MIT and Harvard announce edX  - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/press/2012/mit-harvard-edx-announcement.html <comment><USER4> Can I just say this is super exciting. In Australia, where I live, there was a very brief period where university education was free. It was before my time, but I remember the feeling I had as a child when I first heard about it - <USER2> amazement or disbelief, something closer to "oh yeah, that makes sense". I figured that education would have to be free because otherwise poor people would stay poor forever. Not the most airtight reasoning, but I think my heart was in the right place. I hadn't really considered the resources that would need to go into it, and who would inevitably have to foot the bill.

But this is the best kind of regression. Maybe the childish dream of "hey, let's just teach everyone" isn't so ridiculous now that we have the right technology. I find it easy to get frustrated sometimes thinking of how much power we have at our disposal, and how much of it goes into more efficient cat sharing and other electronic distractions (some of which, in fairness, I like quite a bit). This is a pretty cool example of how much what we do can mean to people: not just entertaining them but radically improving their lives.

The best part, though, is that this isn't even news. This has all already happened. Between the Khan Academy, OCW, Coursera, Udacity and edX it's actually a crowded field now. Great! Large universities move slowly, and I'm sure there are a lot of people who've been pushing for years just to get things to this point. Now things look like they're starting to snowball. It's easy to ignore one university or a crazy startup, but when someone says "hey, uh, half of the Ivy League's on this thing" it gets attention. I'm really looking forward to whatever comes out of edX, but even more to the inevitable answers to edX. It's a great time to need an education.

<comment><USER5> _..poor people would stay poor forever.._

This is even more true in corrupt countries. The corrupts have an incentive to keep people away from knowing their rights. A large part of knowing your rights comes from education.

<comment><USER6> I tend to think that, in any given country, what you have is a mixture of three ideas being constantly employed.

\- Bread & Circuses

\- Plato's Cave

\- Hegelian Dialectic

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm currently taking courses with Udacity and Coursera, and I've noticed one huge difference between the two that I hope edX learns from: whereas the Coursera class is structured like a traditional class online, Udacity's course designers seem to better understand and take advantage of the fact that the course is running in a web browser.

The difference is a bit difficult to explain. Both have videos, forums, and wikis. Udacity courses are set up as short videos punctuated with many questions and mini assignments (running in an in-browser Python IDE), along with larger homework projects. Also, the forums are continually monitored and new videos are added to clarify concepts that students are struggling with.

In contrast, the Coursera course I'm taking (AI) has longer videos (6-20 minutes) of the instructor mumbling as he draws over and over on ever increasingly confusing Powerpoint slides. Sometimes a video will have one multiple choice question, other times the video will not have any questions at all. The worst part is that only once has the video gone on to explain the question. So if a student has a problem understanding the question, they will have to resort to the forums. There's no follow-up, unlike the questions on Udacity. At the end of each section (about an hours worth of videos) students can take a five question quiz. Granted, the feedback on the quizzes are a lot better -- but it's a lot to expect an hour of instruction to be reinforced by a mere five questions.

Basically, the Coursera course is taught as if I was sitting in a class watching an instructor draw on a Powerpoint -- the fact that it's running in a web browser and can provide a different method of teaching seems to be lost on the instructor.

Granted, this might be a critique of the instructor more than of Coursera itself -- I'm only taking a single course from them, whereas I'm taking two on Udacity. But Udacity seems to understand that you can't just take the experience of sitting in a classroom and put it online: you have to understand that this is a new medium that allows new methods of teaching.

To conclude this rambling post (sorry, I didn't know how to explain what I'm feeling as a student more concisely), if these online course ventures that are popping up all over the place are going to succeed, they are going to have to use the medium of the browser to its fullest: and in so doing, I think they will have to compete with traditional universities. That's what worries me when edX says the online classes will supplement the in-college experience: I think that you're going to have to beat the college experience to succeed in this market.

<comment><USER8> I liked Udacity best at first, but after a while found myself spending a lot more time with Coursera. Mainly for two reasons:

\- Udacity sometimes belabors some really basic points. Coursera never gives me that "dumbed-down" feeling. It's more like a real, and challenging, college course.

\- Coursera lets me speed up the lecture, as much as 2x, and every time I go to a new lecture it remembers that speed. I managed to speed up Udacity lectures by going to html5 in youtube, but I had to reset it every time I started a new 2-minute segment.

<comment><USER9> I'm going through the Coursera machine learning class right now and I have to say that the professor glosses over several details and often makes comments like "if you're not familiar with calculus..." and "if you're not familiar with statistics..." which caught me off guard at first. I really doubt that actual Stanford students enrolled in a machine learning course would be lost on the incredibly basic operations (e.g., taking the partial derivative of a polynomial function) he is using.

Also, there has been no acknowledgement of how contrived the exercises are. For instance: exercise one gives a data set of a the profitability of a company's existing stores versus the population size of the city in which the store is located (in units of 10,000 dollars and people, respectively). The range of the data is 5-23 (population), with most of it concentrated below 10. We fit a straight line to the data using least squares, then use that line to predict the profitability of two new locations--in cities of populations 35 and 75. I understand that this is an intro course, but there is not a word about how ridiculous this is.

I don't mean to be overly negative. I am enjoying the course, but I am surprised a bit by how basic it is. Let me say that I do like the approach of the course to ML, which is to formulate a parameterized cost function and then minimize it by some general method, rather than the typical statistics course approach which is to solve ordinary least squares directly, which gives an "exact solution" (given the data) but does not generalize to more general models.

I know this is foundational material and overall, I am impressed by the approach of the course, but I would expect more comments on the weakness of the naïve methods we are employing at this early stage and how they will eventually be improved. I find it very helpful when professors at least reference more advanced methods or provide references for further reading by the interested student. Admittedly, that is more frequently a feature of graduate courses, but encouraging students to go beyond the material is an important aspect of good teaching. I have watched the videos for several other online courses and I do appreciate the fact that Coursera is allowing me to hand in assignments for grading, which vastly increases by engagement with the material. This, in fact, is the most valuable resource offered by the program. The lectures themselves are fine--if a bit dry--but a good book or a set of well-prepared notes (not slides) would probably suffice just as well if accompanied by the assignment grader.

All in all, this is great. The more people who know about machine learning (and have access to higher education in general), the better.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty rusty on my math, so I guess it happens to hit the sweet spot for me at the moment. Once I get back up to speed on calculus I might feel different about it.

You might be interested in this version at CalTech: <http://work.caltech.edu/telecourse.html>

<comment><USER9> I just became aware of the CalTech course. I will likely check it out, although I will stay with the Stanford course for the time being.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Most of the press release is about funding and bureaucracy, as evidenced by the number of name drops and shout outs and culminating in which old school administrator will be granted the honor of being the first president of the new initiative, and going straight for brand name of "MIT+Harvard". Reads like a press release out of the 1890s, the last gasp of a struggling and suddenly irrelevant brick and mortar fabulously costly institute of a bygone era.

Conspicuously missing are any specific details about the operation or value other than its brand name and the instantly heavy bureaucracy. It's likely this because they have no specific details yet and the negotiations to date have been about who gets the biggest seats on the board, what compensation packages they can negotiate and who will win the most prestigious titles and positions in behind the scenes political wrangling.

As far as the software that runs it, the old canard of making it open source and having other people build it is just tossed out as if that is a magical solution to design.

Nothing about this smells agile. It smells very industrial and slow. Compare to Udacity and Coursera who each are happily running dozens of classes to hundreds of thousands of students each, responding quickly to feedback, and demonstrating clearly they are up to the modern speed of doing things.

<comment><USER11> This is pretty silly criticism, considering the 3 month delays Coursera had this spring.

Coursera's delays were because it is much more closely affiliated with Stanford than Udacity is. In the fall they didn't really have the Coursera name settled upon yet and the certificate printouts they sent to people who completed the courses had Stanford's name on them.

Discussions involving university reputations are always going to be long and dragged out. Udacity avoided them by having a clear separation between the website and the institutions of its instructors from the outset. Coursera acquired that separation over time.

Harvard and MIT's reputations are most of what separate them from FullSail and the University of Phoenix. It is important that they protect them. It is encouraging that more universities are following Stanford into this space.

Courses with broadcast lectures and server-based practice/homework/exams will need the (hu)manpower that universities currently command in order to grow quickly.

<comment><USER10> > In the fall the certificate printouts they sent had Stanford's name on them.

The certificates they sent had a paragraph disclaimer at the end pointing out that the certificate had nothing at all to do with Stanford. This was the only mention of Stanford. This clause was only added because Stanford legal requested it since the classes were taught by the Stanford professors who set up the system, of their own initiative and definitely not something initiated from the bureaucratic side of the institution. Your post suggests that the certificates indicated they were granted or approved or validated in some way by Stanford. This is not the case at all, it is the opposite. I recommend you track down one of these certificates and examine it to your satisfaction.

As far as Coursera, it didn't exist in Fall. It was created in response to Stanford lawyers and bureaucrats going apeshit and shutting the venture down once they saw what a threat it was since the classes were as good as what they were charging for. This caused several of their best professors to resign and leave Stanford.

Stanford is about their reputation, which comes from their top notch professors. With professors leaving, the reputation is worth less than before.

Stanford intentionally isolated themselves from this venture and tried to punish those who pursued it. This shows how committed their administration and legal staff are to the future of education. Not at all, in direct conflict to their most progressive and talented professors.

The future clearly belongs the rogues who are leaving the inefficient and ineffective old system behind to join the ground level grass roots work of modernizing education. This is something that institutions are showing themselves incapable of doing, and it scares them. They won't go down easily. They will fight this, attack the new paradigms, and try their damnedest to retain an economy based on buggy whips that supports their institutional power, wealth and obsolete practices. Many on the forefront such as Salman Khan do not have any teaching credentials or background, and that is how it must be for the old practices do not work.

<comment><USER11> >This caused several of their best professors to resign and leave Stanford.

Just to clarify, this was one professor, Sebastian Thrun. The Coursera professors still teach at Stanford. In fact, the Coursera effort has been to integrate on-campus and off-campus efforts from the beginning.

The off-campus students of the DB, ML, and AI classes were given access to interactive lectures, exercises, and exams which was revolutionary. For their part, the on-campus students were freed from the lecture problem all other college students face. When you attend most college lectures, you might as well be watching a video (to most professors chagrin).

Despite professors' pleading, in 2012 the best way to get lectures to students AND have an interactive experience is to separate the lectures out entirely and then simply have interactive "lab-ish" sessions when on-campus students are in class. This is what they did in the DB, ML, and AI classes, the Stanford students for their money enjoyed more intimate professor access, and these extra learning modules. On top of that, it must have been a big relief to be a part of a class run that way. At other schools, if a professor has videos from previous years or even slides posted online, many kids just don't go, there isn't much point.

>Your post suggests that the certificates indicated they were granted or approved or validated in some way by Stanford.

My point was that the relationship with the Stanford name was strained and it created legalistic issues. It seems like we're in agreement about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have tried a lot of these new online courses that have been created but I still think they have missed the point, the point that khan academy got right. I don't want to plan my life around weekly assignments. I keep getting emails about about assignment deadlines, causing unneeded anxiety which puts off the whole learning experience.

<comment><USER7> Some of the courses on Udacity no longer have assignment deadlines. I'm not certain what I think about this yet: on the one hand having hard deadlines means that each "semester" of students stays on the same page and the instructors can respond to the most pressing difficulties they are having. It also allows them to iteratively refine the courses without disrupting current students.

On the other hand, it can make things difficult for us in the working world who have to balance education with our work life! I'm taking three courses now, which I found out to be overly ambitious (I should probably spend time with my wife!) so I'll probably drop one.

<comment><USER13> I thought their revision the first time around was a good way of doing it. i.e. giving HW deadlines but at the end grading by the exam only if that was a better score. That way it's as if you get credit for staying on pace, but none taken away if you went at your own pace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Coursera, edX, and Udacity.

First one to award real degree credit per course wins, I suspect. The Open University already offers this, so it can be done.

<comment><USER15> > First one to award real degree credit per course wins, I suspect

With github and stackoverflow. Do we really need a degree? You only want a degree so you can get a confirmation that you know what you know, so employers will hire you. But why don't you just link to your github and stackoverflow accounts? These online courses could incentive you to build awesome stuff and put online for this purpose.

Then the whole cycle is complete. You have a place to learn, and means to show what you've learned to get yourself employed. What else do you need?

(well, maybe the social part of universities is missing, but that can be fixed with hackatons I guess)

<comment><USER16> > With github and stackoverflow. Do we really need a degree? You only want a > degree so you can get a confirmation that you know what you know, so > employers will hire you. But why don't you just link to your github and > stackoverflow accounts? These online courses could incentive you to build > awesome stuff and put online for this purpose.

Github and a degree show different things.

Github shows that the person can write code. It doesn't show that he knows how to decide what code to write. Did he consider alternative algorithms? Did he chose based on understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the algorithms? If you see an O(N^2) algorithm used somewhere instead of an O(N log N) algorithm, is it because he didn't know better, or is it because he determined that for the inputs in this particular project the O(N^2) is actually faster?

A degree in the appropriate field from a good school goes a long way toward showing that the person can do that kind of analysis.

<comment><USER17> I'd say for most developers a degree shows that you can stick with something, and that you were at least smart enough to get through a CS program.

However, most of the people I know have forgotten just about everything but the very basics from their algorithms class within a few years.

When I was teaching myself to program, I knew 3 guys who were seniors in CS at Georgia Tech. With only about 3 years experience myself, I could code circles around all of them.

At the time they may have had more theoretical knowledge than I did (definitely not true now though since I've caught up on the theoretical side), but I would have been a _much_ better hire for 95% of programming jobs.

Not because I was some kind of rockstar, but because I'd had more practical experience actually writing real programs. Sure if I was working at Facebook, or trying to scale something truly massive (or working with resource limited embedded systems), they would have had an edge on me, but the vast majority of programming that happens each day doesn't require that level of computer science chops.

There are definitely jobs that require a "Computer Scientist", and if you want to work on interesting problems a CS degree is extremely beneficial. However, a CS degree is neither necessary nor sufficient for most programming jobs.

(That being said, I'm currently in the process of finishing a math degree.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I tried, believe me I tried hard, but video is not my type. Over 20 years I've learnt all I know reading, surfing, browsing the web, not watching videos. I can digest/absorb/ignore a whole page of text in ten seconds instead of being forced to watch boring 10 mins videos that offer only one min of real interesting content.

So, the spot is open for an education tool where text is king, like wikipedia, but with a syllabus.

<comment><USER19> That's why I play Coursera's videos at higher rates. It makes the learning much more intensive and interesting.

<comment><USER20> At higher rates? You mean 1.5x or 2x speed? What tool do you use for that?

<comment><USER21> It's built into Coursera's video player - there's a menu/button to change it somewhere on the toolbar under the video.

I like to watch at 1.5x (or 2x if it's something I'm _really_ sure I completely know from previous courses or experience) most of the time, and then if something starts to be especially confusing I'll slow down to 1x.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _MIT and Harvard have committed to a combined $60 million ($30 million each) in institutional support, grants and philanthropy to launch the collaboration._

This makes it bigger than Coursera and Udacity.

</comment><comment><USER23> Nice to see that Class Central has already been updated to list edX alongside Udacity and Coursera.

<http://www.class-central.com/>

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the link! I operate Class Central.

<comment><USER7> That's a really nice site. Thanks for making it!

I think that a useful feature would be to allow students to comment on / review the courses. This will probably become more important as institutions start to offer similar courses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's great MIT and Harvard are combining forces. It completely makes sense. Offering similar courses individually to the same Internet Audience is waste of resources.

By the way, all of these courses from Udacity, Coursera, MITx lack one unique thing. These videos can't reproduce the passion of the teacher in a live class-room. In that respect they are little boring. While they are excellent resources, kind of manuals to learn stuff, to actually 'improve the experience' they need to pump passion into video lectures. More than these video lectures I like the actual recorded class room lectures that are kept online for public. Like cs50.net and Tom Mitchel's Machine Learning.

Does anyone else feel this 'passion deficiency' in these courses, like me?

<comment><USER17> I took Sebastian Thrun's AI class last fall, and I'd say he was absolutely bubbling with 'passion'.

<comment><USER24> Well I had taken db-class as a supplement to actual course at my College. It was just the professor speaking into the camera. While the courses like CS50, were so exciting.

I guess it's a personal problem then!

<comment><USER11> Just to offer an anecdotal counterpoint, I thought Professor Widom was incredible.

Had you taken a distance learning class before? If you just stick a random professor in front of a camera, odds are pretty good that they're less interesting to watch and listen to than the "early adopters" that have been a part of this new wave in education thus far.

<comment><USER24> Yes, Professor Widom was incredible in terms of teaching concepts clearly. But it's very difficult for anyone to produce such an enthusiasm to a passive camera as one would in a live classroom full of students. What I am complaining is not about the quality of the knowledge they impart, but about the passion and enthusiasm that they just can't impart to a student viewing these videos.

But again, there are professors in these courses (In this particular course the Prof. teaches as if someone is listening to him [http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs262/CourseRev/apr20...](http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs262/CourseRev/apr2012)) who put a lot of effort, to produce an awe of surprise for instance when they arrive at something imp, like in a class-room. But this is an exception and can't be applied to every professor.

So I think there should be an improvement someway in this regard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Let me just tell you all how awesomely happy I am reading this. So many mixed emotions, all positive I must say. Made my eyes all watery.

I don't expect everyone to understand, most of you here have had some sort of formal higher education. Where I live high-schools only offer Business or Science with Biology, Chemistry and Physics. That is it. Being fascinated with computers from an early age it is what I wanted to study. But in order to get any higher formal education one must go abroad, which means a lot of money, more than I or my family could afford. So until very recently I have been getting my education through books, articles, tutorials et al. This was OK, but I always felt I was missing something, felt like it was all a bit fragmented. I have pieces from here and there but never the complete thing. Then came along Mitx, Coursera and Udacity. So I started watching all these lectures and boy did all things fall into place. You have no idea how great it feels to actually know that you know something after a long time of uneasiness. It brought some completeness to my life.

Of course I'm nowhere near where I want to be. This feels like end of an era. I can't help but smile to see traditional education systems come to an end and see it all unfold in my lifetime.

</comment><comment><USER20> NY times just posted some analysis: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/education/harvard-and- mit-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/education/harvard-and-mit-team-up- to-offer-free-online-courses.html?hp)

</comment><comment><USER26> "EdX will release its learning platform as open-source software so it can be used by other universities and organizations that wish to host the platform themselves. Because the learning technology will be available as open-source software, other universities and individuals will be able to help edX improve and add features to the technology."

Is anyone else worried that this'll be a one-sided "we released the damn source in a zip file" style open source? When administration has such a big stake in a project like this, I hope they will allow community style open source. It's harder to justify each design decision you make to a bunch of whining disagreeing third parties on a mailing list, but ultimately I think it's for the best.

<comment><USER27> Look at who is actually doing the work, not the press releases. The first class is co-taught by Anant Agarwal, the director of CSAIL, Jerry Sussman, who is a founding director of the FSF, and Piotr Mitros, who has been active in the free software community since the nineties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Online education will change the world. Anyway, it's a good thing to the world students. Cheers! I'm hungry to learn.

</comment><comment><USER29> Sounds like they'll have more classes now but still no information regarding a way to make the classes meaningful to most employers (certificates, credits, etc...).

<comment><USER30> Honest question: should these courses be job training or education?

<comment><USER31> Those two don't sound mutually exclusive to me.

<comment><USER30> Not always, and less so in technical fields, but there is a huge difference between a course like "Leveraging Sharepoint for HR Management" (job training) and "Philosophy of the Mind" (pure education). You can only put the former on a resume, but I find the latter to be more meaningful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> To what degree do these initiatives incorporate the latest e-learning knowledge/ideas?

Also, to what degree do these and other e-learning curriculum or processes align with rapid change in relevant technology knowledge and skills?

I think that these types of programs can call into question or clarify the distinction between academic and vocational knowledge/experience.

What good is a programmer who isn't able to recognize the difference between an algorithm which takes exponential time or memory versus one that is linear? On the other hand, what good is a programmer who wastes his time optimizing an algorithm because he didn't know how to use the profiler or worse, was just using an outdated library or technology platform?

</comment><comment><USER33> Does it say anywhere how Harvard+MIT will price their courses? Will they be free? I should read the article myself and find the answer, but the webpage design, the font and the rambling text is uninspiring. Like an academic paper! (sorry)

<comment><USER34> They're free, but will potentially offer a for cost certificate. This is a non-profit institute, so the content will always be free for anyone wanting to use it.

The goal with that is simply to make the edX self-supporting not to make a profit.

<comment><USER20> This will be the end-game business model for edX, Coursera and Udacity - <USER3> they gain critical mass by establishing a large user base and a good reputation beyond their parents' reputations.

I see them creating two tracks based on the same open content: 1) a free not- for-credit track for informal continuing education and 2) a credit-based track with more stringent exit requirements (traditional final assessments and assignments).

For the latter, they will be able to charge quite a bit, if it's commensurate with a proper degree from an accredited institution.

The billion dollar question: how are they going to administer assessment for distance learners? The ability to securely and reliably administer tests by remote is the final piece of the puzzle to enable accreditable distance learning courses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I wouldn't take part in this for "credentials". I would do it for the sake of learning. Some of that acquired knowledge might be applied for commercial gain, some might not. Does it matter? The cost is the cost of an internet connection and time invested in learning. Hopefully what they produce will closely mirror the course contents and requirements for their undergraduate courses.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have taken numerous amounts of online courses from h.s on up. The classes I truly enjoyed were hybrid courses when the class would meet every so often. I loathe 100% online courses I like having people around to ask questions,see how they did something,etc. Posting on a messageboard just doesn't give the same vibe.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is great to see. For the last week or so I've had this uneasy feeling that much of the potential of this wave of elearning was going to get strangled by patents, and other IP concerns. This looks to me to be a big chunk of openness and prior art being set free. That won't stop the trolls, but it's a start.

</comment><comment><USER38> Online education platforms are future, I am not saying that class room education is going away but both can compliment each other. I am taking Udacity classes (one class at a time as it is very easy to get overwhelmed and join 3-4 classes and don't complete any)and I like it.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have one simple question, Can I access the material if I have failed to enroll a course in time ( in general for Udacity / Coursera )?

Even if I get access to the videos and assignments, it is fair enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> Coursera allows you to view videos but not assignments. Go to any course and click on "Preview".

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's really great how private universities are putting education online. My friends and I have been watching the free Stanford iTunes U videos and have learned so much in iOS development.

</comment><comment><USER41> \- The UK is so far behind in this regard.

\- This will certainly be at least _part_ of the future of education

</comment><comment><USER42> are they using Windows? Apache/2.2.22 (Win32) mod_ssl/2.2.22 OpenSSL/0.9.8t PHP/5.2.17 Server at www.edxonline.org Port 80 or just spoofed.</comment>


Consumers who sought cash settlement from Equifax probably won't get full $125 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/19/court-awards-80-million-to-consumer-attorneys-in-equifax-case.html <comment><USER2> This headline is dishonest. I'm not getting my $125 because the settlement fund is dramatically too small. It looks like I'll get about $6. If the attorneys got absolutely nothing, that number would be maybe $8. So attorney fees are <2% of the shortfall.

I'm not pumped that Equifax is getting off for less than a half billion or that the attorneys are getting a big chunk of that. (It's hard to say how much they should get, to be honest) But when I see a bullshit headline I have to call it out.

By the way, they based the $125 on the assumption that almost everyone would take the worthless credit monitoring option.

<comment><USER3> What I find especially bothersome is that their resolution has, in practice, only cost their victims more.

Because the time needed to fill out that form and provide the documents will have been worth more than the payout, if one ever comes, for just about anyone who bothered to do it.

Not at all satisfactory.

<comment><USER4> I honestly, no bullshit, wish the hackers had simply released the entire dataset. Just drop kicked it into the the public domain.

It would have been the greatest thing ever. This dumb ass bullshit system of credit reporting would have dissolved overnight. Instead we're stuck with the worst of all worlds. Our information is completely fucked, and we're the ones expected to protect it. And we're not even permitted to have proper tools to protect ourselves.

<comment><USER5> I totally get your sentiment about it forcing reform. What would replace it though?

Risk assessment is a valid concern for lenders. Diligent payers should be rewarded.

<comment><USER6> I don't think the lending industry would go away with a leak, though I do think that more players with the ability to analyze the data could have come along and used the data set to lower the costs of lending and/or incentivized other systems of data collection/risk analysis and underwriting.

Though I do think it would have hurt the bottom line of the giants that have few incentives to innovate, and many incentives to maintain the way things are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The point wasn't for me to get a lot of money. The point was for Equifax to _lose money_.

Look, I'll badmouth lawyers as much as the next person, but anyone who wants to claim class actions are a mistake needs to come up with a better system before they trash this one. There are so few avenues for consumers to hold companies accountable right now. They just don't exist. And thanks to arbitration and class action bans in EULAs, even the few avenues we do have are getting gradually eroded.

So _first_ make regulatory penalties stricter, _first_ set up real consequences for CEOs and boards. Then we can talk about revising class actions. I'm not satisfied with someone saying, "theoretically this could be better." Make the alternative systems better _first_ , and then we'll talk about throwing away what we currently have. Like, holy crap, how short sighted can CNBC be? There are no working alternatives in the US to class actions right now.

The tragedy isn't that the lawyers took 20% of 380 million dollars. The tragedy is that it was only 380 million dollars. I'd happily trade another 25-50% on top of the current lawyer take if they had gotten that total up to 750 million, or even a billion.

<comment><USER8> Laywers get 20% of the restitution costs, on top of the restitution costs.

If the courts deem that the resulting costs to the defendant are too low, additional amounts may be levied and given to relevant charities, or the ACLU (or things like it).

If the company would collapse due to the costs, or otherwise would be unable to pay the full costs, executive bonuses (and potentially some pay, with limits) may be reclaimed, both towards allowing payment, and preventing failure in "too big to fail" situations.

I miss anything?

People get restitution. Lawyers get rewarded for quality work. Companies both pay damages, and a penalty on top of damages. Executives bear responsibility as people, not just the corporate entity.

<comment><USER7> Off the top of my head, I'd have no issue with this. Sounds great, particularly in how it would expand the ways we could hold executives personally responsible.

The request I would make is, "can we build a real, working version of the system you propose before we get rid of the existing one?" I'm not eager to throw away what we have on the promise that we could build something great afterwards.

The annoyance I feel when I read articles like this is that it's a bunch of reporters saying, "we need to do something about lawyers", and I just feel like -- if I'm in a leaky lifeboat, don't tell me to jump out of it until you have another boat next to me that I can climb into. We all know the lifeboat has leaks, but this lifeboat is real, and yours is (at least for now) imaginary.

<comment><USER9> I don't think anyone here is proposing we get rid of class action lawsuits. People are annoyed because they think the class action isn't _enough_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, let us not forget, _Equifax execs sold stock before hack was disclosed_

[https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/equifax-stock- ins...](https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/equifax-stock-insider- sales-hack-data-breach/index.html)

> Three Equifax executives sold shares of the credit-reporting company worth > nearly $2 million shortly after a massive data breach was discovered.

<comment><USER10> ...insider trading? If there's not an investigation into these "executives" already underway, there should be.

<comment><USER11> How do we turn 'should be' into reality?

From a tech perspective I feel like issues like this should have a public canonical ID. That would help regulators and reporters alike deliver information in a more clear, cost effective and accountable manner, disambiguation by default. Interested and affected parties could subscribe to updates on that key across the web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Andrew Yang should campaign on making Equifax pay for data pollution. In fact, every one of these "data breaches" should be treated like the BP Oil spill. If these companies can't be held accountable for protecting our data then they shouldn't be allowed to collect it in the first place.

If it cost them as much to clean up each spill as it cost BP, you better believe they would take better care not to let it happen again.

<comment><USER13> > If these companies can't be held accountable for protecting our data then > they shouldn't be allowed to collect it in the first place.

It's so sad that this is even remotely controversial. Equifax should have gotten the same treatment as Arthur Andersen.

<comment><USER14> From my reactive, emotional side, I would argue yes.

From my rational, informed side, I would argue no. Here's my rationale.

The data stolen from Equifax has not shown up on the black market and hasn't been actively used, which suggests this was a nation-state using the data for something other than profiting from fraud. This also suggests that the hack could easily be considered an "act of war", so given enough time+effort+resources, no company would likely be able to resist that breach (although I know Equifax could have done FAR better than they did).

Technically I don't "own" the data that Equifax has about me. Equifax owns the collection of it, their reporters (ex retailers, landlords, bank/mortgage companies) each own a shard, and other data aggregators who contract with any one of these actors can own part/all of it.

I am not Equifax's customer. They are required to deal with me based on a few rules defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, but the FCRA also provides some protections for credit reporting agencies who don't violate those rules. I'm sure they minimize the effort/resources they devote to helping credit consumers because that is the profit motive of every company.

I'm sure Equifax has a ridiculous EULA/ToS that I probably implicitly agreed to when I used the AnnualCreditReport website, and probably additionally when I deal with any retailer that pulled credit reports from Equifax (including the IRS _after_ the breach was revealed). It likely involved me signing away my rights to a class action litigation or my rights to a trial by jury, because that is par for large contemporary corporations.

The standard for "protecting consumer data" is remarkably low except in a few sectors (ex. healthcare, retailers storing credit card data), and even in those it's still disheartening. The problem here is that companies can easily argue to {regulators, judges/juries, their BoD, cybersecurity vendors} that they can't be expected to spend more than the industry average because that hurts them more than the competitors. This just becomes a Prisoner's Dilemma where our data's security becomes the victim to corporate (in this case credit reporting bureau) self-interested decision making.

<comment><USER15> > The data stolen from Equifax has not shown up on the black market

 _Yet_ \- and also the absence of evidence doesn't mean the evidence of absence. Not all criminals are stupid, a smart one would wait till vigilance dies down.

<comment><USER16> Or it's already been distributed/used/sold, albeit not as a single large leak of data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Class actions are broken and rarely actually directly benefit the consumers. At best you can say it is a large club that can be wielded on behalf of consumers to force large corporations to behave responsibly. At worst it's a total racket where attorneys can get very very rich by "representing" consumers and shaking down large corporations, which will eventually end up being paid for by the consumers who were meant to be protected in the first place.

I think the USA needs stronger regulators who can actually enforce the laws using fines and lawsuits rather than the legal system which does not work.

<comment><USER18> From what I have read stuff like this is also high risk for the lawyers who may be working on this for years without getting paid. I agree that regulators should go after these companies and also prosecutors instead of putting people in jail for years for possession of marijuana.

<comment><USER17> 1) regulators don't lock people up for marijuana use. 2) We would save Lawyers the risk of not getting paid if they didn't have the chance of getting paid. Expressed with less sarcasm, there is no shortage of lawyers coming out of the woodwork to start class action suits when something happens. Every time anything big happens there is a half dozen class actions that get filed straight away, then there is lots of overhead figuring out who's class action is the correct one and combining lawsuits, and all this "work" is only to the benefit of the attorneys filing the lawsuits not to the actual people they are claiming to represent. Anyway, it's rotten to the core.

<comment><USER17> Apparently over 50 different law firms decided that Equifax was worth the risk. [https://money.com/equifax-data-breach- lawsuits/](https://money.com/equifax-data-breach-lawsuits/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Equifax has made more money after the hack now that they are selling their credit monitoring as a service.

I went to their website trying to figure out how to lock my credit report (which US govt mandated be a free thing to do) only to learn that in order to use the "free" option you have to go through hours of phone trees, or write in snail mail.

If you want the ability to lock the report online or via an app, you have to pay ~$20/mo to Equifax. Total BS, and of course I wouldn't put it past this company to make money off their own data leak.

<comment><USER20> Equifax muddies the water here with "lock" vs "freeze" terminology on their web site. One costs money and one is free. The free is the mandated government version, which is a lock but I think they call it a freeze and can be done online. I've done it recently. It's a really deceptive and dark pattern as they try and steer you Towards their paid version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is actually a good thing. The more lawyers get to suckle at the teat of class actions, the more class actions they will file, which will have a deterrent effect on corporate malfeasance even if there is no restitution to the victims.

<comment><USER22> The proliferation of binding arbitration provisions in contracts of adhesion puts a dent in that, sadly.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > It's also one more reason why the consumers who sought a cash settlement > from Equifax won't be getting the full $125 as initially expected.

> In fact, consumers were never going to get $125, ... "That's down to $6 or > $7 [per consumer] now. Maybe even less than that,"

That's what all your personal information and your identity is worth. $6.

<comment><USER23> > That's what all your personal information and your identity is worth. $6.

That's not how much it's worth, that's just how much Equifax was able to corruptly negotiate to pay for losing it.

If you really want to know how much it's worth, you could probably compute a reasonable estimate by taking all the money the credit bureaus from your credit file, and divide that by the number of credit files.

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me rephrase. $6 is what your personal information and identity is valued at by corporations.

<comment><USER24> It would be $0 and probably covered up if the corporation had the choice.

<comment><USER25> If they had a choice, it'd be considered a burden and a tax write-off :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I just got a settlement check in Lovelace v Global Payments Inc ([http://lovelacesettlement.com/](http://lovelacesettlement.com/)). The grand total? 20 cents. Read the FAQ, it's fascinating: $540,000 total from the company -$135,000 lawyers fees -$2,500 settlement representative (whatever that is) -$164,224 to distribute the payment \----- $233,276 for clients.

I have no idea how much the company made by charging transaction fees on credit card payments for student loans (that's what they're accused of) but they got off with a slap on the wrist. They should have been required to give back ALL the money they made. Fucking scammers.

<comment><USER27> Settlement representative is the plantiff representing the class?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > It turned out that the money set aside in the roughly $380 million > restitution fund specifically for cash compensation was capped at $31 > million

I can't parse this, how can a $380m fund be capped at $31m, isn't that a $31m fund?

<comment><USER29> I think they're including the value of the credit monitoring they offered people in that

<comment><USER30> Which is utterly insane considering it's a near 100% margin business for them. The breach was basically a funnel into their free trial of credit monitoring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding about class action suits _rarely_ benefit anyone but the lawyers; isn't the whole point to hurt the corporations where it hurts?

<comment><USER32> In theory, yes.

In practice, as usual, they're getting fined $5 for stealing $100, so not really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> That's fine, I'm more interested in punishing companies for poor behavior than getting a couple bucks in my pocket.

</comment><comment><USER34> I made sure to give as little information as possible when trying to apply for this settlement. I have no faith that that information will be secured, so we'll be doing this again in a year or two.

</comment><comment><USER35> now I'm "happy" I chose the credit monitoring option...

</comment><comment><USER36> I feel weirdly vindicated that I didn't bother making a claim.

</comment><comment><USER37> that's why i went with the credit monitoring in the end

</comment><comment><USER38> Cool, I just won a $200 bet with a friend of mine that these capricious bastards and the corrupt courts weren't going to do right AS ALWAYS.</comment>


Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive - <AUTHOR> http://nytimes.com/2015/10/06/technology/twitter-names-jack-dorsey-chief-executive.html <comment><USER2> I still think it's impossible to run two companies that both require so much attention, given their stage.

Yes Jobs had Apple and Pixar, and Musk has Tesla and SpaceX. But both Pixar and SpaceX don't really require day-to-day CEO attention, they follow long term plans (movies, rockets). That's really different from Square and Twitter, which are both, in their own ways, in a kind of trouble.

I'd love to be proven wrong though -- so good luck, Jack!

<comment><USER3> Musk lives in LA and takes his private jet up to San Jose every week to work at Tesla (then back to LA to work at SpaceX).

If anything, Musk has two full time jobs (priorities: 1. SpaceX; 2. Tesla; 3. everything else) and actually does 80-100 hours per week of work. He's not out creating vanity designer clothing lines in his spare time.

You can't create world class products or companies while maintaing a silly "because i'm so special i'll only work 6 hours a day, 4 days a week, 1 week a month" mindset.

<comment><USER4> Is there any reason that Musk couldn't colocate SpaceX and Tesla in Freemont instead of SpaceX being located in Hawthorne? What's the benefit of SpaceX being in the LA area?

<comment><USER5> Los Angeles has a very large aerospace industry and long history in it. Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and SpaceX all have a large presence in Los Angeles's South Bay. It's not as large as it was during the "cold war" but a lot of skilled employees still live in the area.

<comment><USER6> JPL as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I keep wondering if this is going to be like Marissa Mayer joining Yahoo - much fanfare, some movement, but at the end of the day she's been unable to significantly move the needle. I just wonder if Twitter fundamentally isn't as scalable an idea/product as Facebook et al. It's obviously Jack's job to make it that - but what if the basic form of Twitter just isn't as compelling, no matter how you change it or dress it up?

<comment><USER8> Then his job is find something else for Twitter to make. Facebook has launched a lot of experimental apps like Paper, Rooms, Slingshot, Messenger. And they bought Instagram which is very successful. Under Costolo Twitter bought vine and periscope, but they haven't tried to experiment with new app ideas internally.

<comment><USER9> If they went back to their roots as a messaging API for other apps, they would not have to build new apps. Become the messaging backbone for the Internet. That's plenty of scale to go after.

<comment><USER10> > Become the messaging backbone for the Internet. That's plenty of scale to go > after.

Where's the money in that, though?

<comment><USER11> In the data. Advertising, etc..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Twitter Feels Compelled to Point Out That Twitter CEO Is a Full-Time Job"

[https://recode.net/2015/06/22/twitter-feels-compelled-to- poi...](https://recode.net/2015/06/22/twitter-feels-compelled-to-point-out- that-twitter-ceo-is-a-full-time-job/)

<comment><USER13> I'm not a huge fan of the CEO of two companies thing, but Jack has been interim CEO for 3 months. At least if they changed their position on this they've got the evidence that he can handle both roles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Twitter does not need to gain new users - it needs to reactivate old users. The statistic I cannot get past is that they have lost one billion users. That is a much different problem than most companies are dealing with.

<comment><USER15> I honestly wonder how many of twitter's accounts are fake accounts, it seems that spam is a huge problem there.

<comment><USER12> No idea. But I'd throw $100 their way to buy an account that's been dormant for six years.

<comment><USER16> why?

<comment><USER17> Imagine you have to write an algorithm to determine twitter spam. Would it include accountCreatedDate?

<comment><USER18> The algorithm would probably contain a dummy variable representing isYoungerThanXDays where X is the median number of time it takes to create a new account after it has been banned.

I doubt accounts that are Y days old vs. Z years old have different probabilities of being spammers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here's his announcement on Twitter, among other details: [https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003190628872192](https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003190628872192)

<comment><USER20> Totally unreadable. This sums up a lot of what's wrong with Twitter. If even the CEO struggles to communicate effectively using the platform then...

<comment><USER21> Dave Winer mocked up how a fat tweet could look and I think he has it right:

[http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.h...](http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.html)

Obviously, they've thought of this internally too. I wonder what the point of the 140 character limit is today (I think it made sense originally).

<comment><USER22> "see more" link? groundbreaking stuff. someone get Twitter on the line!

i know Dave deserves respect but if i was even a janitor at Twitter this post would piss me off.

<comment><USER23> What made me giggle was:

> that doesn't force you to click a link to see the rest

(includes a link you click to see the rest)

<comment><USER24> I thought I was missing some fancy rollover-to-show and tried to get the rest to show without clicking the "Read more" link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> _"It's exhilarating for him," one long-time confidante said. "He draws energy from how to think about both companies."

Whether by coincidence or design, Dorsey's comeback closely resembles the Steve Jobs Narrative — a modern myth Silicon Valley entrepreneurs hold up as a map to absolution._ (1)

I'm going with "by design." His ego risks the futures of both companies, unfortunately. Surprised the Twitter board caved on allowing a part-time CEO.

1\. [http://recode.net/2015/10/02/why-jack-dorsey-is-ready-to- sav...](http://recode.net/2015/10/02/why-jack-dorsey-is-ready-to-save- twitter/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I hope Jack realizes that Twitter is not a great tool to chat with friends / neighborhood / family, but an incredible tool to reach people who are away from you, social and geographical.

They need to focus on how easy it is to approach a movie star, your favorite player and musician you like. How easy it is to show that you like a brand or you love a new TV show. And talk about some major events that are happening around you.

For people who have no idea what it is, they just see it as a tool to talk to someone. And most of the time, you do not have any feedback on what you wrote. In fact, you may not have any idea how many people have read what you have written.

So I think if they focused on showing how Twitter is great for expanding the boundaries of what you want to talk and make easy to see feedback from people about what you have spoken, they can attract more people.

</comment><comment><USER27> Chris Sacca would sleep very soundly tonight.

Jokes aside, I think Jack is the man for the job. He has proven capable in square. I hope he does the same with Twitter. The company needs to take advantages of the huge market share it has.

<comment><USER28> I disagree. He's proven capable as a fundraiser at Square. Square is far from a success, thus far. That being said, I'm not sure anyone could have made Square a success from the P&L perspective--the payments space is just damn crowded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Slightly off-topic, but I recently interviewed at Square, and I also have some long-time contacts there. I can honestly say they have some of the most brilliant engineering minds I have encountered working there. Whether it's a trickle-down effect from Dorsey or otherwise, they have succeeded in recruiting and retaining many extremely talented individuals.

I am curious if anyone has recent anecdotes in regards to the engineering talent at Twitter (aside from the talent that came in with Periscope).

<comment><USER30> The quality of the Twitter engineering team is very high. This is why people are poaching them hard right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Twitter has incredible value as a tool to break realtime news and events. The problem is, it buried in a veneer of fruitless and redundant tweets that nobody wants to dig through. If they can figure out how to surface the value 'there's gold in them hills!'

</comment><comment><USER32> From [https://twitter.com/SJosephBurns/status/640698530038943748](https://twitter.com/SJosephBurns/status/640698530038943748):

"Twitter needs a CEO who is an @elonmusk with the Street and a @pmarca in the tweets. - @zerobeta"

</comment><comment><USER33> I can't see this working out. Dorsey probably is the best candidate for CEO of Twitter, and I think there are some very low-hanging fruit to pick when it comes to solving Twitter's product issues (I disagree with Startup L Jackson - Twitter's product is _not_ fucking fine). The market reaction has been positive - TWTR opened up 3.15% just now.

However, Square is a different story altogether. Square Wallet was a damp squib, and Square's facing competition both from established players like Intuit and more recent entrants to the market, like iZettle. Leading Square and bringing it to market seems like a full-time job to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's IPO valuation takes a hit because it lacks a full-time CEO.

<comment><USER34> I have friends at Square and they seem to think it's great. From what they've said the last few months have been better for them as well with Jack as interim CEO of Twitter. Maybe he needs this to be really driven? Time will tell but I think you're right, it won't hurt Twitter as much as it might hurt Square.

<comment><USER33> _> From what they've said the last few months have been better for them as well with Jack as interim CEO of Twitter._

That reads like they think it's good that he's not spending as much time focusing on Square! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Stay tuned for twitter square integration. Buy with twitter should go through square.

</comment><comment><USER35> Congrats, @jack

Would love to see twtr become a platform for a myriad of third-party apps. Wouldn't it be great to place a market order by messaging @bats "buy $TWTR 10,000 30.00". Or order a limo with @uber "2 people in one hour to jfk airport"?

<comment><USER36> I agree - Twitter is the de facto messaging platform. Taking the idea a bit further, Twitter could be used instead of SQS and other messaging solutions / protocols. That'd be pretty cool. Twitter could be the way the IoT communicate with their AI overlords.

<comment><USER37> _Twitter is the de facto messaging platform._

Only in your little corner of the world. I honestly don't know a single person who uses twitter on a day to day basis.

<comment><USER38> And I know hundreds.

Twitter is so common in tech industry circles - so many announcements , debates, and moments happen there weekly that I would think it's essential if you care about that stuff.

Truth is there is no canonical place to get the pulse of what's going on in the tech world: each of Reddit, HN, Twitter, or various aggregation sites have their filter and regulars. But Twitter seems to have the widest net.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think using twitter as a platform for ordering things etc. would be something he could do to make money. They should open it up to developers and charge them for cool apps.

<comment><USER40> Imagine, you are famous man! Orders are bad idea, here's why: to send for 1m subscribers that you are going to sell your pants from 1998 tour sounds interesting, but you do have just one pair of pant to sell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Who had the most significant role in getting Twitter results prominent placement in Google desktop results? That seems like a mutually beneficial development.

<comment><USER3> Google _used_ to have twitter results a long time ago. Then Google got a little pissy and decided they wanted to be The Only Social On The Internet and killed Twitter priority indexing (e.g. receiving the firehose). It was probably the most ineffectual attempted flexing of monopoly power in the history of monopoly abuse.

Now that Google realized they can't be good at everything (really, are they good at much besides a few focused things?), they're open to integration and collaboration on their not-so-competitive-advantages again.

<comment><USER41> Noted, but I thought there was some posturing on Twitter's side regarding terms and pricing for firehose access as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10305855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10305855)

<comment><USER43> From the ReCode article: _" Twitter and Square both declined to comment."_

Now it's official

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> What I don't understand is "to scale" part of an article. If you cannot sell shit to 225M people, how you gonna sell that for 1B?

</comment><comment><USER44> I think this will be good for Twitter. Jack will be able to make big identity and design decisions over the next few years with less pushback from the employees and users than any non-founder CEO. He's already begun by declaring that tweets will extend beyond 140 chars, and the response has been apprehension instead of outright rejection. And for Twitter to remain competitive with Facebook, even as Facebook builds Notes and live-streaming video to cater journalists, Twitter is going to need to make many of these decisions.

</comment><comment><USER45> when twitter finally pops everybody will see the bubble. or maybe uber pops first

</comment><comment><USER46> Twitter should buy Slack and own the workplace communications market.

</comment><comment><USER47> People are worried that Jack will be too busy between Twitter and Square, but what they don't know is that the dude's been completely spaced out for the last 4 years, making the same motivational presentation about his Dad's pizza shop to anyone that will listen. Nobody at Twitter talks to Jack anymore, even the most Senior people.

<comment><USER48> There was a great article a while back [on founding and rise of Twitter and Dorsey's bio] that did not paint him in a good light: "All is fair in love and Twitter" [0]

 _As one former Twitter employee has said, "The greatest product Jack Dorsey ever made was Jack Dorsey."_

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/all-is-fair-in- lo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/all-is-fair-in-love-and- twitter.html)

<comment><USER49> Which is actually an excerpt from a book by the same author: [http://smile.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship- Be...](http://smile.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship- Betrayal/dp/1591847087)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> What if you created a website that no matter how hard you try, you can never make enough money to justify it's insane valuation? You hire the guy that created it. If that fails years down the road, hire a blonde.

<comment><USER40> Sometimes the blonde is the only choice to make a decision, because "try hard" isn't universal truth for every single mediums.

Chaikovsky is a great musician/composer/genius, but people prefer M. Cyrus obviously!

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I'm short Twitter. The fact of the matter is it that Twitter should never have become a multibillion-dollar company. There is no barrier to entry into this space---any competent web developer could make a non-scaling Twitter in an afternoon---except network effects, and those have proved weak due to poor user experience, particularly for new users.

Twitter should have treated itself like a utility, and focused less on the online advertising race-to-the-bottom that it is sure to lose due to the aforementioned poor user experience and negative sentiment about the platform's future; this announcement is only going to continue to contribute to poor impressions.

The other monetization directions they have played around with---namely selling access to researchers and advertisers, and certifying identities of accounts for celebrities and brands---are a much better fit for the platform, and would have sustained a fast-moving company of 50 hotshot engineers. But the constant pressure to get bigger and bigger has served Twitter poorly. I'm sad to say that I think it will be a ghost town in a few years.

<comment><USER52> lol if it's so easy, I implore you to create a Twitter competitor... and to make your challenge easier, instead of it being worth $20 billion, we'll lower the bar to, say, $150 million. It's already been done..every major web 2.0 success has many clones that all tried but failed to gain the necessary momentum and marketshare to become as successful as Twitter or Dropbox, for example. Even Evernote, despite all the attention and funding it has gotten, is stuck in the ruts. Yes, the coding part can be replicated, but getting the users and traction is the hardest part.

<comment><USER53> kylebgorman posted that comment 2 hours ago, he must be half way done building his Twitter-but-better by now. I'm on the edge of my seat, I can tell you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I first read this as "Twitter names Jack Donaghy Chief Executive" and thought I was in for a good laugh. Now I'm disappointed. :/

Edit: To be clear, I thought Twitter was just expressing a good sense of humor, and I was disappointed in that I was expecting something humorous but didn't find that.</comment>


Bread, How Did They Make It? Part IV: Markets, Merchants and the Tax Man - <AUTHOR> https://acoup.blog/2020/08/21/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-iv-markets-and-non-farmers/ <comment><USER2> This blog is great, highly recommend. Along with this series, he has some really interesting ones on medieval warfare illustrated via Lord of the Rings:

[https://acoup.blog/category/collections/siege-of- gondor/](https://acoup.blog/category/collections/siege-of-gondor/) [https://acoup.blog/category/collections/the-battle-of- helms-...](https://acoup.blog/category/collections/the-battle-of-helms-deep/)

<comment><USER3> I can second that, both the series on the siege of Minas Tirith and the series on the battle of Helm's Deep were outstanding, making great points by comparing book, movie, and historical precedent, to better understand all three.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if the lack of extraction will doom cryptocurrencies to not being suitable for the impoverished masses; without a government which needs the cryptocurrency to be used for taxation, it seems like coin usage would ebb and flow along with the tides of the market's capitalization.

<comment><USER4> Cryptocurrency is a form of money unlike any other. Just as the internet is a network unlike any other before it, native internet money simply has no parallels. Bitcoin is related to gold in that it is attempting to be a global store of value separated from governments. But other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum have elements of commodities, energy (ETH is similar to oil in that you need it to run operations on the network), equities, interest bearing assets, among others. It's all of these at once. No government or regulator sets arbitrary fences around what an asset can be, as it's just software.

I think the biggest misconception of blockchain is that it's "worthless". The people who say this haven't given crypto a modicum of thought - they read some dingus' blog post and decided that was all there is to say. I truly think bitcoin / blockchain will be seen as one of the transformative technologies of the 21st century.

<comment><USER5> I has nothing to do with crypto tho. Whether a monetary instrument works and is adopted as a widespread medium of exchange depends on factors outside whether or not it's impossible to counterfeit or is deflationary or inflationary.

It's been 12 years of bitcoiners telling me any day now, it's going to overthrow the USD and Visa and Mastercard, and yet, no one's buying a Starbucks with BTC.

If you start out with your selling point as some kind of libertarian utopian currency free of regulation, you're going to miss the mark for the same reason that the internet, once seen as free of regulation, geography, and government (Remember, "The Cyberspace Declaration of Independence") is not only regulated now, but you have the public clamoring for more.

We have regulations because a majority of your neighbors want them. And if a majority of your neighbors want a regulated currency, they are not going to adopt yours if your selling point is no controls.

<comment><USER6> > We have regulations because a majority of your neighbors want them

A majority of my neighbors want the promised outcomes of the pitches for regulation given by politicians and big businessmen. If those outcomes can be provided more quickly by other means the regulations themselves become comparatively unpalatable. No one asked for cookie warning popups on every site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just like one can convert milk to cheese (easier to store, easier to transport) and grapes to wine or fruit to schnapps (same advantages), one can convert grain to alcohol.

late USSR "vodka economy" as seen from the US: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24176587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24176587)</comment>


How to get Apple/ATT to let our iPhone app run in the background like Loopt? - <AUTHOR>

We've written a proximity based application that uses no infrastructure (aka doesn't need GPS or AT&T 3G network).  We're working on the Android and Blackberry versions but would like to get the iPhone version running in the background.  Any ideas where to start and who's door to knock on to wedge this door open a bit further? <comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I wasn't able to get a trial account for the new Loopt App. I figured it was running a process/service in the background tossing up GPS points every now and then. So, the new Loopt still doesn't really run in the backgroun huh...

Anyone think it will ever happen? Our app uses only Bluetooth or WIFI.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> @brandoniles Isn't the iPhone the only smartphone that doesn't allow this currently? Wondering if the upcoming tablets/slates will put pressure on Apple as well to let background processes run.

<comment><USER2> You can run background processes on both Blackberry and Android. Apple's taken a hard line so far, except for apps they've written themselves. For example, you can run the iPod app in the background and surf the web.

As for the rumored slate... who knows at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Loopt doesn't run in the background on the iPhone like you would think. It actually runs on servers at ATT pulling already available GPS data on your cellphone's location from the towers.

<comment><USER4> After lots of work, apparently--up to "six or seven" partner companies in the network infrastructure. All this engineering tinkering has resulted in an always-on Loopt iPhone app that runs in the background on the network rather than the phone. Presumably this has a knock-on effect on the precision with which one can be located (the background Loopt app isn't accessing the iPhone's GPS to find out where you are, and it's most-likely using cell-tower triangulation methods, much as Assisted-GPS units do to boost their location- sensing powers).

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Now that Android is picking up market share, what do people think the chances of Apple adding background abilities are?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> yeah matty 22, you're right: <https://loopt.com/loopt/background/>

Anyone know of an official explanation from Apple they don't allow third party background apps?

<comment><USER3> Well I think it's mainly a hardware limitation. I still get kicked out of apps from time to time due to low memory. This is probably due to errors on the programmers side. However if this happens with a single program running, you can imagine what would happen if other programs get memory hungry. It raises a lot of questions, what is acceptable amount of memory to use in the background? Which program does the OS terminate first? Save state when I'm told to go away?

I think Android has handled a lot of these questions very well. We'll see how Apple handles it in the future, but I don't see background processes being compatible with older models of the iPhone.</comment></comment>


Wanted: C++ Hacker to Design Petabyte System to Map the Human Connectome @ MIT - <AUTHOR> http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/sof/2243837499.html?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a cool gig! It's mapping the brain's connectome -- similar to mapping the human genome (see Sebastian Seung's talk "I Am My Connectome" - <http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sebastian_seung.html>).</comment>


Snapchat Employees Abused Data Access to Spy on Users - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnva7/snapchat-employees-abused-data-access-spy-on-users-snaplion <comment><USER2> I understand that centralized systems are much more efficient than P2P when it comes to high bandwidth communication. But as of today, it would be possible to create a completely decentralized Snapchat (signed ephemeral videos that are shared between two parties). The routing would be the only non-trivial component of this, but it could be solved with a DHT. Why do we continue to trade convenience for privacy? Such a solution would protect from most third parties, including government requests.

As someone without much knowledge of implementing decentralized communication, am I missing some knowledge, or is it solely lack of interest?

<comment><USER3> What happens when one peer doesn't have internet access for a moment and a snapchat is delivered at that moment? How do you build "retries" into a decentralized infrastructure? If no server is storing the content, couldn't someone fill up my phone storage simply by sending me videos repeatedly? The infrastructure forces my phone to instantly download the content, because no one is paying for storage of it before it gets routed to me right?

These are genuine questions because I don't understand everything either

<comment><USER4> It wouldn't make sense for your phone to be part of a P2P network. It's only connected to your radio tower, and not really anything else.

Also, you could define a maximum file limit size, and at that point your phone would be considered backed up, and then if no other route is found, the transfer is cancelled after a certain timeout.

<comment><USER5> >It wouldn't make sense for your phone to be part of a P2P network. It's only connected to your radio tower, and not really anything else.

That is only a software bug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've heard early (~2008) Facebook employees bragging about this type of thing. They used to specifically look at who was looking at other people's pages (aka "stalking" them). They were absolutely doing this for purely personal reasons and thought it was cool enough to brag about it at parties.

</comment><comment><USER7> What is always strange is how everyone expects the default is this Not happening. People are often bored and nosy and if given the opportunity, they will spy on each other. All primates do this.

<comment><USER8> well… clearly employees Should Not do this.

Here's what you aren't seeing, if I may: Consumers see the end product. They intuit rules based on what they see. _I only see pictures and videos sent to me, and then they are gone._ From this their mental model becomes _No one can see media that is not sent to them, and the media is gone after it has been seen._ This is strikingly different from the way a developer at Snapchat models the world: _We run a big warehouse full of data and media. We present this media to users based on logic that prevents arbitrary non-admin users from seeing others ' content and from experiencing that content repeatedly. Oh, and we should eventually get around to writing that cronjob to delete old media. And once we rule the world, we can spend time playing with end-to-end encryption, maybe._

People aren't stupid (mostly). They are just ignorant (in the literal sense). They are extrapolating in a way that makes sense in a physical world but not in the digital world.

The clearest analogy is that of actual dice vs. video gambling or the virtual spinner in a free-to-play game. With actual dice, what you see is what you get: fair odds. But that virtual wheel is 'weighted' to end on the worthless prize right after the jackpot space nearly every time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> yet again the excuse is made, in defense of abusing data access privileges, that ... "logging isn't perfect"

</comment><comment><USER10> Just a few days ago, I read about how Facebook fired employees who were using internal data to stalk women. I am going to assume this is the case for all social media:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjp9zv/facebook- employees...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjp9zv/facebook-employees- look-at-user-data)

</comment><comment><USER11> Complying with legal requests, fighting child pornography is not optional. Unless you are of course Mastodon etc.

I don't understand the article it quotes unnamed "former" employees who might very well could have been the ones who got fired for improper access.

<comment><USER12> Can you explain your statement about Mastodon? I'm out of the loop on that one

<comment><USER8> i think the implication is that a platform need not police its content if it is truly p2p and not actually storing or responsible for the content on it. with mastodon, the company is not running the servers people connect to in order to use mastodon, iirc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Of course they did.

</comment><comment><USER14> Really shocked by the allegations. Has any unethical behavior like this ever happened in a Silicon Valley startup before? Would there have been any way to see this coming?

<comment> X-Istence This post really needs a /s on it for full effect.

<comment><USER15> I think without an /s it acts as a great sieve, sorting between the idealists and the cynics. Personally, I got the satire right away (cynic).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think Hacker News should start displaying "(duh)" at the end of headlines about things that should have been obvious, or which could safely be presumed in lieu of evidence to the contrary.</comment>


What to Expect When You're Expecting a Baby Grown in an Artificial Womb - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3dda7/what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting-a-baby-grown-in-an-artificial-womb <comment><USER2> This is a puff piece for a very short story published the day before on the same website.

Also I've noticed a trend amongst female American authors to use profanity in a way that I haven't observed elsewhere. Is this an attempt to look tough in a macho culture?</comment>


The Ramanujan Machine: Using algorithms to discover new mathematics - <AUTHOR> http://www.ramanujanmachine.com/ <comment><USER2> Seems slightly less rich than Doug Lenat's Automated Mathematician (which in turn led to Eurisko which was one of the earliest genuinely interesting AI systems):

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

<comment><USER3> The story of Eurisko doesn't add up. So advanced for its time, not replicated for 30 years (or at all) and Lenat lost the source code and was not interested in doing anything similar again, with the next version (Cyc, IIRC) not getting anywhere close?

I would guess there was a lot more manual handholding that was not documented.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I mostly agree here. But even with that manual handholding, it's no different from current, mostly-supervised AI approaches. Even if you think of Eurisko as a very clever optimiser when posed problems in a certain way, it clearly delivered some interesting results. Also, you _can_ find the source code for large parts of Eurisko if you look hard enough, I believe.

Cyc never seemed in the least bit interesting to me, tbh. Even today several "we taught our AI common sense!" articles have hit HN, and it's still not _really_ true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, the continuous fraction for e is pretty well known. Doubt they discovered anything new here that can't be obtained from the original formula. On the other hand, the continuous fraction for pi is irregular, so it's interesting to see what they discovered... but I can't really find any pattern in the "conjectures" for pi. Take the first one:

pi/−4 = 1/(−1 + 1/(−4 + −2 /(−7 + −9/(−10 + −20/(−13+...))))

What exactly am supposed to prove here? The denominators are an arithmetic progression but numerators (1, 1, -2, -9, -20, ...) are just some bizarre sequence without an obvious pattern. The thing with continous fractions is that every number has one, so the fact that pi is presented as continous fraction is not impressive in itself.

<comment><USER5> All their conjectures have low-degree polynomial formulae for both numerators and denominators, with exceptions allowed in the first couple. So I guess the nth numerator, counting from 0, is -n(2n-3) which goes 0, 1, -2, -9, -20, ..., so n=0 is a special case.

It would seem more natural to rewrite it like this

-4/pi = −1 + 1/(−4 + −2 /(−7 + −9/(−10 + −20/(−13+...))))

which avoids the gratuitously different first numerator -- but I guess they wanted to reproduce results exactly as they happened to emerge from their program.

I think this is, further, equivalent to the following which avoids some gratuitous-looking minus signs:

4/pi = 1 + 1/(4 + −2 /(7 + −9/(10 + −20/(13+...))))

Continuing the fraction using the quadratic polynomial I gave above does indeed seem to make it converge to 4/pi, though not very quickly.

<comment><USER5> I wonder whether this one might be equivalent to a known infinite _product_ for pi or pi/4 or something. The ratios between successive convergents are all of the form (a_n+k_n)/a_n where k_n is 1, 1, 3, 3, 15, 15, 105, 105, 315, 315, ... -- i.e., the least common multiples of odd numbers up to n. [EDITED to add:] This should make you think of the Wallis product formula for pi/4, though this doesn't seem to be the Wallis product in disguise.

Clearly these k_n divide n!, so maybe the right way to say this is that the conjecture seems to be equivalent to 4/pi = product (a_n+n!)/a_n where (a_n) = (4,130,2464,45448,882528,18410640,...) ... though I don't know what that sequence _is_, haven't shown that it has a nice form, etc. None of (a_n), (a_n+n!), (a_n+n!/2) seems to occur in OEIS or to be a subsequence of anything in OEIS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems aptly named because Ramanujan also dealt with infinite series. One of his most famous equations is the ramanujan summation [1] where he derives that the sum of infinite series 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = - 1 / 12

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_summation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_summation)

<comment><USER7> I still don't understand why this derivation is such an achievement.

If anything, it seems like dirty hacking, but this time done by a mathematician.

<comment><USER6> I read somewhere that the result is confirmed in applied physics where it somehow relates to the casimir force, but I'm not a physicist.

<comment><USER8> It's a theorem of analytic number theory. It's just a special value of the ζ-function. People misunderstand how analytic continuation works and therefore (wrongly) interpret ζ(-1) as the divergent series 1+2+3+... (The correct interpretation is as the unique analytic continuation of the holomorphic function $\sum_{n\geq 1}\frac{1}{n^s}$ defined on the half-plane $\Re(s)>1$ to $\mathbb{C}\setminus\\{1\\}$.)

It's actually a pretty simple consequence of the functional equation for ζ and a few special values of Γ. That in turn comes from a theta-function identity which can be proven using Poisson's summation formula.

What I'm trying to say is that it's legit maths, that has been distorted due to the shock value of writing the equation "1+2+3+... = -1/12".

If you're looking for a reference, go to Davenport's "Multiplicative Number Theory". It's short, self-contained, and extremely well-written. Serre's "A Course in Arithmetic" should also work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if it somehow can be integrated with Coq[1] and Univalent Foundations[2]. Probably these can be used as a more substantial "base" for this machine.

[1] [https://github.com/coq/coq](https://github.com/coq/coq)

[2] [https://github.com/UniMath](https://github.com/UniMath)

</comment><comment><USER10> Why on earth did they not call it the Ramanutron??

<comment><USER11> Possibly because that only really works if you know the correct stress pattern of "Ramanujan". Americans, at least, are likely to want to stress it on the "nu".

<comment><USER12> Didn't Good Will Hunting teach the proper pronunciation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Related: Robert Munafo's RIES [1] tries to synthesize increasingly complex formula which solution is a given number.

[1] [https://mrob.com/pub/ries/](https://mrob.com/pub/ries/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I was pondering a few weeks back about the prospects of using ML/AI to find new ways to factor primes and if their is any sequence in primes and how to calculate them in a way that you input N and it will produce the Nth prime.

That would be something.

<comment><USER15> Can primes be estimated?

<comment><USER16> Through my genius I've come to the conclusion that primes are related to entropy. There is no hope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "New mathematics" is a bit of an overstatement. There is a lot more to maths than continued fractions.

It bugs me a bit that the authors write (I would love for anyone affiliated with the project to talk to me about this) "Any new conjecture, proof, or algorithm suggested will be named after you.". No offense, but there are very few mathematicians out there with that kind of a world view.

Seems a bit like a high school project without proper guidance from a mathematician.</comment>


Longest and Shortest Type Name in .NET 4.0 using LINQ - <AUTHOR> http://www.dotnetcurry.com/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=535

<comment><USER2> It would be pretty cool to try to instantiate each one, and then do a sizeof(instance) on it to see how large the memory footprint is.

<comment><USER3> If you only want the size of the object itself -- not the things it references -- then you don't actually need to instantiate them to know this. You can reflect on the fields of the type and calculate its memory footprint that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love F#.

Same code in F# (one line, of course!)

      let currentNetTypes = System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies() |>
          Seq.filter(fun x->x.FullName.Contains("Version=18.104.22.168")) |>
          Seq.map(fun x->x.GetExportedTypes()) |> Seq.concat |>
          Seq.sortBy(fun x->x.Name.Length);;

To me this reads easier, but I admit to a biased opinion :)

<comment><USER5> The only thing I'm not overly fond of is the repeated "fun x -> x". It'd be nice if there was a way to refer to members without an instance reference. So you could write:

      Seq.map ($GetExportedTypes()) |> Seq.sortBy $x.Name.Length

Where $ is some special syntax to indicate "generate a function that uses its parameter as the this parameter for the instance call". I think this has been brought up but perhaps a nice syntax hasn't been found?

<comment><USER3> In Nemerle (another ML dialect for .NET), you can use _ to that end. Syntax for local functions/lambdas, all equivalent (but suited for different situations, syntactically speaking):

      def foo(x) { x + 5 }
      fun(x) { x + 5}
      (x) => x + 5
      lambda x -> x + 5
      _ + 5

I find I miss the _ syntax more than most syntactical sugar. I don't know how often I have to write things like _lambda x: x.foo_ in Python, where __.foo_ would serve the same purpose.</comment></comment></comment>


Australian College Students Build A Digital Stethoscope To Fight Pneumonia - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/stehoclou/

<comment><USER2> As the founder of StethoCloud, whilst our primary focus in the Imagine Cup, I'd also like to articulate that our other major focus is on the diagnosis and monitoring of asthma in children under the age of 5.

We see this as a huge market to expand mHealth into.</comment>


How can I market my SaaS product to founders? - <AUTHOR> I have an online equity calculator tool for the founders of early-stage, bootstrapped companies. What are some good ways to target this audience? <comment><USER2> Product Hunt? Medium?</comment>


Show HN: Pt, an experiment on visual forms - <AUTHOR> http://williamngan.github.io/pt/

<comment><USER2> I enjoyed the demos - I'm not exactly sure why, but I guess it felt like I was making a lot happen when really I was just moving the mouse around.

I think that, when you step back from programming in text, and think of it as 'creating ideas' you realise that we've barely scratched the surface. Often when I solve problems in my head it's a mix of visual/verbal thoughts with past memories thrown in too. Your demos show that visualization is a powerful tool, but how do you make it useful?

Being able to see the world and visualise is like the base code for being a human, but computers are all math and text. Bringing visualization to programming is surely the next step. Already the cogs are turning to try and bring realtime REPLs to IDEs (such as light table, and visual studio code online) in order to see data as you code. I imagine from here the next step would to be able to visualise that data beyond text, and be able to edit the visualization and see the code change as a result.

<comment><AUTHOR> You described the problem very well. When I thought of an idea, it's indeed visual/verbal with memories thrown in. Then when I sit down to code, I have to worry about putting curly braces in the correct places before anything else.

Though I'm not sure if a "visual" IDE will solve this. To me, it's more about a language that can express thoughts with clarity and directness, and also about a kind of literacy in code as poets would have with words and meters.

Sometimes I kept thinking about those stone axes and clay tablets and scribbles on bones, and how, in a couple thousand years, they evolved into lolcats. Given this explosion of technology, what sort of new expressions in code will we see in 10-20 years? It's fascinating to think about.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a side project I've been working on for a couple years (when not playing video games :P). I hope you'll give it a try, and I would appreciate your feedbacks. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice looking demos, very easy on eyes. The "triangle.oppositeSide" is already half way to a puzzle game.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand it, but it is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER5> it looks cool! can you make it like an embeddable widget?</comment>


As Cognition Slips, Financial Skills Are Often the First to Go - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/your-money/as-cognitivity-slips-financial-skills-are-often-the-first-to-go.html?src=me&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article

<comment><USER2> To be honest, counting down from 100 by subtracting 7 every time is not easy for me. Am I the only one here?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, and it's also something that most people have probably never tried to do before in their entire lives. It strikes me as an odd choice to test for dementia.

<comment><USER4> No, the fact that people haven't done it before is exactly _why_ it's a good test. Many people have memorized things like count up by 3, 5, etc. so they're not good tests of cognition.

The point isn't to do it fast. It's to do it at all.

Another test for dementia is to draw an old-school analog clock with a specific time on it. Being unable to draw the time, or even _the clock_ (it will look like Salvador Dali) is a sign something is wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No, you are not.

        seq 100 -7 0
        ruby -e '100.step(0,-7) {|n| puts n}'
        python -c 'print [x for x in xrange(100,0,-7)]'

Humans should think; machines should work.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. Never send a human to do a machines job. It may just be a cheap quote from a scify movie, but it is also one of the design principles I use at work.

<comment><USER7> Never underestimate a humans ability to do a complex job on the spot after 2 minutes of explanation. Even if it were easy to automatize.

<comment><USER8> Also don't underestimate the number of the jobs that need automation ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment>