that the students who interact at a university are interacting in a productive way.

\- Physical colocation is just a better way of interacting with people than communicating online is.

<comment><USER10> Responding in reverse order:

\- "Communicating online" is in its infancy. The way people communicate online now (facebook, twitter) is wholly different than 10 years ago, and will be wholly different 10 years from now.

\- I agree that University admissions provide a useful filter, but one may emerge online, as well. Already, the people you meet on HN are not the people you'll meet on 4chan. I wonder what an HN clone would be like if membership were applied for and kept only as long as you maintained a certain comment point average.

\- Agreed. A great deal of what Universities provide is a cultural submersion into a social class. This is hard, if not impossible, to replicate online. That said, it has nothing to do with learning. People can still learn online and go about indoctrinating in one social class or another in other ways.

\- Social norms follow progress, not vice versa. Whatever Universities will be like in 1000 years won't be socially acceptable when it first appears.

<comment><USER11> _The way people communicate online now (facebook, twitter) is wholly different than 10 years ago, and will be wholly different 10 years from now._

Different, yes. Better? Ten years ago, the conversations I had on mailing lists had a lot more potential than you can fit in 140 characters. The trend isn't very promising.

<comment><USER12> I was about to say the same thing. The step from usenet and mailing lists to facebook and twitter has been a huge step backwards in terms of quality discussion and meaningful communication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Saw this by chance on twitter:

<http://twitter.com/BillGates/status/19764971764> "I've been spending time watching some of the courses on www.khanacademy.org – many of which are quite good. More coming on GatesNotes..."

For what it's worth, I think he is right. You can learn a tremendous amount by reading and watching talks on the Web.

<comment><USER14> Those are excellent, I love how approaches everything in terms of the normal person who might find some concepts tricky and need a closer explanation. I've gone to lectures then watched one of these on the same content and he really explains it so much better.

The thing lecturers tend to do is assume everyone in the class has been through the same set of classes before the current one and assume many things should be completely obvious and not need explanation, when often they do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have never found the fidelity of online learning to be _anywhere_ in the ball park of in-institution learning.

Especially in the areas of humanities and so forth, but also in Engineering (I hold a BSCEng, and am currently a Masters student) labs, conversation, community learning are all essential.

I also can't help but think of the Socratic method, and how at least I personally tend to learn in that manner. Simply being presented with information as fact doesn't really do it for me. Being guided, and assisted at coming to the truth on my own always leaves me with a much deeper connection to the knowledge I've acquired. And I feel that requires as certain measure of realtime interaction with someone who is an expert in the field. Simply watching their lectures while informative, does not seem to be enough.

While this may change in the future, given that online learning is in its infancy, I think 5 years is a bit short term. Especially considering the pace at which the established institution of education moves.

</comment><comment><USER16> I was learning Scheme from old SICP lectures online.

Best lecture EVER.

Why would professors need to make same lectures every year? It make more sense to make new lectures only when they have something new or better to say.

<comment><USER12> You can't ask questions and start discussions during pre-recorded lectures. The important part of a lecture isn't just the words being spoken by the lecturer, but also the impromptu discussions they lead to.

<comment> muuh-gnu Then you also need to tape the questions and answers and assemble a video FAQ accompanying the lectures. Or let other people support the lectures and answer upcomming questions.

I think that its a collosal waste of time and ressources to make great lecturers repeat the same lecture over and over and over again to a small, limited number of students, instead of letting them record a larger number of one-time lectures. My favourite example is Salman Khan. If he had to repeat a few chosen topics over and over, he would never had the chance of creating a body of work as large and comprehensive as his academy.

He said about that: "With so little effort on my own part, I can empower an unlimited amount of people for all time. I can't imagine a better use of my time."

By the way, in the recorded SICP lectures, there arent actually _that_ many interesting questions asked. If Abelson and Sussman thought your way and prefered live interaction just in order to be able to answer more questions, thousands of people during the last 25 years would have not been able to experience them _at all_. It is not fair to reduce great lecturers to mere question answerers, IMO the accompanying Q&A sessions always account for a very small part of the value of a lecture, i.e. just to fill a occasional gap.

<comment><USER12> Don't get me wrong, recorded lectures are great. I love the SICP lectures and I'm really happy the web as given me the opportunity to see them. However if I was given the choice I'd far prefer to have had the chance to be there live and discuss the material with the lecturers, and if the lecturers at my university had said "I'm not going to given any lectures, since I recorded them a few years ago" I'd feel very ripped off. At the end of the, as good as recorded lectures are, they'll never replace "the best" teaching experiences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> nchls-wu I think it's pretty easy to miss Gates' point.

He said that you'll be able to find the best *lectures in the world which will be better than any single University. With initiatives like MIT OpenCourseWare and iTunes U, this isn't that hard to imagine.

I think most HN readers wouldn't doubt the power of a motivated, passionate individual when it comes to learning.

To me, the takeaway point that is most interesting is Gates' desire to break down the barriers to higher education and the transfer of knowledge. He also recognizes the declining value of a Bachelor's Degree.

Educational Institutions will always be vital to the education of "tomorrow's leaders," but the current paradigm is flawed and I like where Gates seems to be going with this.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious as to how Gates compares America to Asia and says that Asia is currently beating the West (example he gives is that Asia has smaller, shorter textbooks and yet scores higher on global acadeimic tests).

Whereas in Asia people are scrambling to emulate the Western education system. They see the American education system as better at fostering originality and creativity. And there's a bias towards rote in Eastern education systems (at the moment).

Could it be that this is a grass-is-greener on the other side phenomenon?

<comment><USER18> Nope. Its a find something to support your point and bend it a little bit.

I was thinking on the point he made though that maybe textbooks in America are thicker because America has more scientific knowledge than Asia and maybe the books get updated more often and maybe they are more in depth. Basically, I do not think you can just take one variable and compare it to another and proclaim that's the reason.

<comment><USER19> I have a masters degree from both a US university and one in Europe. It always struck me how the American books were consistently thicker then the the ones I got in Europe. The contents was the same basically, just much more condensed writing. The American books I could read almost like a novel, whereas before I had to carefully study each page, sometimes read it two times to understand what it meant.

Just a matter of style really, I wouldn't read too much into it. Perhaps the fact that in the US you have to pay for your own text books is a driver too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "He believes that no matter how you came about your knowledge, you should get credit for it. Whether it's an MIT degree or if you got everything you know from lectures on the web, there needs to be a way to highlight that."

So, is he planning to try to develop an organization to provide that certification (because that's one of the major functions of colleges, though how important it is varies by field) or is he just saying that someone should? I'm pretty sure that he could manage it if he wanted to, even though it could be a pretty huge challenge [I can think of a few ways to get the core of the process (knowledge verification) to work, but none of them are quite perfect, so I'm sure that the main problem would be pretty easy to solve].

</comment><comment><USER21> The established brick and mortar higher ed industry is not going to have their livelihood taken away without a fight. More fundamentally, very few individuals aged 18 - 25 have the self-discipline to complete the equivalent of an undergraduate education on-line, with no class schedules, no set exam times, nothing to enforce any routine of learning. Some do no doubt, but not anything near the number that are able to do it now within the structure of a traditional university or college.

<comment><USER22> You mentioned "the equivalent of an undergrad education". This "equivalent" can have different levels (associate, bachelors, with honors), number of majors, average grade, testing criteria, testing jurisdiction, duration, how recent, etc. When the brick and mortar higher ed industry dies, perhaps the concept of achieving some recognized education "equivalency" will die with it. Everything will be ongoing learning, never attaining.

<comment><USER23> While it's not perfect, a college degree is usually a decent indicator that a person has at least heard of the stuff you want. A new way to quantify level or progression of a person would have to replace it.

There is no reason why the current Universities can't provide this for online courses. Online courses do not mean that there won't be any Profs and TAs. But you just won't be going to their office on preset hours and sit in a classroom on specific hours.

Undergrad education in certain subject really doesn't change from year to year. You could build a course and do small adjustments year to year. What you would provide as a service in my view is the human help.

What I hope won't happen is that Universities will turn into for profit course giving institutions. We need the R&D work done at Universities. I'd be suprised if the government would want to continue funding Universities as they do now if for profit website could do it cheaper. Do the current for profit school like the University of Phoenix do any research?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I agree with most of what he says except for US books beeing to long. I recognized it when I spend a year in the US as an exchange student. The books really are longer than in Germany but I actually consider it to be a good thing. Sometimes explaining something in 3 sentences makes it easier and therefor faster to understand than saying it in 1 sentence which you have to read over and over agin to get it.

<comment><USER24> I haven't experienced college-level textbooks to be particularly full of clutter, but K-12 textbooks were _full_ of useless cruft.

(not that children in kindergarten have textbooks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Much of the best education already does come from the web, Bill. It's just that most of society doesn't recognize it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Education and accreditation are two different things. I think for some things, just knowing it is valuable and accreditation is not so important. I have thought a lot about how to effectively convey information. I think the web is a good means to do some of that. I don't know that the university function of accreditation will so readily go away. I think that's probably unrealistic.

<comment><USER27> the thing is, accreditation, in and of itself, is pretty goddamn difficult. Schools do a horrible job of accrediting software engineers. Generally speaking, accreditation doesn't really start working well until job roles stop changing so fast.

<comment><USER26> I homeschooled my sons. My sons are "twice exceptional" -- gifted with learning (and other) disabilities. I have always told them that their best hope of making their lives work will be to found their own company. They can very effectively get things done but I don't think they can work for other people. When you found your own company, you don't need accreditation. Either the product sells or it doesn't.

Similarly, I spent a lot of time very sick. I made a lot of dietary and lifestyle changes and I am healthier now than I have ever been in my life. I am not a doctor but I am also not impressed with the current healthcare model followed in the US. I think I have a cheaper and more effective alternative to offer. Study after study after study shows that diet and lifestyle are huge factors in all the major (deadly) illnesses, like heart disease, diabetes, cancer. But doctors mostly don't push for dietary and lifestyle changes. They are mostly in the business of selling pills and surgeries. A big part of why they don't is that people aren't very receptive. Many people just want an easy answer. And it's quite hard to make money off of promoting lifestyle changes.

So to me, the big challenges are how to more effectively convey information and how to monetize it. I am still trying to decide if I should largely abandon my current websites and start over in a new space. I don't yet know the answer to that. But I do know that I have narrowed it down to "education is the answer" and I do know that I am very good at some things that other people seem to not be good at. I know this from years spent on homeschooling forums where for some particularly difficult things, I often was the only person who had much to say.

So I find this article very relevant at the moment and encouraging. I don't know if I have much to really contribute to the conversation that will be of interest to others or that they will value. Perhaps I just need to talk about it. For my own goals, accreditation is unimportant. The piece that matters is whether or not the information is conveyed adequately, which my current websites are not doing. I think I will be doing something educational on the web in the future. So I am kind of excited to see this piece.

<comment><USER27> speaking as someone who has experience working for other people /and/ starting companies, I would argue that a lack of social skills is limiting in both.

In both cases, if you are primarily a technical person, yea, lacking social skills is a problem that will hold you back, but it's not the end of the world, or your career. It's certainly not as bad as, say, being of average intelligence, or lacking curiosity, or being lazy.

Running your own company gives you a lot more flexibility; if you know yourself well, you can use that flexibility to build a situation where your strengths help and your weaknesses don't matter so much...

But really, the computer industry was designed for mildly-autistic nerds who don't play well with others. by the standards of such things, I'm almost a friendly extrovert.

<comment><USER28> The social skills you need as a one-person company is much narrower set than what's needed when employed at a big political-minded company.

When you are a consultant you have only one boss: they guy that is able to sign the check. When you are employed, there can be multiple official and non- official bosses that you have to satisfy, plus all of the personal/social drama.

<comment><USER27> eh, the social drama is different, and it depends on the industry. For instance, I can hold down a SysAdmin job just fine, as a contractor or not, but I lack the social skills to rent out people who work for me as sysadmins, even when they are obviously good people and I'm charging below market rates. in some cases, I've given up and suggested the people for direct hire... and they got hired, at rates higher than I would have charged, even including my cut.

I think either way, there is a tradeoff. If you get shit done, people will put up with a lot of social problems, in both situations. Like the guy who wrote a hn story about how I didn't answer his support email. He refused a refund and wanted to remain a customer... the thing was, he wanted better support, but when the rubber hit the road and it was time to cut a cheque, he chose cheap over good support.

You can set up your company so that social skills don't matter as much, but that limits what markets you can go after. You can also choose your career while working for others, and get similar tolerance for social oddity.

(of course, the OP's problem was not so much social skills as flexibility, and being self-employed almost always is more flexible than working for other people.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't remember if it was Stanford or Berkeley, but one of them was going to open up the ability to earn a full degree online. I'm not sure when, but I heard that transition has a lot of students at the university in an uproar.

One step at a time and the elite education will be everywhere, though it'll still cost an arm-and-a-leg.

I am huge on web-based education. I can't imagine what my skill-set would look like if I had access to today's web when I was growing up. I would love to build a website that brings educators together, from anywhere, to instruct groups of 10-15 people on specific topics-of-choice -- for free.

Edit: Looked it up, apparently it was UC in general -- <http://bit.ly/aCmsNF>

"The idea is that UC could become the first top-tier American university to offer a bachelor's degree over the Internet."

<comment><USER24> In reality I should look this up, but I'm guessing Berkeley. They are a public Uni, and if you look on iTunes U they have an impressive collection.

<comment><USER23> I've been checking out some of their EECS classes and they are very well made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why hasn't online learning trickled down to the lower levels? Public schools could really benefit from having a big catalog of online course material to offer students. I realize there's a need and benefit to instructor led courses but our entire education policy in the US seems to focus on the lowest common denominator. Why not let the best and brightest push forward with self paced learning? Give them more choices. Let them start focusing on their unique interests. This would possibly give teachers more time to help the kids who are falling behind. I would have done much better in school with self paced learning.

<comment> mkr-hn It wasn't until we had something like Youtube and widespread broadband that it became viable for even the poorest schools. That was only 2005. Look at how quickly stuff like Khan Academy and other things sprung up after Youtube launched.

That's only 5 years. Schools have to be conservative in things like this because the things they teach kids will serve as the foundation of their lives. Give it another 5 or 10, and I think we'll see an online component as a standard part of public schooling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There are a couple of things I can get from attending uni that I can't get from learning online.

\- Focus - Sitting at the computer it is very easily to be distracted trying to pick up a challenging new concept. I find this even more true about things I don't derive any immediate benefit from, as in it is easier to concentrate on learning a library I'm going to use in a freelance project than say an obscure statistical model for a class. Sitting in the lecture give me that chance to clear my head from most distractions and focus on the content.

\- Mindset - I head into uni, it usually gets me in the right mindset for learning and completing tasks. I don't get that sitting at home.

I would also add the guidance of some lecturers/ supervisors but this point really depends where you are. I can't say in my own experience this couldn't have been replaced online although their are moments when having such experienced teachers can help.

Edit- I would also add that these issues could be solved by getting together at a co-working space with some like minded others. I guess a hybrid model like that could have some merit, the educational institute acts as a network to connect like minded people for online study. Maybe they could also have a staff member that has a hands off role and just answers questions over email for a much reduced fee over the traditional system.

</comment><comment><USER30> Because internet education should be enough for anyone...

Now, seriously, Gates has a very weak track record on predicting the future of technology. That's why Microsoft was never known to be a first mover into any new market. It's really hard to predict the future - I was watching 2001 with my 14 year-old son last week and couldn't help but laugh that in an enormous space station an what seemed high orbit you would have AT&T phone booths.

"Mobile devices will be able to send and receive messages, but it will be expensive and unusual to use them to receive an individual video stream"

On ordering flowers online: "You'll be able to watch the florist arrange the bouquet, change your mind if you want, and replace wilting roses with fresh anemones."

"I believe that we'll not only be using the keyboard and the mouse to interact, but during that time we will have perfected speech recognition and speech output well enough that those will become a standard part of the interface." (this is from mid 90's, IIRC)

"I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time," which is right in a sense that NT was once OS/2 3.0

"Spam will be a thing of the past in two years' time,"

"We will never make a 32-bit operating system," (that was when he introduced the MSX in Japan)

The low-end of the education will sure improve with the internet. Kids with mobile phones and computers can quickly google stuff up and browse the wikipedia to get some deeper information beyond their textbooks offer. It will augment, but it won't replace physical schools anytime soon.

<comment><USER31> It's not that hard to predict the future of technology if you follow the relevant fields of science/engineering. There are usually a set of core problems that everyone in the field is aware of and has been working on for decades. What is difficult, is predicting the timing of mass market viability of those technologies. (So in this respect it's like how many people had identified a housing bubble in 2004, but anyone who'd bet heavily on its imminent collapse then would've lost out.)

Microsoft in particular actually have a track record of entering a market prematurely with an unpolished entry (often because the hardware resources/architecture/maturity of the underlying academic field aren't yet there to support a polished entry), failing, shelving the idea, and then being caught flatfooted N years later when someone else enters with something more polished.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wouldn't have believed this earlier. But, today we're getting ever closer to it.

Best example: <http://www.academicearth.org>

</comment><comment><USER33> There seems to be a consensus on HN that it's very important for startup founders to live in the same location. Face-to-face time is considered so important that VCs say they will not even consider investing in distributed startups. The same theme is strong when describing the hassles with outsourcing.

Yet a lot of people completely ignore this for education. Suddenly there is no value in spending time with classmates/teachers. It's all very strange to me.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think Gates is right, and this is something which I've also ranted about in the past. The cost of university education has been increasing, there are an increasing number of people wanting university education and that level of education is increasingly expected in the workforce. There is also a significant fraction of the population who cannot afford university education (don't have wealthy parents) or do not want to take out gigantic loans which may take them decades to repay. University education is no longer a ticket to a high paying job, and that has been the case for quite some time, so large education loans can't necessarily be justified on a financial basis. Also this year many applicants have been turned away by universities due to budget cuts which means that they have fewer places, and that trend could go on for a few more years at least.

The solution isn't new. The Open University has been around for a long time, and something like OU, augmented with all the media content that the internet can deliver, would seem to be the logical way to deliver higher education at lower cost.

<comment><USER18> And lower quality.

I do not see anyone replacing an Oxford place with OU or any university place with OU. I think, though I might be very much wrong, it caters to niches, rather than the core of university market which is 18 to 21 year old.

The difficulty with OU is that it is not too easy to motivate yourself. In uni you know you are there to study - kind of - with OU or any other virtual replacement its a bit like a project which easily can drift because really nothing has changed with your life. You'll just get a bunch of stuff in the post and some online logging.

Also, there seems to be many generalisations on your comment and almost wishful thinking. Sort of saying, things are bad, so this replacement is the alternative so lets do it, rather than judging the replacement on its merits.

<comment><USER34> The core university market seems to be voting with its feet.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-10903088>

<comment><USER18> Yeh, that might be because there have been record numbers of applications to university this year and some 100,000 students are not going to get a place at any university so many probably rightly thought getting a distance degree while working might be a good alternative.

But we would need much more than an increase in percentage to make any judgement. What are they studying, how many get to graduate by age group, how many enrol by each age group...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "Five years from now on the web for free you'll be able to find the best lectures in the world"

This is _already true_ \--for just one example, see academicearth.org. I suppose Bill has to make it a prediction for the future for the press to be able to digest it.

I often tell people how absurd modern education is given the existence of video lectures (and the printing press, for that matter). They usually tell me that video lectures aren't a replacement for live lectures. When I ask if they've actually watched any video lectures, they usually haven't.

Best advantage of video lectures: I can download them with the netvideohunter firefox extension and watch them 1.5x speed in VLC, which actually improves my comprehension because I'm less bored.

Free textbooks are probably even better. I'm too busy with my side project to study, but here are two that look AWESOME:

<http://www.math.wisc.edu/~keisler/calc.html>

<http://www.introecon.com/>

I'll be playing my fiddle when the educational establishment burns.

</comment><comment><USER36> Best class I ever took was last year, the professor had been doing chalk and board since 1962, he was amazing, and it was because I was there. Maybe after his generation is gone we won't lose anything from communicating entirely via web, but to get the full breadth of knowledge from the lingering analogites among us, you gotta roll out of bed.

</comment><comment><USER37> I think the real value of the web is to give students free access to the nitty-gritty details of potential careers. These details would not serve as a replacement for education (I feel that's impossible, since hands-on lab experience and access to expensive equipment, etc. are so important to competency). Rather, they would help to ensure that students are embarking on a path that they're sure they want.

Some people spend a couple of years and thousands of dollars before discovering that their major isn't really what they thought it would be. And by then, they're just unhappy; they have invested too much to turn back, and don't really have passion anymore. I strongly suspect that a lot of people who do crappy work simply got into this kind of trap; if they'd had the chance to find out more about other jobs in detail, they may have made a different choice of major, and been much happier and more productive somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER38> Most students today realise that reading lecture notes n the course website is often an entirely adequate substitute for actually attending the lecture.

But that misses the point. None of the knowledge or experiences I gained at university that have value to me today were obtained in a lecture theatre; nor could they be readily substituted for by a website.

</comment><comment> barry-cotter That's great. Now please set up an organisation, whether profit or non-profit that will examine the content of the most common degree courses that teach something where there is a "core" to the field regardless of prior qualifications and certify that knowledge.

<comment><USER27> Personally, I think it would be best to, as much as possible, disconnect the teaching and the certification. both are hard problems by themselves; when you put them together, you end up with what we have now.

<comment><USER39> That's a really good point. The teacher is the certifier. Heh, no conflict of interest there... This is how we end up with grade inflation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I would give a robot doctor to those that considered education as a simple fact. You should have time to consider that your "doctor" is not so nice as a real one.

So when your "robot doctor" is acceptable to you, then I should consider your consideration for education.

</comment><comment><USER41> Amen. I'm taking a class in Abstract Algrebra in the fall. I already have a general overview of the topic and have been working some practice problems from online resources. It's amazing what's available these days if you want to teach yourself.

</comment><comment><USER42> On the other hand, I just finished taking a couple of courses online and I have to say that I really missed the hands-on and interpersonal (study groups, discussions, etc.) aspects of a real classroom environment.

</comment><comment><USER43> As a complement, here is an article about China university admission development program:

<http://www.espacestemps.net/document8305.html>

The context is clearly different, but the contrast seemed interesting.

An excerpt:

"The reasoning behind this decision was economic. The government reckoned that every million new graduates would raise China's gdp by 2%. Not only did university graduates make skilled employees and attract higher incomes, but education itself was an engine of economic growth."

</comment><comment><USER10> I agree with the title, but this seems short-sighted:

 _Five years from now on the web for free you'll be able to find the best lectures in the world_

Lectures might be the optimal way of learning given the technology of the last millenium, but I don't think they'll survive even a century in this one. Computers are interactive interfaces, and "The Web" is an interactive medium. I have a feeling that whatever replaces lectures is going to take advantage of that.

<comment><USER44> There are non-interactive digital media too such as podcasts... it seems like nearly every scholarly lecture I try to listen to, though, has the first 20-30 minutes taken up by (multiple!) fawning introductions or a reading of the class syllabus. I'm getting annoyed just thinking about it.

<comment><USER10> But podcasts aren't that different of a medium from radio, or mailing out tapes, for that matter. The web is different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Gates is years behind the curve as always.

As a concrete example, the Apple-provided WWDC 2010 sessions on iOS 4.0 and OS X are some of the best educational materials I've ever seen.

Well recorded, tested material, and, this is key, absolutely knowledgable presenters. The people that built those systems. I doubt any university, at any price, could provide lecture materials as broad as these. Add in the fact that I can watch these at my own pace on an iPad, literally anywhere, and scrub back and forwards, and there's no excuse for missing anything.

I think back to my sausage-factory university classes, and pretty-much it was mostly second-rate stuff, with a few notable exceptions (Guest lecture from SPJ on graph-reduction, in 87 was probably the high-point). It's sad to think I spent four years of my life doing a bachelors, when I could probably cover the material about 50% faster now, and retain it significantly better.

In short, Gates is late. It'll be way faster than 5 years. Hell, the new SICP lectures are already available I believe, and I'm sure geology, physics, maths, stats will all follow.

<comment><USER46> Bill Gates is not exactly known for his prophetic powers :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> University and high school is a way to employ people who study and obey rules. If you dry this fountain and this job get outsourced, less people will get incentives to study. A society without universities would be a very disrupted society. Power is university supported.

</comment><comment><USER47> Dearest Bill Gates,

You are a very clever man. You see trends that most people ignore.

You're probably right in this assertion.

But you suck at time scales. It's like your fracking achilles heel. The world just doesn't change that fast. Dude, it just doesn't.

Peace out,

-Frank

</comment><comment><USER48> According to Mr. Gates the best University level education will come from the web in five years. But K-12 still has to suck.

</comment><comment><USER49> Will it be fine lectures that make education so effective? Or just-in-time learning customized precisely to the user?

</comment><comment><USER50> I hope that he's not gonna jinx it like few of his earlier predictions.

</comment><comment><USER7> It would be nice if there was more substance to the article. It would be fascinating to know the reasons Gates has formed this opinion - the specific trends he's seeing and some actionable road-map to make this happen.

</comment><comment><USER51> <http://www.extension.harvard.edu/>

<http://scpd.stanford.edu/becomeAStudent/deliveryOptions.jsp>

<http://ischool.syr.edu/academics/distance/index.aspx>

do we see a trend here

</comment><comment><USER52> Bill Gates probably wants you to do labs with the Kinect and get automatically graded.

</comment><comment><USER53> I wouldn't count on any predictions made by Gates. He said that the spam problem would be solved. And that was meant to happen some 5 years ago.

<comment><USER54> What about gmail? I haven't got any spam for years...

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Wasn't Gates a dropout? Of course, a successful man, but I would not put that much weight in his opinion on education.

<comment><USER27> Eh, it seems to me that if he knows how to do well /without/ a formal education, he may be in a position where he knows more than most people about what parts of 'education' are important, and which parts are not.

<comment><USER24> Well, at least in his field of expertise. Different fields depend on education in different ways.

Really, what he was best at as I gather is summed up by this:

After reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800, Gates contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the creators of the new microcomputer, to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform. _In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest_. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demo, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration, held at MITS's offices in Albuquerque, was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC

<comment><USER27> right. my point was that gates is clearly /very good/ at something. I mean, from what I read, he's no slouch as a computer guy, either, I mean, how often are projects like that delivered on time? Sure, he made a dishonest claim about what he had, but when called on it, he delivered.

<comment><USER18> While his point is that he was in some degree lucky and gained success by writing one code. Sure that might have not been easy back then, it might have required some intelligence, but it hardly makes him qualified to know much about education.

<comment><USER27> if becoming successful doesn't qualify you to design processes to make other people successful, what does?

<comment><USER18> Adopting the scientific methods to how people become successful.

Just because I might be intelligent I can't quite tell someone how to be intelligent. A scientist might be able to however if he does a lot of studies and is able to derive rules etc.

Besides, he is not serially successful, as in build one company and move on to the next, or successful in business, politics, history, medicine, physics. He just wrote one code. As I say sure it took some wits from him to make the deal and intelligence to write the code, but that in no way makes him qualified to know much about education, which is such an extensive topic.

And yes he was a drop out hence his genius idea of accrediting any knowledge however it was gained. If someone has some knowledge there are other ways to prove it to others than through accreditation. We have I think enough pieces of paper which misleads people as to our ability.

<comment><USER27> if one needs formal education to have an opinion on education, why are you talking to me? I didn't go to school either.

My point is just that school can't be the only qualifier for knowing about education- unless the point of education is to make people good at school.

>And yes he was a drop out hence his genius idea of accrediting any knowledge however it was gained. If someone has some knowledge there are other ways to prove it to others than through accreditation. We have I think enough pieces of paper which misleads people as to our ability.

I think most people agree that most certifications are garbage. However, most degrees aren't any better, when it comes to accrediting that a person has a particular skill. It's a hard problem that isn't being solved well by anyone right now.

the thing is, a college degree doesn't say anything about the ability of a person to do a particular job, and people in industry recognize this.

But the idea that you could have a certifying agency say that joe is a level 5 unix Engineer is very attractive to companies... a good certification system would make hiring people way easier.

The problem is that certification is one of those things that's easy to do badly and extremely difficult to do well.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask NH: Has there been a change in duplicate submissions policy? - <AUTHOR>

I've noticed that there are several duplicate submissions last week or so. <comment><USER2> I've seen that as well. In the past it might I've seen it where the URL is slightly different, but the last two I saw were exactly the same.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've had a couple of dups blocked in the last week.</comment>


Magento – cannot load layout (tried most of the solutions) - <AUTHOR> http://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/58290/magento-custom-module-cannot-load-layout-file-via-xml

<comment><USER2> If you want an answer to this, then you should rely on StackExchange or whatever Q&A platform you choose. That audience is a concentrated population of people who _want_ to give you an answer. HN is not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies, if I am not following the concept. Although my intent is to share the link (not to start a discussion here). I am relying on Stackoverflow, but HN is a medium to share programming problems too, I believe. Just willing to introduce peers to the issue. Thanks for the response :-)

<comment><USER2> It's primarily a social news site, but people do share programming problems.

What you have here is not a programming problem. You have a very specific issue with a particular third-party application. Whether it's a Magento bug, your own failure to read documentation, or a bug in your own installation, it's not intellectually interesting.

StackExchange (and similar sites) do a good job of giving you traffic from people who can solve your problem. Adding the post to HN is unlikely to help much, and it's not what this venue is used for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any solution to this ?</comment>


Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-hire-100-000-warehouse-and-delivery-workers-amid-coronavirus-shutdowns-11584387833 <comment><USER3> One of the more worrying things to me is how this pandemic (and/or our response to it) will disproportionately affect small businesses and individuals. As Amazon hires 100k workers how many jobs are being lost by small businesses failing?

<comment><USER4> Amazon is now the only store open. This will clearly accelerate the death of retail, to the point that I'm not even sure it will survive.

We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to survive.

<comment><USER5> > We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to > survive.

We'll get a lot of rent forgiveness naturally. If a strip mall has some tenants who cannot make rent in this crisis, who are they going to get who can pay? The pragmatic approach is to keep your existing tenants, because their survival is your strip mall's survival.

<comment><USER6> We might get a lot, but it likely won't be enough.

Many land owners would already prefer to leave their buildings empty for years over even considering negotiating on rent. I doubt anything can change their minds.

<comment><USER7> We need taxes on vacancies. Encourage people to let property go to people who can put it to some use. Prevent blight and crime, etc, too.

<comment><USER8> Ah yes, the California solution to everything - tax it.

<comment><USER9> Honest question - should taxes be abolished?

<comment><USER10> Honest answer: No, because that would mean to return to Hobbesian world.

Taxes are a way to pay for communal goods. We don't pay enough of them - <USER2> obsession with cutting them is part and parcel of the disastrous response to SARS2-CoV.

I very much _like_ having a government that can step in during emergencies and distribute the load. I _like_ living in a society where we care about other people to.

Abolishing taxes is strictly "me first, fuck the rest". I suggest people who like this approach try living in Somalia for a while, that's their desired end state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suspected Amazon would do well in this crisis, and this development confirms it.

My elderly neighbors, for example, are now ordering their groceries online and having them dumped on their doorstep.

<comment><USER11> Lucky them. Amazon in my area hasn't had an available delivery slot in almost a week.

<comment><USER12> Same in LA. I got through by checking in at midnight. Took 4 days to get groceries, but almost everything showed up (like 57/59 items)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We notice delivery on Amazon is out to 3-4 days now (on prime) and were not sure if it was due to supply or demand. Seems like demand.

<comment><USER14> In my area (midwest) Amazon (Prime) delivery is out to about 4 days. But it does seem to depend on the item. I ordered a tennis racquet "Prime" yesterday that was in stock and the quoted delivery isn't until Friday / Saturday.

Prime Now is now unavailable entirely. At checkout, it simply says "No delivery times available" for all stores.

Amazon Fresh also gives no available delivery windows.

<comment><USER15> According to a news article from yesterday, Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods delivery have been stopped.

<comment><USER16> Do you have a source?

<comment><USER15> I tried to find the source but it looks like it was more speculation in a Reddit post. Sorry for the wrong info. Perhaps Amazon is just being overloaded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hard to find a non-cynical comment on HN these days, so I'll just say: this is cool. A way for people to get crucial goods in a relatively safe way, and some new jobs with a pay boost in a time of economic instability.

<comment><USER18> Amazon is profiting off a global health crisis. How could one not be cynical?

<comment><USER19> This I don't understand.

They're providing an important service to everyone and keeping them from going out and getting sick, I'd hope that's profitable to do!!!

Next you'll say hospitals are profiting off the global health crisis?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Amazon seems pretty constrained by supply to me right now. Everything I have looked for to stock up on from them due to the current conditions (alcohol wipes, nonperishable food, etc) is sold out. But maybe they have scaled up supply more than I realize and workers are becoming more of a bottleneck than inventory.

Even if everything was in stock I'd expect my overall online purchases to decline in the next few months. I'm not really worried about new clothes if I'm not going outside, and a lot of things like toys and gadgets I usually waste money on seem a lot less important with a worldwide pandemic growing exponentially outside. I'm probably an outlier though in terms of how much I spend/waste on online shopping discretionary spending in normal circumstances (and a lot of that discretionary spending like clothes is not going to amazon anyway).

<comment><USER21> > Everything I have looked for to stock up on from them due to the current > conditions (alcohol wipes, nonperishable food, etc) is sold out.

Do you have any idea what the full industrial capacity of the American economy is? These type of basic items are all dead-simple to manufacture, and highly unlikely to run into supply-chain interruptions.

I guarantee you that once Americans get the full on prepping instinct out of their system, the inventories will all be replenished by next week at the latest. This isn't the collapse of industrial civilization. The factories are churning at 100% capacity.

People won't keep stockpiling six months of toilet paper every single week. There's virtually zero chance that there's any significant supply interruption beyond a few days.

<comment><USER22> The toilet paper thing is bizarre.

We are a few weeks ahead of you here in Australia on the panic buying and toilet paper is one of the few things we actually produce here.

But it's still impossible to get in most places a few weeks after the panic buying first happened. People seem to buy it immediately on reflex, and people who _didn 't_ panic buy are beginning to panic search for it.

One factor is that toilet paper is a bulky item, which makes the logistics of shipping and storage tricky. But still! I'm very surprised at how fragile this (fairly simple) supply chain has proven.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> No matter how many, some people will complain about this. There is a huge recesion in the entire world and a company is willing to hire more people and haters gonna hate.

</comment><comment><USER24> Where is the comment here on billionaire taxes?

Literally Amazon is the only company because of which I feel comfortable right now sitting in my house vs. panic buying.

<comment><USER25> I'll be more than happy to step in for that void.

Amazon and Bezos should certainly be taxed their share. I for one don't want to support tax avoidance/evasion and theft from labor. They're not running a charity work or a public service disguised as Amazon marketplace (there is Amazon Smile to be fair) by any means, at least not to my knowledge.

Amazon doesn't make me feel any bit safer and no business should be capitalizing on panic buying, be it a local business or Amazon.

They're running Amazon and hiring more workers because there's a massive opportunity to further stamp out their retailer competition, solidify their foothold further, and make money... not out of the goodness of their investors hearts. It's about money/business opportunity, not your security.

<comment><USER5> And Amazon makes money by providing people with goods and services that they need in a manner safer than alternatives.

Nothing wrong with that.

<comment><USER26> There's nothing wrong with that in of itself, but if it stomps out any potential competition and renders them unable to compete after a certain degree of monopolization, what sort of position will consumers eventually be placed in?

<comment><USER27> > what sort of position will consumers eventually be placed in?

In a pretty shitty one. That is the ultimate goal of modern cut-throat capitalism: get utter market domination, destroy all competition and once that is done, raise the prices as far as possible without attracting too much protest from the few regulatory institutions that remain.

<comment><USER5> > That is the ultimate goal of modern cut-throat capitalism

True, but the only way they can achieve that is by using the government to outlaw competition and/or regulate them out of existence.

Their attempts to do it result in prosperity, high standards of living, longevity, etc.

(it has nothing to do with being "modern")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I mean, here in Brooklyn you literally _cannot_ order AmazonFresh. No delivery slots no matter how far in the future you scroll. And it's been this way for at least a couple of days now.

So makes sense.

<comment><USER14> Are your options also today, tomorrow, day after; or can you see beyond that?

<comment><USER29> Not parent comment, but I was able to look at next week, but there were no open slots there either.

<comment> kube-system We just got a message that said "No delivery windows are available. All remaining delivery windows for today and tomorrow are currently unavailable. Check back for updates or try again tomorrow"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Don't thousands of people work in each warehouse? Are Amazon workers immune? At some point, some of these facilities are going to have closures. I wouldn't predict smooth sailing for Amazon just because they're mail-order instead of brick and mortar.

<comment><USER31> From what I've seen, keeping regular distance would be easier than most workplaces, and with proper procedures in place (regular sanitization, taking temperatures, etc) you could keep the spread to minimal. But you're right, it would not be immune to labor disruptions.

Right now, if I was an Amazon worker, I'd be hitting up every other employee about forming a union ASAP. They're going to want that kind of bargaining power to protect themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I hope they're finding ways to help keep them safe in the process. It would be a huge benefit for people to be able to order things online, but not if the warehouses themselves become cesspools of transmission.

<comment><USER33> Probably Amazon is aware that if health officials shut down their warehouses, their entire retail business goes to hell. It's in their best interest to be hypervigilant.

<comment><USER34> If Amazon even meets a bump on the road in terms of its logistical performance, and merely due to acts of chance and nothing they could have anticipated, then the whole nation would be put on edge. How would lockdown even make sense without Amazon's logistics reassuring the population?

<comment><USER35> You have to do it the old fashioned way, pre Internet. Restricted & spaced lines at physical stores or supply locations. Take/get a number access to shopping resupply at stores or supply zones that are cleaned frequently. You move into a real quarantine program. This sit at home and order stuff from Amazon approach, isn't anywhere near that.

It would require the US military and national guard to implement and keep functioning properly. You need someone with huge scale, federal power (overrule local bullshit), and national reach to ensure safety, supply, delivery and make hard decisions as they crop up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> [https://archive.md/Eyu8A](https://archive.md/Eyu8A)

</comment><comment><USER37> This virus is a real opportunity for the firms who faced a big reputation hit in 2008 to step in and show that they care.

</comment><comment><USER38> Did you see those videos of 1000s of people in line to enter Costco? Same thing is happening with online shopping.

</comment><comment><USER39> That's awesome! Good to see a spark of positivity right now.

</comment><comment><USER40> From what I heard (5th hand info) in China, most of the restaurant workers went to work for eCommerce and food delivery jobs.

<comment><USER41> No need to couch it in such qualifications, although your information is a bit old. The Chinese delivery companies (Meituan, eleme) indeed went on a temp hiring spree for idle restaurant workers during the shutdown. That was a month ago; things are thawing out now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Safeway is also hiring in a big way.

<comment><USER43> When I went to the store on Saturday, they said they did more business on Friday than before Thanksgiving last year.

<comment><USER44> Friday was the first time I ever used a cart at Safeway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I really hope Bezos brings the full power of Amazon's distribution network to bear on this crisis. Traditional retailers seem strictly worse from the epidemiological perspective - you have to go to the store and there are hundreds of people there at least a few of whom will have the virus, if not now, then 2 weeks from now. They are also largely failing to cope with panic buying, whereas Amazon's efficiency only gets better if people buy a lot of stuff.

I also hope Amazon does this responsibly, and creates the conditions in which the strictest possible social distancing could be maintained for people working in the warehouses.

It's pretty clear to me that we can't shut down the economy due to this for any extended period of time. We also can't do these planet-scale epidemiological drills every year. If that's the case, we should figure out a way to alleviate our current predicament as much as possible until there is a vaccine or a cure. Amazon can be a large part of that.

</comment><comment><USER46> From what I'm seeing: Grocery Health and Beauty way up; everything else way down. If I were a RA person I'd be buying buying children's games from Walmart and hope the input warehouse can handle the influx of shipments. RA is still alive and well for the hustlers. I'm rooting for them!

</comment><comment><USER47> To all amazon haters in HN community, where do you guys do online shopping ? Walmart ?

</comment><comment><USER48> Seeing Amazon surge hire 100k people makes me think of Zorg. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0mO6UY6uTg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0mO6UY6uTg)

</comment><comment><USER49> This makes up for a large number of recently laid off service workers

</comment><comment><USER50> Amazon is only as good as it's suppliers. If people can't get to work to make things, Amazon doesn't get new stock and they have nothing to sell you.

</comment><comment><USER51> Why not have the delivery and logistics of goods just exist as a general public service?

Then put the potential profits made into running a better society.

<comment><USER52> Because govt normally does poor job in aligning incentive and effort for efficiency. Amazon will try to be most efficient because they are getting back all the profit out of it.

Govt should make sure labour, monopoly laws and taxes are aligned with society's expectations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Buy Amazon stocks?

<comment><USER35> Not on the basis of retail demand. Their retail margins are horrible, as with most of the industry.

AWS and advertising are where their margin and profit centers are.

In terms of retail support action - Costco's stock is one of the few large companies that hasn't cratered. It's not much lower than its average for the year, whereas most everything else has been hammered.

You could double Amazon's retail sales in the US and it will get you a few extra billion dollars in profit. The problem is retail makes up a very modest share of their overall profitability. So it won't move the needle much on a $840 billion market cap. It works for Costco because essentially all of their market cap is based on retail sales and the demand surge they're seeing. So you get a direct IV line between the crazy panic buying and the COST stock. Although, if there are supply problems coming up next, be careful holding COST as well.

<comment><USER54> On what basis? I see operating income between AWS and retail being relatively similar. The margins for AWS are much better, but retail is still driving a huge amount of profit for Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Well, this is actually not a bad idea from Amazon. Hope they pay well and don't screw these guys over.

</comment><comment><USER56> Death Stranding: Real World Edition

</comment><comment><USER57> How do you stay 10 feet from other people? No gathering of more than 10 people, too?

</comment><comment><USER58> Do we know yet what the probability of packaging borne transmission is? Has anyone seen anything? I saw one study describing virus lifetime on various surfaces but I don't think they tested cardboard.

Also I don't know what they're expecting. They either have mountains of stock or they'll be laying these people back off soon when factories close. I think supplies out of China are still disrupted.

<comment><USER59> NPR talked about a study testing cardboard actually. Up to 24h under ideal conditions.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/03/14/8116090...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/03/14/811609026/the-new-coronavirus-can-live-on-surfaces- for-2-3-days-heres-how-to-clean-them)

Link to study: [https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v1.full.pdf)

<comment><USER58> That's actually really good news, thank you. You can just leave packages outside for a day or two.

<comment><USER60> Where do you live that you can leave packages outside for more than an hour?

<comment><USER61> My neighborhood has eight houses per acre. We've had no problems with stolen packages even when left out overnight. This is the exurban fringe of metro Atlanta.

<comment><USER62> You're on the exurban fringe and you're at .125 acre lots?

<comment><USER61> Surprisingly yes. There are also townhouse and apartment complexes. Most homes are on bigger lots but I was surprised by the diversity of housing choices out here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> If this were a Bond movie, Bezos would be cackling in his secret lair about how his viral plan was coming to fruition. Bond (played by Idris Elba) would then cough on Bezos, who would whip out his antidote, which Bond would grab, escape, and release to the world before being killed by Thanos. (Pitch Meeting, call me)

<comment><USER11> If Bezos needs an evil villain lair for his secret headquarters, I know a fortress in the American desert with three-foot-thick stone walls, solar and diesel electricity, and its own water facilities, perched on a mountain ridge for maximum visibility 150 miles from anywhere meaningful.

Last I saw, it was for sale for $750k.

<comment><USER64> Does it have enough bathrooms though?

<comment><USER65> More importantly... do those bathrooms come with toilet paper?

<comment><USER66> Bezos uses the three sea shells. Plebeians like you and me use toilet paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I don't know if I should be happy about it or not. The world is currently having a tough time battling Covid-19. How safe it is for these people to work during the outbreak?

</comment><comment><USER68> At some point even Amazon workers will have to stop working to contain the virus. How Amazon if going to provide safety to workers when even doctors with all protection still gets the virus?

<comment><USER69> People who get the virus and recover will be able to go back to work without risk of being infected.

<comment><USER70> Re-infection has not been thoroughly studied yet</comment></comment></comment>


Firefox takes screenshots of your HTTPS data - Mozilla says thats ok - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=755996 <comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I noticed that Firefox took a screenshot of my google 2-factor authentication barcode.

This barcode was stored on my hard drive unencrypted as a simple image. Whilst the image quality is 'poor' - it _is_ good enough for my iPhone 5 to 'read' the barcode and get the token!

I bug reported it to Mozilla - but they dont seem to think its much of an issue.

you can see my specific comment + screenshot here: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=755996#c13>

p.s. the barcode image is for a throw-a-away account I made to show the issue - obviously its not my real account :)

<comment><USER2> > This barcode was stored on my hard drive unencrypted as a simple image

You mean like the HTTP cache?

Maybe I'm reading this bug wrong, but it appears to be a verified bug with csec-disclosure and sec-low security ratings. Not finding this to be as critical as you is hardly "saying its okay" (it's not)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes - except this is HTTPS cache - and takes screenshots of your HTTPS data.

Its silly because they turned off viewing the HTTPS websites on the 'newtabs' and replaced it with grey screens - yet they _still_ take the screenshot.

The sec-low status was given because they mention the low res screenshots are not enough to get anything useful - but I've just proven that not true.

Besides - how many people do you think would know/expect their HTTPS screenshots to be captured and stored on the drive? Accessed a bank site lately, visited a secure Government website etc etc

<comment><USER2> > Yes - except this is HTTPS cache - and takes screenshots of your HTTPS data.

HTTPS is also cached by every major browser, meaning the image in question would be in your cache just as well as the screenshot containing it.

> Its silly because they turned off viewing the HTTPS websites on the > 'newtabs' and replaced it with grey screens - yet they still take the > screenshot.

If this is true you should file a bug for it. Bug 754608 / Bug 627239 / Bug 822867 suggests that this is not the case, and that capturing them was disabled entirely. In fact, those three bugs suggest that this bug is only open because a better replacement for grey-squares is needed?

> The sec-low status was given because they mention the low res screenshots > are not enough to get anything useful - but I've just proven that not true.

This does not seem to match what I see on the thread. The bug was filed by a mozilla developer and the consensus seems to be that it is definitely an issue:

c0 - Mozillian files the bug

c4 - Mozillian mentioning they think screenshots of any size could be sensitive -- the opposite of "not enough to get anything useful" -- but also that it's not something that can be reasonably fixed.

c5 - Mozillian acknowledging its a problem and suggesting its difficult to properly fix

c8 - Mozillian noting this is an even bigger issue on OS X

c9 - Mozillian noting that the whole concept might need rethinking

c11 - Mozilla security manager assigns security classification to bug

<comment><AUTHOR> > If this is true you should file a bug for it

I did bug report exactly this issue - and they closed it: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=838646>

<comment><USER2> They marked it as a duplicate of the given bug, and a mozilla security manager politely explained why:

> The "documentation"(?) was maybe an announcement about the changes in bug > 754608, which made the thumbnails follow the caching rules for https. Https > pages can indeed be cached depending on whether or not they're marked "no- > store". bug 755996 (and you, in this bug) says that's not good enough which > may be true, but is already covered in bug 755996.

... Which seems to be a fair explanation of the situation. HTTPS pages that _are cached_ can still cache their thumbnails. I'm still not seeing the outrage-worthy malfeasance here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How many of you actually use the browsers' new tab page thumbnail links as intended? I recently built <https://starthq.com> as a new tab replacement service, but very few of the users seem to use it as such.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting to see how this item has quickly disappeared from the front page of HN, having more points attributed to it than others (on different topics) that are higher up and were submitted much earlier.

<comment><USER5> If <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5182057> is right and it only has thumbnails of pages that are _in the cache_ then the post deserves to be flagged and die.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you work with complete beginners? - <AUTHOR> We've hired a bunch of fresh graduates from college for a software dev job. This could be hard to comprehend but let me try to put it in the best way possible. The part of the world where I'm from, we don't necessarily hire only CS folks for such job.
Most of our IT / Software Dev hires could be ranging from CS to Aeronautical to Mechanical Engineering students. All we look for is an engineering degree to validate analytical skills.
With that background, I've been assigned a couple of absolute beginners who I'd be working with to ship a feature in a __couple of months__.
While I strongly believe it's my responsibility to get junior devs on par in terms of knowledge & execution speed, I really don't have any previous experience working with absolute beginners who'd barely qualify as devs let alone junior devs. What best to do in this situation? Should I accept I suck at this and bail out for everybody's good? Is there anything I __can__ do, to comfortably work with beginners? <comment><USER2> \- Help everyone at first.

\- Filter out those that don't ask the same things 2x - 3x.

\- Those that ask things a lot and can't do much, assign them small tasks.

\- Assign features and more important stuff to the more independent ones.

\- Lessen helping everyone, but move to the "only bother me if you're stuck" mantra. Let them work more independently and use the online documentation to find something.

\- Have a daily standup, so that everyone knows what they are doing. If they have questions, this is when it (from now on) should be requested.

\- Make sure you have an alpha, beta and master environment. Be on top of everything as soon as it enters the beta environment. Don't let them change in production ( except a seperate branch for a bugfix). They develop on the alpha branch or a feature-branch.

\- If someone can't develop or work independently, try to change them more to "testing".

\- Use kanban / agile.

\- Don't be afraid to filter people out, it happens that some beginners take a toll on the time of the team, because they develop errors / don't test code.

\- Try to push the "don't commit, if it doesn't work" mantra.

==

I personally let them develop the entire time and when UX doesn't make sense or has not logical things that keep dragging on. I then spend an evening on fixing it as much as possible and explain the things i've done the day afterwards, without name calling.

<comment><USER3> Clear, crisp guide. Thanks a lot.

> Those that ask things a lot and can't do much, assign them small tasks.

This is what I'm stuck with. Most times when this happens, I blame myself for not being capable of empowering them. Like you said, I should stop taking this hard and give some time for me as well as the person. Thanks.

<comment><USER2> Newbie mistake, just try to spent enough time the first time. So you are sure they understand, be less helpful the 2nd time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Coming from someone who never did any coding (beyond assignments in class) during college and learned it within a month after starting my first real job, you'll have to take on the role of mentor for them. One of the things holding me back from learning programming earlier was having no real "entry point", it's easy to get the basics (syntax etc) down but when it comes to actually applying them, I've found it incredibly helpful to have someone I could ask my "stupid" questions. Teaching yourself new things is a skill that comes with time (imo) but when you don't even know what you're looking for, it can be very hard to find that info yourself - so having someone looking over your shoulder who knows things like "oh there's already a built-in function for that" etc is invaluable. You should also get acquainted with the XY problem: [https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is- the-x...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy- problem)

And I second the daily standup suggestion, if only to keep the ball rolling & so everyone keeps track of their progress.

<comment><USER2> Nobody is barred from learning online, they can request a meeting to discuss coding. As long as they plan the questions in advance and don't interrupt every 5 minutes for a new question.

But programming involves so many questions if you are staying. It would be best to let them learn documentation and let them read open source code.

If you want to spend 24/7 on teaching coding, you should have a different profession :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Teaching is difficult because everyone is different. I had an intern once and completely messed it up by giving them the perfect environment for a younger me. I think what I learned is that constant communication is critical, and that you shouldn't assume the way that you learn is the way everyone else learns.

</comment><comment><USER6> \- Split up the task you have in mind into smaller tasks and assign each dev to them

\- Make each of them watch online videos and do independent research and learn as much as they can in 1-2 weeks. Measure them every two days.

\- Post two weeks ask them to build a small application in the third week. eg:login functionality with password reset and captcha.

\- In the fourth week, ask them to build the entire chunk of work you cut out for them. Push them a little to achieve it. (They might need 2-3 weeks to get it done though)

\- Keep adding new tasks and assign new learnings.

</comment><comment><USER7> How long would it take for you to develop this feature solo?

I would expect for your novices to be a drag on your development speed for these two months rather than contributing anything useful. Heck, for most beginners that would still be the case after 6 months of study.

Use those two pieces of information to determine whether you've been set up to fail, and act accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am assuming that you have reasonably well rounded experience as a programmer and are well versed in your organisations standards and methodologies. If not, then my advice is probably not going to be much use. I have re-trained Cobol and RPG programmers to develop OOP systems using the following. And I have taught SE at university so I have some experience, but never with complete absolute non-programming mindset folks.

"Ship a feature in a couple of months" ... WTF? ... is you management even sane???

Putting that brain snap aside ...

You need to establish what programming language, framework, tools, conventions you will be using. Then with that in mind, create a series of progressive exercises that introduce basic programming concepts (as are applicable to the features that you will be expected to ship over the next 12-18 months). Basically you would do a "teaching session" with handouts, examples and some live-coding on your part. Then you follow that with a "tutorial session" where your team gets to practice what they have just learnt. For a week or two that is all that you are likely to be able to achieve.

Once you get over that initial hurdle, you would need to design that first feature and assign segments to each member of the team. During that time you will be mentoring and assessing how well each member of the group is "coping".

Realistically, if you could complete the required feature on your own in one month, then the above exercise will probably take three months. But the next feature will take probably half that if your team come up to speed at about average rate.

For your sake, I suggest that you have your management on-side. I have seen too many managers who think that programming is nothing more than _typing_. Those PHBs are the bane of any software development project.

I am aware that this is becoming a long read. But I hope that your team is not expected to do analysis nor design. That has to be done by people with considerable domain and development expertise.

</comment><comment><USER9> Your typical bootcamp course takes 8-10 weeks. It's (hopefully) a carefully crafted experience that will get people to a standard where they can be useful within a fairly constrained setup e.g. build crud apps with rails. Given that you're not going to be able to provide this and that even if they did have a bootcamp available they wouldn't be available for a couple of months your task sounds impossible. If switching jobs isn't an option you need to work on expectations and push for alternative resourcing options.

</comment><comment><USER10> First, you should try to write everything down. If you have a twiki or internal site, organize the information and how things are done.

Encourage others with experience to also document everything. This will form some of the basis for your on boarding of junior developers.

If you do not have guidelines for how your code should look, how code is tested, and how code is released, get the team together and write them. Having the basics available for the juniors to learn from is incredibly helpful.

</comment><comment><USER11> I come from a non CS background, at the company where I work they let me do some unit testing and it helped a lot to understand how things work!

</comment><comment><USER12> About a decade ago, while working for a large a multinational headquartered in Silicon Valley, I had the wonderful experience of working with a bunch of interns; an experience I believe to be very relevant to your current challenge. Working with junior employees, irrespective of their area, can be an extremely rewarding experience, both for yourself as well as for the new hires.

In my case, the interns were made available due to a direct agreement between my employer and a nearby university (SCU). This reduced the costs of an intern, from a budgetary perspective, to zero. This was significant, imho, because most of colleagues who were assigned interns, considered their value to be equal to their costs, which I believe was a grave mistake. I am mentioning this to further qualify my personal experience.

Regardless, even though from a budgetary perspective, the interns were 'cheap labor' I never considered them as such. From my perspective, I had an obligation towards them. My job, with respect to their 1 year internship, was to teach them how to be a professional. The better I was at my job, the more valuable they would be to me and to my company. This was in strong contrast to how my colleagues approached the interns assigned to them. Suffice to say that within months, most interns ended up under my care.

Now - to finally answer your question; I developed a particular approach to educating the interns. Briefly summarized, these were the steps:

(btw: always try to refer to a framework to aid communication, as you can see below)

1\. Teach your new hires how to communicate. It is impossible to stress how important this step is. The framework I used was based on a training I had taken my myself and is called SCIPAB. "Situation Complication Implication - Position Action Benefit". What this basically means is, whenever they communication they need to tell what they are talking about (Situation), what the issue is that is making things difficult (complication), why that issue is important (implication), what they think about it (Position), what they think I (or they) should do about it (Action), and why that action will make everything better (Benefit). It helps if you know this framework. I made them leave me voicemail messages (max 2 sentences) daily for about two weeks training them on how to communicate to me. The benefit to me was that they could communicate efficiently with me.

2\. Further I taught them what it meant to be a team member. Group projects at university are a terrible way to prepare people to work in professional teams. I used the Belbin team roles framework to discuss this with them.

3\. As the final portion of their initial training, I explained to them the different emotional stages they should expect to experience at work. Elation (at getting the job), Fear (not knowing what is expected, nor how to be successful - fear of failing / impostor syndrome), Depression (finally figuring out what is expected, but struggling to keep one's head above water), Confidence (finally knowing what's expected and how to achieve/exceed expectations. I always added that as soon as they reach the confidence level, I'd immediately 'promote' them so they'd go through the cycle again.

4\. On the first or second day they started, I warned them that I would set them up for failure. Even though I told them in advance that it would happen, it still took them by surprise. You have to make your junior employees fail. Failure is a part of life, it is part of one's career. You, as their mentor or manager, have to create an opportunity for them to fail as part of their training. Giving them an opportunity to fail in an environment you control (a failure which does not negatively impact their careers) will allow them to experience the emotions associated with failure and give them the opportunity on learning how to deal with those emotions constructively.

5\. As a final point, I had the tendency of implicitly trusting my intern's work. For example, a new intern had joined my team less than three weeks ago. I had gone through the first three steps above and had asked him to prepare a document for me. He had sent me a draft of the document via email and I called him, asking him if the document was ready for review. When he answered 'Yes,' which, of course, it wasn't (the intern was kid - what did he know, right?!) I immediately (and without proof reading) forwarded the document the cross- company team leading my project. The people on that team were of a sufficient level that the interns (and most others on my team) would fear their judgment. Now, my intern (as I expected and I eventually confirmed with others in my team) freaked out completely. Though, in his mind, I ended up with the proverbial egg on my face, from that day forward, he always made sure that whatever document he sent me was either ready for scrutiny, or he would specifically review it with me prior to sending me a copy.

This last point, though it seems added as an afterthought, is truly vital. Your employees will deliver work to the level of trust you give them. If you always insist on reviewing their work, they will give you a product in need of review. If you show them you trust their work, they will make sure that they earn that trust. As a side note, if you implicitly trust them and they fail your trust significantly after the first two or three months of employment, you will have to let them go. (This is a difficult thing to learn as a manager. Sometimes it just simply doesn't work out. It benefits neither you, nor your employee, to avoid the inevitable....)

This is but a brief summary and is hardly detailed. There are many more steps to making a green hire competent and valuable. Getting them to become valuable members of your team is the most rewarding part of being a manager.

Anyway, I wish you all the best on your journey in shaping the new engineers which will make your company great!

EDIT: fixing errors in first draft.

</comment><comment><USER13> * Set clear expectations ahead of time. For example, when NicoJuicy says "Filter those that don't ask the same things 2x-3x", if you decide to take that advice then you should be clear with them "When you ask me a question and I answer it, I expect you to both write down the answer in a place where you can retrieve it for yourself and to ask follow-up questions to ensure you understand it." If you are afraid to hide your expectations because they sound harsh to you, then reflect on how stressful it is to know that you are expected to do well but to not have direction.

* Make a learning plan alongside them. You have a _much_ better ability to curate resources that are relevant to your toolset than they do.

* Help them learn what makes a good question. Question-asking is a real skill and since they are fresh grads they might not have it. Julia Evans has some good writing on this[1][2]

* Expand the menu of questions that they know they _can_ ask. For instance, it might not occur to them to ask you for 45 minutes of time on your calendar in order to walk through the structure, interaction flows, or major data models of the project.

* Be wary of asking them for estimates. Estimating software timelines is a __hard __skill. I 've seen multiple new managers ask a junior dev for an estimate, receive "I don't know" in response, and then pressure the junior dev into lying. That sets up a communication roadblock. If you want to work with them on doing the task-breakdown required for an estimate, that can help as a means to teach estimation.

> comfortably work with beginners

Why is it a requirement to do so _comfortably_? Doing things that you are not yet skilled at is both uncomfortable and necessary to grow. It seems to me that you'd want ability to identify situations where discomfort is necessary and to tolerate discomfort.

For instance, you might decide to try programming-out-loud with them. Here, you tell them to grab notebooks and you book a conference room with a projector. Then, pick a ticket and you talk through your whole process of investigating, breaking down, planning your approach, reading through the relevant code, writing tests, refactoring, and writing code to solve the ticket. This could very well be uncomfortable for you to do and it will likely be uncomfortable for them to stop you mid-thought and ask you to explain something they didn't understand. Does that discomfort mean you shouldn't do it? Only you can answer that, but you should probably call out this discomfort explicitly and say you're going to work through it and you expect them to work through their discomfort.

[1] [https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/](https://jvns.ca/blog/good- questions/)

[2] [https://jvns.ca/blog/answer-questions-well/](https://jvns.ca/blog/answer- questions-well/)</comment>


A/B Testing Tinder: a social experiment - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tarraschk/TinderAutoLike

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't exactly call a Tinder auto-liker a social experiment, no offense

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. IMHO, it is a social experiment for that I want to use this app as a mean to see how you could hack a very basic dating system. For instance, will you have more matches if you look right/left on your main picture? Should you wear red/green shirt? etc

I will write about it later when I'll have some results. Please feel free to try it as well and contribute :).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What tools do you use for your start-up? - <AUTHOR>

An open ended question to ask what start-ups here use in their toolkit:<p>For me personally + cacoo.com -- the google docs of wireframes + fiverr.com -- I am a back end coder and when I have UI problems, I outsourced the annoying UI problems to fiverr + google mail (hosting a business domain) <comment><USER2> I've found <http://newrelic.com> to be fairly indispensable.</comment>


Apple raises UK Mac prices by hundreds of pounds thanks to Brexit - <AUTHOR> https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2Fplatform%2Famp%2F2016%2F10%2F28%2F13451616%2Fapple-macbook-uk-prices-brexit#pt0-601 <comment><USER2> Using the top range 15" MBP at default specs:

UK - GBP 2,699.00 = 3270.46 USD

DE - EUR 3.199,00 = 3493.20 USD

CH - CHF 3,149.00 = 3167.53 USD

AU - AUD 4,249.00 = 3217.66 USD

PL - PLN 13,899.0 = 3501.63 USD

IE - EUR 3,299.00 = 3602.39 USD

CN - 21,488 RMB = 3167.59 USD

CA - 3,499.00 CAD = 2613.99 USD

US Price - 2,799.00 USD. Best price is in Canada. The 'Brexit' rate isn't too bad, still cheaper than the rest of the Europe except Switzerland.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why does the Mac Book cost so much more in Switzerland?

USD 1,999 vs CHF 2,199 (~USD 2,199)

The value of the Swiss Franc has gone up not down. It's the dollar that is loosing its value.

<comment><USER4> Tax? Duties?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: recommend a logic book - <AUTHOR>

My supervisor asked me to get a good introductory logic book for computer science. Need to grasp a solid understanding of propositional and predicate logic. Any recommendations? Thanks very much!<p>(Preferably available in PDF or other non-dead-tree formats.) <comment><USER2> Free logic books: <http://www.e-booksdirectory.com/listing.php?category=33>

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/710>

Might be helpful.</comment>


Will Google Crush The iPhone? - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/home/technology/2007/10/18/gphone-iphone-wireless-technology-personaltech-cx_bc_1019gphone.html <comment><USER2> Not unless they can think outside the "40 buttons and small screen" box.</comment>