Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998) - <AUTHOR> https://norvig.com/21-days.html <comment><USER2> What happens after 10 years?

I have been a software developer for more than 25 years. It is getting boring. Any "new" problem is just the same old problem with a new layer of abstraction. Look at this new language/framework that is so great! You could do all that with the previous language if you cared enough to learn it.

Anyone has experienced the same frustration?

I now use my spare time to learn to draw. I found it way more exciting and I see a challenge that I do not find in coding anymore.

<comment><USER3> But software has changed drastically in 25 years.

Rise of the internet, totally new app platforms (browsers), x64, ARM, smartphones, open gl, neural networks, development of increasingly sophisticated timing and side channel attacks, and on and on. I feel like you could pick any sub field of programming and find any number of revolutions in the last 25 years.

You say it's all just new abstractions, but don't you feel they bring some benefits and allow for new challenges?

Take computer graphics for example. There is so much more abstraction than there was 25 years ago, but go pick up any modern AAA video game and you can tell there is also so much more depth than we used to have. No?

But I haven't been programming 25 years, so maybe my opinions will change.

<comment><USER2> > smartphones

I will take this as an example. I was developing in 80386 machines. When smartphones appeared and people said that "this is different because you have limited resources compared with a desktop machine", I just thought "it is new for you, not for me". I said nothing because they are right. It was new to them. I was happy to share an environment with people excited with "a new challenge".

> there is also so much more depth than we used to have. No?

Most intelligent behaviour in games is based on agents and finite state machines. With more states than ever, with higher polygon count, but it is the same that you had 20 years ago. The results are way more impressive because the hardware is faster and there is way more memory. But, the algorithms are the same.

Look for A* search algorithm or Dijkstra's algorithm. Been there for a while. Graph theory is still a building block for most things that look intelligent.

<comment><USER4> Dude, you can strap your smartphone to a quadcopter and you have a flying 20-megapixel 60 fps camera with a multi-megabit internet connection. You can do real-time control of the flight. That's something you couldn't do with a 386, not unless you had a Predator to put it in.

And there's a whole category of new challenges not because of _limited_ resources but because of _abundant_ resources. Your photogrammetry drone can generate 72 gigapixels per minute of photogrammetry data. You have 200 teraflops on your desktop. How good of a 3-D model can you make? With how little human effort?

How about making things simpler and more flexible? Old GUI toolkits were designed around the need for 2-D raster operations to be hardware-accelerated. Are there simpler designs possible now that that's no longer a constraint? I'm exploring this in BubbleOS.

Sure, lots of game AIs are finite state machines. So in lots of games there's no challenge unless the NPCs gang up on you. But AlphaGo is also a game AI. It's a bit more sophisticated than an A* search! What would a game look like where you worked on a team with such AIs?

Smartphones also have multitouch. Yet >90% of people's interaction on them is using an on-screen keyboard, one-finger scrolling of lists, and tapping on prepackaged options. Can we do better? Are there UI paradigms that multitouch enables that would allow more creativity, despite the horrifying levels of lag in existing systems?

Security is a big problem, and most of the world is wasting their time on approaches like virus-scanners that can't work even in theory. But then there's seL4. What would a personal computer based on seL4 look like? How could we translate the guarantees it provides into practically useful power in the hands of everyday people?

Can you do voice recognition on every FM and AM radio channel in your area at once? What's the minimum hardware you'd need to do it?

There's _lots_ of interesting challenges out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16574248](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16574248)

2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9395284](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9395284)

2013: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5519158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5519158)

2012: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3439772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3439772)

2010: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060176](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060176)

2008: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191235](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191235)

2007: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243)

<comment><USER6> It's quite interesting to see the evolution of discourse over time on HN. I had been assuming that HN hit its peak in 2007 and it was all downhill after that, but actually the quality of comments seems to increase year by year.

<comment><USER7> > I had been assuming that HN hit its peak in 2007 and it was all downhill > after that

I'm not sure why anybody thinks this way. HN is still one of the best places I know to see rational discussion of interesting topics, and a plethora of resources on all kinds of things. If I want to learn about something programming related, one of the first places I go to is HN. There's such a diversity of opinions and such a wide base of knowledge to draw on, it's incredible. Add to that, there's nearly no trolling or flame wars, no off- topic memes, no effortless jokes or puns (okay, _sometimes_ ). People largely stick to the HN guidelines and if they don't, they're usually called on it by others. It's not just great moderation, it's a certain amount of self- moderation that you don't see in most other communities (that I know of). It's _civilized_ , in a way that Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, etc. simply aren't and can't be.

<comment><USER8> It's a common cognitive bias to look at the past with higher regard than the future: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declinism)

I totally agree with you - compared to other online forums it's surprised me how well HN has kept things civil while growing tremendously. The comment section on HN often have the actual makers and inventors of technology/research and sometimes are better content than the actual links being posted.

<comment><USER7> > actual makers and inventors of technology/research and sometimes are better > content than the actual links being posted

Yes! I'm humbled every day by the people on HN, and it's one of the things that keeps me coming back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Get interested in programming, and do some because it is fun. Make sure that it keeps being enough fun so that you will be willing to put in your ten years/10,000 hours."

This is a great definition of talent.

<comment><USER10> A friend of mine is a music producer and became an 'overnight success' when he handed a song to a DJ at an LA club and got signed and almost instantly was touring the world. I got to hang out after gigs while all these other big name djs were calling him a genius. The thing is he had been a bedroom producer and small time DJ for almost 15 years, though since he was 15 years old. I heard his songs even 5 years before he got signed and they were good, but not even close to the level he is now. He wasn't a genius. It was a lot of hard work and persistence.

<comment><USER11> What makes you think that genius exists and it is actually different from what your friend did/had?

<comment><USER10> I don't think genius exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You don't need to spend 10 years to become a fantastic programmer. Many people are clueless when it comes to how to learn things (this is why the question "how do I learn X" is so popular even when it has been answered many times before).

Quickly identify the best resources to begin with for whatever topic, which is very easy to do, and work through them. This will get you much more value per time spent than opting for the easier "get rich quick option". For the C++ example, this is the difference between the learning C++ in 24 hours book, and The C++ Programming Language.

I think someone dedicated and mildly intelligent could become very good at programming within two to three years, and outdo the vast majority of programmers with 10+ years of experience.

It's not a bad thing to want to go fast, which is why I disagree with the premise of the article. Just make sure you go as fast as possible _without_ sacrificing quality of learning.

</comment><comment><USER13> Amature hobby programmer here . . . yeah Im not going to do what the author suggested. I have no plans on working in the field. I dont care about functional programming or abstraction. I just see a task or project I think will be cool, google what language or framework best fits my goal and learn just enough to do that while using stacks and tutorials for those frequent times when I get stuck. Yes its slow but I dont care Im not on a deadline. I don't want to learn programming, I just recognize that it lets me do neat things and want to lean just enough to do whatever neat thing I have in mind. Its not about learning to program for me, and I assume for people like me. Its about wanting to accomplish a task and seeing programming as a necessay setp in accomplishing that task.

<comment><USER14> I'm curious what kinds of tasks and projects do you usually find yourself working on. Are they short term, long term, big/small, ...?

<comment><USER13> I built my small biz website using django and a previous one ib php. Currently Im rebuilding in amp. I built a python webscraper to get names of competitors and another python program that calulated serverance pay entitlement.

Short term small projects but it might be interesting to try a long term one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't understand. Nowhere in there did I see anything about the job interviews/hazing of his own company, and companies that mimic it.

(Which decidedly don't test for that 10 years of experience, but rather test for who spent their time reading the coding interview prep books, drilling for the 'coding' test questions, formulating acceptable personal answers for what the books coached on behavioral questions, and wearing kneepads.)

</comment><comment><USER16> Ten years sounds about right. The bootcamp fad seems to have faded but anyone thinking about joining one should take this article to heart and think twice about it. Even learning programming in high school / university is not much more than groundwork.

</comment><comment><USER17> This isn't really from 1998 is it? The references (golang, gladwell) are definitely more modern - unless he did a substantial revision.

<comment><USER18> The Amazon link searches for books written after the year 2000, and the copyright at the bottom is 2001-2014.

Also, Outliers came out in 2008.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Teaching yourself to program as a self fulfilling exercise isn't a bad idea. (remember that this sort of programming is generally more isolating than many other hobbies.)

If you're trying to get hired as programmer then don't bother, literally the only thing most companies (at least in the US) care about is whether or not you have a degree (it doesn't matter what the line employees think, HR will step in and stop things.)

<comment><USER20> Re: a degree - this is not my experience. I used to feel that way, but around 2013 my perspective changed. I don't have a degree; I went to college after high school and failed miserably my first semester due to a plethora of personal issues, chief among them being undiagnosed chronic depression. I was pursuing a Bachelor's through WGU from 2012-2013 when I jumped ship from an establish "enterprise" company to a startup, and from that point forward I don't feel like anyone really cares whether I have a degree or not.

I see startups as my niche. My sweet spot for potential employers is a startup that has been in business for 1-3 years and is either profitable or obviously well along the path there. I like to jump into existing codebases with technical debt and spend my time working toward making them more flexible. I like to understand new business processes and use that understanding to avoid a project getting painted into a corner by the logic crystallizing into an immutable black box that everyone is afraid to touch because it's essential and the people who originally wrote it are no longer on the team.

<comment><USER19> I've finished a BSCS sans one class and have had internships and knew people at a startup that was looking for people (and having a hard time finding them) with exactly the skill set I had. They still refused to consider me. My friends there said it was because I didn't have a degree. There are exceptions to this but the way companies treat you with and without a degree are totally different, most of them really don't care about anything else.</comment></comment></comment>


Writing a DSL with Groovy - <AUTHOR> http://szimano.org/writing-a-dsl-with-groovy/

<comment><USER2> > Closure is just a piece of code you can pass and later execute. Some say we > will have those in Java in 2128 with the release of Java 37.

Java 8 brought "lambdas", which behave similarly to Groovy's closures, though without the legacy inconsistencies. Have you read Jeremy Rayner's account of how closures came to be in Groovy at [http://www.javanicus.com/blog2/items/191-index.html](http://www.javanicus.com/blog2/items/191-index.html) ? I also did a writeup on that incident at [http://groovy.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Blog02#15](http://groovy.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Blog02#15) .

</comment><comment><USER3> And where is the DSL? Because what's in the article is merely an interface to a module.</comment>


Google (translate) is stupid - NOT - <AUTHOR> http://translate.google.com/#de|en|google ist doof

<comment><USER2> Spanish is fine:

<http://translate.google.com/#es|en|google%20es%20estupido>

[http://translate.google.com/#es|en|google%20es%20un%20estupi...](http://translate.google.com/#es|en|google%20es%20un%20estupido)

(the former translates to correct english, the latter is correct spanish)

</comment><comment><USER3> In case one is unaware, google's translation service is built upon 'high grade' translations - originally from UN translation logs. So, if you actually get a few hundred sites to provide incorrect translations for a specific phrase, you could theoretically game google translate in this manner.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've seen other examples of obviously wrong translations a machine wouldn't come up with -- there must be a feedback mechanism somewhere that people (non- employees) can provide a translation, and some people abusing it.

<comment><USER5> I thought this was widely known but when you hover over translated text, whether this is on the Google Translate page, or at a translated site, you get the option to correct the translated text if you want.

I don't know if this has always been the case, but I'm pretty sure it's been around for a few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> But naive...

[http://translate.google.com/#de%7Cen%7Cgoogle%20ist%20wirkli...](http://translate.google.com/#de%7Cen%7Cgoogle%20ist%20wirklich%20doof)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For you non-German speakers out there "google ist doof" actually says that Google IS stupid. It doesn't happen with a capital G, though.

<comment><USER7> If you go the opposite direction (English -> German), the translation doesn't exhibit the negation that the German -> English translation does.

<http://translate.google.com/#en|de|google%20is%20stupid%0A>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> French has the same error, "Google n'est pas stupide".

Funny: "ist doof" translates to english as "sucks", not "is stupid".</comment>


Ask HN: What percentage of a software company's revenue should go to salaries? - <AUTHOR> Any example payment structures would be appreciated ie. 10% marketing, 25% salaries, etc (just an example) <comment><USER2> It depends. Because software has so little capital costs and some marketing is free or cheap because of internet, most of the cost is labor.

</comment><comment><USER3> gun to my head: 40%</comment>


Curry flavored promises - <AUTHOR> http://lhorie.github.io/mithril-blog/curry-flavored-promises.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi author here.

Thanks for the feedback! Just wanted to clarify some points:

I should probably have noted that the usage of console.log is illustrative and is typically only used for debugging (the idea being that console.log could be used in Firefox, or you could wrap it in a log helper function, or use alert or whatever).

Typically, in a Mithril app, you'd either assign the promise to a variable or bind to an m.prop at the end of the chain, as per the docs on web services ( [http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/web- services.html](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/web-services.html) )

Regarding console.log returning undefined: Mithril does deviate from A+ promises (again, as per the docs - [http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/mithril.deferred.html](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/mithril.deferred.html) ). The reason for the spec deviation is precisely to allow the use case of mixing procedural impurity into a chain (whereas the undefined case covered by the spec isn't really useful, given that undefined is the lack of a value, as opposed to null, which is a value with no meaning).

@anaphor: huh, reading about currying again, you're right. Little misunderstanding on my part. Sorry about that.

<comment><USER2> That's okay, I've seen people with PhDs confuse them before, it's a common mistake, and currying gets you partial application "for free". Good article nevertheless!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> >Currying is a functional programming technique that lets us pre-define arguments in a function

No it isn't, that's partial application. Currying is (lambda (a b c) ...) => (lambda (a) (lambda (b) (lambda (c) ...))) generalized to any number of parameters.

</comment><comment><USER3>
        //here's an AJAX request and a chain of promises
        m.request({method: "GET", url: "/api/projects"})
            .then(console.log) // log all projects
            .then(pastItems) // filter past projects
            .then(console.log) // log past projects only

The calls to console.log will not work.

You need to do this:

        .then(function() { console.log(arguments); })

Or this:

        .then(console.log.bind(console))

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the example couldn't work. Also, isn't this an example of partial application, not currying?

<comment><USER5> Yup.

<comment><USER6> Funny this mistake rarely goes the other direction. Probably because 'curry' is a fin word.

I propose 'parry' for "partial application", to satisfy the punsters without compromising accuracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do these promises work differently from most other implementations? Just sticking a `.then(console.log)` seems like it would yield `undefined` to the next function in the promise chain, no?

<comment><USER8> Maybe the code was untested or only tested in firefox or node, where `console.log` is bound (which is sane default for singletons if you ask me)

<comment><USER9> It's true that console.log is bound in FF and Node but that s not the issue here. Passing console.log to then will cause the next handler to receive the return value of the console.log call, i.e. undefined.

<comment><USER8> In mithril promises if you return undefined from then, the promise will fulfill with the previous value, I.E. it behaves like .tap in other promise libraries (because doing this in a .then like mithril does violates the spec - which is evidently surprising)

However, with unbound console.log the code doesn't work at all, this is the case in Chrome for example.

<comment><USER9> The breaks from A+ are pretty serious, both the treatment of undefined and releasing zalgo ([http://blog.izs.me/post/59142742143/designing-apis-for- async...](http://blog.izs.me/post/59142742143/designing-apis-for-asynchrony)) and calling it a feature. Not on the hunt for a client side micro-framework but since I use a lot of modules that supply promises there's no way I'd use this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> total_sum = total.curry

sum_of_cubes = total_sum.(lambda { |x| x^3} )

sum_of_cubes.(1,2)

In ruby way</comment>


Ask HN: Should we send an e-mail for registered interest. - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I'm working on a new startup and have put up a splash page for people to leave their e-mail addresses.  We have purposefully not chosen to send them an e-mail when they add their details and instead a message pops up saying thanks and we'll be in touch soon etc.
This is because there isn't a lot to say as yet, it really is very early days and we don't want to a)annoy people with email and b)give any specific details on the product.
Someone who recently registered asked 'why did I not receive an e-mail after registering?' - which got me thinking... do people expect an e-mail when they register and should we maybe send one.
What do you think? <comment><USER2> If you don't, then people who mis-typed their address won't know. If your splash says "We've sent an email to confirm your registration - feel free to ignore it" then it gives people a chance to say "Woah - I didn't get a confirmation."

Assuming people care.</comment>


Ask HN: What subjects should be removed/replaced in school? With what? - <AUTHOR> Do you remember the order of the planets from the sun?  You were surely taught it right?  Why'd you forget?  Because you don't have a spaceship and will never miss your left turn at Mars. Hackernewsians probably break this example.  The things they've forgotten are far more exciting. Why not teach things things with more utility instead?  You still get all the side benefits of learning. For instance, how to be a good friend, how to give a good apology, how not to get scammed, how to invest in your future.  Heck, if you're going to force kids to be bad versions of wikipedia, and remember stupid lists of trivial knowledge, like the capitals of states, perhaps teach them mnemonic technique first.
Software is eating the world, teach it. Why/How to not max out your credit cards, so very many useful things are taught far too late or never at all. The concept that the parents are supposed to be the source of some of this information relies on parents being good at parenting…
Anyone can justify any education about anything. Which is why progress in this field is so slow. No one can actually win an argument with anyone about any taking any topic they care about off a curriculum, because every topic is passionate and useful to someone. So in a world where everything is super important to someone, you have to use a more advanced system of comparison. Like eliciting someone's values on a psychological evaluation.
Not exactly, but something like, would you rather lose your index finger or your big toe? Ok, would you rather lose your index finger or 3 toes? Ok, how about one eye or one hand. If you ask enough of these rather odd questions, you can actually result in a value in dollars per a body part. Like this: https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/workers-compensation-benefits-by-limb
It is the tragedy of the commons that no educator wants to pay the price of seeing their curriculum reduced or replaced with something better. For them better doesn't exist. <comment><USER2> A few changes I would do:

I'd drop a lot of the homework, possibly only introducing it at a high school level. I'd drop grades for young students - up to middle school - and adjust the grades for the upper levels so that an average mark - a C in the states - actually reflects the average levels.

See, I think when your average or goal is an A - perfect - it doesn't leave room for those that go above and beyond what is expected. It also makes it so that the struggling students are really, really far behind. I mean, think about it. A C student struggling and earning a D would get help, yet in the current system, they still get help at the D or F level, yet their peers are generally making A's or B's - so the difference is greater. I think we could make use of standardized testing better as well, with fewer and shorter tests.

I'd also do much more cross-learning. Want to teach kids to work in fractions? Teach them to cook, teach them to read music. Actually apply maths, including algebra and geometry, to real-life scenarios. History can be taught with literature - and science, and math. After all, many scientists were really given a hard time because of the politics of the day.

Above all, I think general skills should be the focus. Everyone should know how the justice system works in practice (not just theory). Folks should know how to get credit and keep it, how to file taxes, what taxes are used for, and so on.

We could also do Much better teaching about health. I had many classes going over basic anatomy and sex education, where they mostly told us that it could make a baby and we could get horrible diseases. Unfortunately, learning how to take care of your own body, what to do when you are sick and when to go to the doctor or ER aren't included. The same goes for learning about healthy relationships, signs of abuse (for both sexes!), and learning about the needs of children are absent and I generally think this sort of thing is a shame.

<comment><USER3> > Actually apply maths, including algebra and geometry, to real-life > scenarios.

I very much agree with this. Back when I was in high school we had some overlapping topics in Math and Physics. But in the Physics class we'd actually see things applied to the real world (e.g. a quadratic equation representing the trajectory of a cannon ball), and that made the stuff learned in Math a lot more interesting to me.

> Unfortunately, learning how to take care of your own body,

This should be fixed in PE. I only got interested in being active after I was already an adult (and a very sedentary one). For years I hated the thought of doing physical activity because I associated it with PE class and all the bullshit I had to endure (bullying and having no option but to play sports I didn't really like).

Would be nice if we were taught at school about body composition, nutrition, different results you can get from exercise (strength, hypertrophy, endurance, that kind of thing). PE is often instead a bunch of random stuff with no explanation of what results can be expected.

<comment><USER2> Oh, I completely agree with you.

I'd also extend PE so kids have it all through school - in high school, I only had 2 semesters over the years. 6 weeks of that was Ping Pong. Yes. Ping pong. Valid physical activity, sure, but I really don't need to know the rules. It would be more helpful to know how to build up a running habit and how to do resistence and flexibility training safely. It'd be helpful to know how to stay active without equipment - and in addition, how to use the equipment safely.

I generally seperate the nutrition into a health and life skills class, but they could be combined easily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I personally would love to see two things:

1\. School curriculum structured more like an RPG skill tree. The main point or advantage of this is that students can take any path they'd like to be "Level 12th Grade." Many schools let people into physics who don't know algebra. This, for example, would result not only in kids not learning physics, but also becoming less enamored with learning themselves due to the inevitable total failure they'll experience. .

Obviously, as a by-product of this we'd have to get rid of grades. Rather than grades you simply can take courses, and once the "cluster" of requirements are completed you'd be deemed to be "nth grade."

2\. School should ideally be intertwined with practicality. For at least K-12 I see little reason why everything can't have a more practical focus. This removal in abstraction will keep students engaged and make more clearly the point that everything they're learning is actually useful. With this being said, schools should actually emphasize teachers less. Kindergarteners/1st years and 12th grades/final years should be the only ones to be taught by teachers directly.

Ideally, everyone else would be taught by the year above them. Teachers would be present, but mainly to oversee curriculum development, and keep things on a higher level moving along. This has the nice advantage of making it so that in 2nd - 11th grade, student "teacher" (who's just another student) is 1:1. With this kind of attention most students on the cusp of learning will finally be able to get the individualized attention they need.

The main problem with this is if the students aren't smart or knowledgeable enough themselves to teach anyone else. This goes back to (1). Students should be ideally, excellent or out. The idea of passing grades is kind of silly. Passing should be excellence. I wonder why people think it's OK to just get by in school? Everyone is capable. School isn't [that] hard.

<comment><USER5> This resembles largely my experience at a Montessori school ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education)).

While there were "grades" (they had to to be compliant with the Mexican education system), grades were bundled into clusters, so a room would have grades 1-3, another 4-6.

For each room, there would be one teacher, whose main goal was to guide the students (in fact we called them "guides", not teachers).

Skills and knowledge were containerized and were part of a dependency tree. There were several different areas (biology, math, linguistics, etc) and in each you were expected to reach a certain level at the end of your 6th grade, but you were otherwise free to explore subjects at your own pace and in the direction of your preference.

This resulted in kids specializing in certain areas, a certain level of competition and pride in your expertise, and an early grasp of what you liked.

Overall, I think the result was very positive, and the most visible difference, at least when I left the Montessori school to a new traditional- style classroom, was that I felt that Montessori kids had a certain genuine love for learning and sharing knowledge, whereas most of my new peers felt that learning was a chore imposed on them. Obviously this is one anecdote, and would love to hear more cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The schools system most definitely has its issues as far as curriculum is concerned. However I think the problem is more in the way schools are structured than what they teach. Salman Khan has a great book about it.

Curriculum organization is one of his main points. An alternative to periods and subjects is a sort of freeform classroom with unpaced curriculum with several teachers circulating to help. This is supposed to avoid classes moving too quickly or too slowly and continually engage students.

<comment><USER7> I second that curriculum organization is terrible in most schools. This became obvious when I was working on a mobile game. It involved a wide range of subjects from (obviously) programming, geometry, algebra, logic, design, etc. I imagine that if students had a project they would touch on many different subjects. This would be a lot more effective than learning subjects in a silo with no understanding of practical application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would like to see History taught in reverse as they never seemed to reach modern day history.

A course on technology and ethics would be an interesting course to add.

<comment><USER2> "I would like to see History taught in reverse as they never seemed to reach modern day history"

This! It is hard to understand the world if you don't know what has led up to it. I'd even expand it. I think "older" history should be taught with thought about present-day context as well. Questions such as: Do you think there are modern-day consequences to the war of 1812? What do you think this book says about the political atmosphere at the time it was written? What world events do you think might have inspired this book?

Mostly, I got this view from my spouse. When he went to school, history and literature were combined into one subject. And I very much like the cross- subject learning like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> After half penning comments a few times, Im just going make a top level one. This post talks as if the study of pedagogy doesn't exist and, as someone pretty interested in the field, it just pains me. There's _a lot_ of progress in the field but to hear people in this tread talking about grading on a bell curve I can see why people outside of the education community might think there isn't (current [as in the past 50 years that's how behind you are] pedagogical theory focuses on the idea of mastery and building on compounding skills; there's no value in tuning a test to produce a Gaussian)[0]

All the OP's proposed suggestions can, and do, fit into a semester homeec course many highschoolers already take, so I just can't see the supposed failing. The reduction of a basic foundation of facts to "useless trivia" is the reason we can have white house offficals take to the news and say they have alternative (but somehow equally valid) facts. Without this foundation (of conveniently measurable skills and masteries, who do you even evaluate a "good apology") students are essentially cut off from a memetic ocean of shared knowledge. You cannot have a functioning democracy without a populace with basic literacy and numeracy as well as a shared body of facts that acts as the training set for all subsequent facts.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Look at a magazine stand, these are the things people actually care about. If you think of something people care about that isn't on the magazine stand, consider starting one and filling the niche.

Why is it that we would focus on all the things people do not actually care about, as opposed to the things they actually do? Let learning be a pull process, not a push process. You pull in the skills you need to do things well, you don't learn all the things you might need, only to discover you didn't need them.

Shoving information into peoples heads and hoping that it leads to utility somehow in the future is a long shot when compared to using utility itself to pull the required knowledge as needed, and you then have a 100 percent hit rate on the cache. You're never filling your cache up with junk.

Some exceptions to this exist, obviously, such as language, speech, writing, math up to algebra, some geometry, logic, ethics, hygiene, and success tactics such as delayed gratification, goal setting, teamwork, etc.

Those subjects have the largest amplification effect on other subjects. Some other subjects are better endpoints than starting points, and it would be great if the people that loved those subjects wouldn't try and pretend they were good amplification starting points.

The mastery learning you linked to seems to beat a dead horse? More profit can be had by giving up on some hard things and returning to them after you've tried learning things you weren't burnt out on yet. Some people will just always hate a certain subject. If you require 90 percent performance before you move on to the next thing, you lose the profit of task switching for freshness.

Also, this seems to unrelated to the point of better subjects. If teaching technology doubled in effectiveness overnight, you're still learning things you can't make money with and are unlikely to ever use, no matter how well you know it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You haven't yet convinced me that what you propose is "something better" than the educators' current curriculum. I know the education system is far from perfect, and obviously some schools are more effective than others, but I am open to hearing your ideas more fleshed out.

Once kids know the three R's then maybe you can introduce some of these other topics. Writing effectively is a job skill (and one that is lacking as anybody who hires and reads cover letters knows). Basic algebra is practically a prerequisite for programming. You mention learning how to "invest in your future" and that is was I think the standard curriculum aims to achieve.

I agree with you that the order of planets and capitals of states are not particularly useful knowledge by themselves. But in order to understand the what is going on in the world knowing geography is pretty important. If you work in any company of a certain size (whose business spans states or countries) then you should not have to refer to Wikipedia for context for every business decision.

It has been a while since I have been in school but I have managed to offend a few teachers since with my suggestion of getting computers out of the classrooms completely. This might have changed but when I was in school the students already knew more about computers than the teachers and the teachers could not effectively teach using tools (computers) they did not know.

</comment><comment><USER11> One small change I'd like is to teach a lot of math from a more numerical approach. Learning to approximate sines, cosines, limits, derivatives, and integrals in university made me feel much more confident in my understanding of the concepts. An advantage of this approach is it still gives STEM bound students a good intro to core math, but allows all students to learn a bit of programming. It also teaches how to implement something concrete from an abstract specification. I felt like a lot of high school math was very algorithmic, so why not just teach kids how to implement basic algorithms?

<comment><USER12> Are you taking about mental approximation or writing programs for approximation? Or did you switch between the two?

I'll say that knowing mental approximations for sines is a wonderful thing. And, come to think of it, writing something to do the same approximation as the calculator sounds good too. And then analyzing the error introduced by the two methods... So many fun tangents!

<comment><USER11> I guess I was trying to advocate for somewhat orthogonal ideas.

On the one hand, learning how to approximate functions with arbitrary precision definitely solidifies an understanding of what those functions are doing.

On the other hand high school math classes are often taught quite algorithmically. Therefore, rather than tests and problem sets, what if the student's chief deliverable was a small python package that performed the algorithms for that lesson? This has a really good advantage of teach basic life skills of turning a specification or intention into a physical product. It also does not significantly impair students that need a strong math background going forward. Finally, makes life a little easier for teachers because some of their grading work could be automated.

Now these two approaches could be applied independently, but I think they would work well together, particularly because the numerical approximation programs generalize a bit better than symbolic ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why are German and French taught in so many schools when their native speaker counts are so much lower than other languages? Are we going by economic importance? Then why isn't Mandarin just an assumed course at every high school? I know lots of schools are starting to pick up on this, but it seems like it still viewed as a special thing.

Kids should be far more computer literate than they are now. People understand basic biology, chemistry, etc, but almost no one I know outside of work could give you even a rough abstraction of how a computer works (except maybe the idea that there is "memory" and the "cpu" is the thing that does the work).

I could rant about this topic forever, the state of high school education in our country is absolutely atrocious. I learned way more from reading in high school than I did in class (save my Chemistry teacher who was awesome).

</comment><comment><USER14> What if the schools of the future are student-run?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > It is the tragedy of the commons that no educator wants to pay the price of > seeing their curriculum reduced or replaced with something better. For them > better doesn't exist.

I don't think this is correct. The issue is much more complicated. First, _education is not really a tragedy of the commons, more like a tragedy of the anticommons_ [1].

I agree there's a time constraint to a curriculum. But that little hiccup is trumped by education's private-public problem: the US compulsory education space involves the private interests of parents/students overlapping with the public interests of their state, overlapping the big interests of the federal government. Education doesn't operate like an under-regulated scarce resource being depleted, much worse than that, it's an over-regulated scarce resource where nothing useful can get accomplished or make real changes - a dark hole of the anticommons.

I also agree schools seriously need to add more practical subjects as well as life skills classes. With that said, every educator I see is not happy with the current curriculum and they usually have opinions on what to change first. Plus small shifts in curriculum have happened and are slowly spreading. There are states and public schools with software classes, health ed, workplace training etc... But fuck some states and school districts don't even want to teach science and want to keep teaching the Bible, to everyone, by law. The federal government had to step in a few times, but there are limits to what the fed can and should do.

I'm not exactly sure how the workers comp values you brought up tie in with your very good education question, but I do see how workers comp in each state deals with similar problem: Why is an index finger valued at different amounts in different states? And then why is an index finger valued the same for different people? Surely some people are going to lose much more in life earnings due to such an injury vs others people, so how can it be standardized or fair?

This is America. We have a Constitution. And have a social contract. And we have a population of all shapes, colors and sizes. A good education curriculum and system, determined by the government seems very difficult to implement and be compatible with the other structures here.

If I had to answer I would say students should be given much more freedom, at a much earlier age to focus on a subject they want plus more freedom to learn on their own and get credit. Besides that, add philosophy and computer science. Cut pure math after algebra, offer math in the context of the other sciences like physics and computers. Cut some of the pure literature, no more old English and Beowulf taught for weeks, maybe a single class, teach more literary non-fiction in English classes. Pray for the best ;)

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

<comment><AUTHOR> The workers comp example was to show that even very hard decisions can have numbers assigned to them for comparisons sake if you ask the right questions. Thus even if its hard to tell why goal setting is more valuable than calculating the volume of imaginary vases, it can be reasoned about.

Specialization is power. What profitable skill could students be learning that wouldn't have tons of side value? Creating, fixing, doing nearly anything that was worth paying for would pull the right skills into their brains and push out the useless ones.

If you need to learn to calculate the volume of a vase for an actual reason, with money on the line, you have a better chance of actually retaining the knowledge, and seeing the value in it. Autodidacts have a trick up their sleeve. Interest. Normal students can be interested as well, if they were learning things worth learning.</comment></comment>


Every. – Banking for online businesses - <AUTHOR> https://www.everyfinancial.com/ <comment><USER2> Hey! Thanks for posting. I'm Jeremy, one of the founders. We've been purposely quiet as we build out the core of the product. You can imagine the effort it takes to build out a secure and scalable infrastructure for a bank account. We've got a handful of customers testing the product now and plan to open it up to a wider beta in the Spring.</comment>


The Weaver, the Princess and Goldman Sachs  - <AUTHOR> http://in.news.yahoo.com/265/20100501/1705/top-the-weaver-the-princess-and-goldman_1.html <comment><USER2> Excellent story.

The world is full of wisdom in the form of myths and stories. Those who know how to learn from this immense repository of human experience are a step ahead of the rest.

<comment><USER3> Very true - and even more so if you're able to tell these stories in an engaging way to make a point. A good storyteller beats powerpoint any day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suspect that the show put on by Congress and Goldman Sachs will end up a wash for the banks and the people. No one will get punished and Congress will say, "See, even the worst of the bunch -- Goldman Sachs -- was within the law, so all the other banks must have been too."

At that point, all cases against the banks will be dropped and we will happily return to the status quo.

<comment><USER5> A large part of the "show" is to increase public support for financial reform.

<comment><USER6> Financial 'reform' _is_ the status quo:

 _> So Congress is in a lather working on a new set of regulations that will prevent problems like this from ever happening again. Really? Ask yourself these questions.

> Did the government sanctioned ratings agencies prevent the meltdown?

> Did the voluminous disclosure laws already on the books prevent the > meltdown?

> Did vigilant SEC inspectors prevent the meltdown?

> Did a well financed FDIC prevent the meltdown?

> Did Sarbanes Oxley laws prevent the meltdown?_

[http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/04/28/did_you_...](http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/04/28/did_you_hear_the_joke_about_goldman_sachs_98436.html) (GR BTW)

No matter how hard we try, we simply can't regulate greed (esp. not when the regulators are paid by the banks!). Plus, no one in Congress even understands finance!

<comment><USER7> The bank bailouts _could_ have come with regulatory measures attached. Was this an intentionally overlooked opportunity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting. Although how much of this debacle can we attribute to conscious thinking along the lines of "we know this is high risk - high reward stuff, but let us do it to a point till we are too big to fail"?

I am more inclined to think this is a structural phenomenon - something that occurred because the incentives available at each step along the way were structured in a manner that allowed this to snowball.

<comment><USER9> I think Goldman ignored the counterparty risk they had with AIG because they knew it was systematic, and that the government would bail AIG out and protect them.

I think that the stage for this collapse was set with the collapse of Long Term Capital. That's when all the banks learned that if the bets were big enough, they couldn't lose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reserving judgment about the other merits of this article - it's sad to witness again how simplistic, shallow generalizations are the norm when discussing financial matters:

"Another thing which is crucial to the financial services industry is the concept of being too big to fail, which has been put to good use by Citigroup, Bear Stearns, and Goldman Sachs over the past few years in sucking money from American taxpayers."

While this may be true in some sense for Citigroup, applying that to Bear Stearns is dubious, and it's plain wrong for Goldman Sachs. Banks like Goldman and JP Morgan Chase were basically forced to take TARP investments:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/uncovered-tarp-docs-reveal- ho...](http://www.businessinsider.com/uncovered-tarp-docs-reveal-how-paulson- forced-banks-to-take-the-cash-2009-5)

Several of those banks didn't need the forced investment, didn't want it, and thus strove to repay it as soon as possible:

[http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/27/news/economy/tarp_takeback/i...](http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/27/news/economy/tarp_takeback/index.htm)

Goldman in fact repaid the investment in full on June of last year, with a hefty 23% interest:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#TARP_and_Berkshir...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#TARP_and_Berkshire_Hathaway_investment)

In other words, Goldman didn't want or make any profit from the TARP investment - the American taxpayer did. GS didn't want that investment at all - it took it to comply with the wishes and policy of the American administration.

The current Abacus scandal is occurring not because, but despite the fact that GS collaborated with the administration and took the TARP investment. In fact, this scandal is mostly about how GS foresaw the collapse of the housing bubble, and set up positions to profit from it - thus absolving itself from any need for taxpayer assistance.

If anything, the American administration and public opinion seem more forgiving toward institutions that played the "too big to fail" card, taking too much risk and heavy loses as a consequence. Those institutions were bailed out, and are currently seeing nothing like the penalties and negative attention that GS is suffering. If the SEC's portrayal of the Abacus deal is accurate, GS should be punished - but the "too big to fail" approach is vastly more dangerous and damaging.

Either way, the discussion isn't served by over-generalizations and lumping everything together.

<comment><USER11> Goldman received over $12 billion directly from the AIG bailout. Perhaps it could have survived without TARP, but almost certainly not without both TARP and the AIG bailout.

Would Goldman Sachs have crumbled if AIG were allowed to default? The company claims it was properly hedged, but it stretches credibility to believe this given (1) its massive exposure to AIG and (2) the state of the financial markets at the time.

<comment><USER10> This is valid point, but its implications are limited: you're basically saying that if AIG collapsed, it would lead to further collapses (due to "the state of the financial markets at the time") and that could very well lead to GS suffering as well.

This is true, not just for GS, but for almost any other financial firm and bank in the United States. In that sense, we all, including end consumers, enjoyed the benefits of TARP bailouts - assuming that without them and policies related to them, the entire financial system would collapse and drop the US to something like the great depression or worse.

<comment><USER12> Those closest to the bailouts got the most milk in their pails. Maybe the consumers got a dribble, but that doesn't disqualify criticism of those who got a whole bucket, especially if they stole the cow to begin with.

GS practically set up AIG to collapse. You might say that's just business, but you have got to be kidding me if you think GS _didn't_ see major ramifications for the economy and predict some kind of governmental assistance. (Normally, if AIG was less entangled with all of the Street and had failed on its own, GS would have have simply lost a bundle on all of its credit default swaps).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if myths like this explain some fraction of a country's economic growth. I suspect that in Europe, this kind of myth would end with the perpetrator being executed for lying and committing heresy; even the Geek myths wouldn't have a god show up to make good on someone else's bogus promises.

<comment><USER14> Eliezer Yudkowsky also suggested this, at least regarding this African myth: [http://robinhanson.typepad.com/overcomingbias/2009/02/an- afr...](http://robinhanson.typepad.com/overcomingbias/2009/02/an-african- folktale.html) .

I'm a little unsure about how much is the myths and how much is just survivorship bias. A lot of old gruesome European fairy tales stopped getting told after the rise of liberalism and the free market, so it may just be that the myths reflect the current status of society.

<comment><USER13> "Bias" is not the only kind of survivorship out there. If these myths keep people alive, the cultures that follow them will stay alive. I suspect that the story mentioned above is part of a larger group of stories with healthier morals. The Grimm's fairy tales you mentioned are similar: some of the older, gruesome ones have morals like "Don't travel alone if you're a young woman, or you'll die," or "Don't convince people they're in danger when they're not, or everyone you love will be killed." Those are healthy myths; a village that believed in them would probably be safer than a village that didn't. And once those myths were no longer necessary, they'd disappear, along with some of the more noxious stories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What is good collection of these Indian myths? Is there one akin to One Thousand and One Arabian Nights; with more focus on India?

<comment><USER16> The Panchatantra: a collection of ancient Hindu tales [PDF] <http://books.google.com/books?id=jB0YAAAAYAAJ>

This one is "Weaver as Vishnu" on page 46.

Note: the HTML version is in Sanskrit, the PDF in English.

Edit: Of course, there are many other works of Indian mythology. The big two being the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which if you consider it a single work, is the longest text ever written. The heart of the Mahabharata is the Bhagavad Gita.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Winston Zeddemore from Ghostbusters: "Ray, when someone asks you if you are a god, you say YES!"

 _awesomely enough, this too is a criminal offence under Section 508_

Come to think of it, a lot of India's "God men" could conceivably be prosecuted under that law.

<comment><USER18> But it's against my programming to impersonate a deity!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The full panchatantra story is here: <http://www.gaudiyadiscussions.com/topic_908.html>

</comment><comment><USER20> That's a good tale. I wish there's website with parables and tales like this.

</comment><comment><USER21> I would like to know what kind of factory the author works in.

<comment><USER22> As for me, I'd like to know if anyone has ever been convicted in India for impersonating a god.

<comment><USER17> If it was ever convenient for the government, then it has happened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> now if only I was smart enough to figure one out like this.

</comment><comment><USER24> Is it just me, or is it pretty funny that "pretending to be a God" is illegal under section 508 of the Indian penal code?</comment>


Codea is on sale for 1 dollar, grab it and teach your child programming - <AUTHOR> http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/

<comment><AUTHOR> Title changed, sorry, I did an error because of my poor English. In Italian if you say "your son" there is not a strong correlation with the gender.

EDIT: To everybody that signaled this news because there was an error in the title: now it is outside the listing, and many daughters (and sons) lost the possibility of being exposed to it. Overreacting is always bad.

EDIT2: considering the issue again, overreacting is probably better than overlooking this kind of issue...

<comment><USER2> calling people on sexism isn't overreacting, it is simply reacting. and saying people should be silent when they see stuff like this is much worse in the long run for the community.

<comment><AUTHOR> That was pretty clearly unintentional. Every xmas I do the best of my efforts to purchase gift for my little female cousins that can help them developing skills, while unfortunately many others will buy them a Barbie, so I really care about this kind of issues. But writing a bad title unintentionally is not sexism.

<comment><USER3> Your English is good enough that I, for one, didn't realise it wasn't your first language.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, btw thinking about this better, overreacting is better than overlooking at this kind of issues.

<comment><USER2> for sure! and I try to understand the non-native speaker issue, I live in Switzerland, and am a native English speaker who tries my hand at German sometimes to mixed results. it's hard and easy to make mistakes.

I've been having a lot of fun with the Codea app, props to the founder and thanks again for pointing out the sale

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great news, wanted to buy this for a long time, now there's no reason to do it.

On a linguistic note, though: this small mistake exposes an interesting rift between what's understood to be "sexist language" in the US and in Europe. People are hypersensitive about this issue in the US, typical example is using constructs like "he or she" or just always using the feminine pronoun, with the argument that (I'm simplifying it, of course, so that the margin can hold it) consistent use of "he", say in scientific writing, discourages women from participating.

What always amazed me is that in European countries with a solid track record of feminism, such linguistic issues do not matter. In German, the use of "Mann" is common, there are many female nouns derived from the masculine forms, e.g. "die Hackerin" (discussed on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2908972>, akin to the _-ess_ ending in English), etc. In French, even if there is only one male in a group, it is referred to using the masculine plural. Many more examples can be given (the "your son" vs "your child" mistake in the title being another one), which to the US ear would be cases of sexism. Yet, this "sexist usage" does not seem to have the negative consequence on female performance in Europe.

What gives?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated at all with Codea, I just happen to like it and to think it is a very good thing for children.

iTunes link: <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/codea/id439571171?mt=8>

<comment><USER2> awesome to know! I just saw this the other day and made a note to buy it

you should also teach your daughter to program, the title of your link is pretty much the definition of sexist

<comment> bulte-rs Exactly! I'm currently expecting my first child; but putting the purchase of this app on hold until I know for sure I'll get a son. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would probably change the title to teach your child programming...

have bought the app anyway :)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is actually a great title it will draw in more traffic because of the supposed controversy of it

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a great app.. Just bought it! Makes me take a look at Lua too..

</comment><comment><USER8> The title is a DISGRACE!

What about the 1% of the audience that will teach their _daughter_ instead?

This extreme sexist attitude is why there aren't enough women startup founders --and not enough women at the parties me and my buddies throw, like last month's "Yacc and Lex Appreciation Party". We even had free Jolt Cola!

<comment><USER9> Wow, overreact much?

<comment><USER3> Did you see the original title before the OP changed it?

I thought dextorious's comment was intended to satirise both the people who complain about sexism in hacker culture, and the people who insist there's no sexism in hacker culture.

<comment><USER9> I did not, but I know what the original title was. I just don't feel the need to make assumptions based on a line of text when I may not understand the context. I, for one, would not accuse someone of sexism because they chose "your son" over "your child". This is a big world, different people from different cultures have different ways of saying things.

I have to admit, I did sense a hint of sarcasm to the post but I suppose it was too subtle for me.

<comment><USER3> My objection was only ever that the title was sexist. I didn't accuse antirez of being sexist, and I didn't see anyone else accuse antirez of being sexist.

It's unfortunate that dextorious's comment led you to believe that people opposed to sexism were making assumptions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Telegram hacked, say Russian activists - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/74d5ce00-12dd-11e6-839f-2922947098f0.html <comment><USER2> Article mirror: [http://archive.is/8fFRa](http://archive.is/8fFRa)

Related earlier discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11602258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11602258)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sure this will be strongly condemned by Snowden and Wikileaks in 3...2...1...</comment>


DNS Record Crash Course for Web Developers - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/chrisachard/dns-record-crash-course-for-web-developers-35hn <comment><USER2> Very useful. Also much better than the twitter thread!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! And yes - some people like the twitter thread, and some people like it all as one post - so I like to post both!</comment></comment>


Tom Duff on shared libraries - <AUTHOR> http://9fans.net/archive/2000/06/529 <comment><USER2> The easy alternative is to link to shared libraries by, say, a SHA-256 hash of their contents. That gives you memory sharing without letting third-parties break your code.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is this the sentiment about shared libraries on Linux world as well?

</comment><comment><USER3> He's completely right.

<comment><AUTHOR> What are the alternatives?

<comment><USER3> When it's a chunk of code, link against it as a static library. When it's a resource, run it as a service and talk to it via some suitable rpc protocol.</comment></comment></comment>


Android No Longer Fragmented - <AUTHOR> https://www.apteligent.com/2016/06/may-monthly-data-report-google-io-edition/ <comment><AUTHOR> To be clear, there is still fragmentation among devices, this shows that 93% of usage occurs on 3 operating systems vs on iOS where 2 operating systems have 97% of usage. The gap has closed significantly.

<comment><USER2> The OS version doesn't matter as much here. There is a huge gap in API functionality betwen 2.3.x and >4.x That's the only thing that matters for a developer as the official Android support libraries hide most of the remaining >4.x API differences.

<comment><USER3> 2.3 no longer matters. Nobody uses it anymore. With a few exceptions (maybe it makes sense for facebook with its army of devs to still target it), all the devs I know only have a legacy apk (no longer developed, just barely maintained) for their few 2.x users.

The popular minSdk at the moment is 16 (4.1) . This gives a nice common API, the biggest roadbump in most cases is that you have to handle pre and post lollipop cases : with/without transitions, ripples, etc, ... It is nothing compared to having to handle 2.x devices though .. the API were pretty primitive and the hardware extremely poor.. you can't develop a 2016 app and target these devices.

Of course there are exceptions. For a camera app, the Camera2 API added in lollipop might be crucial.

In most cases, the support lib does hide most of the API differences.

Many new libs are also provided by Google directly unbundled from the SDK, such as the design lib, RecyclerView or ConstraintLayout.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unlike iOS you don't need to update your OS to get updates in Android. And iOS leaves many of he new features on older devices anyway. So the Android fragmentation although a problem is not as a big a problem that it is made out to be. Though I wish Samsung would start using its power and it does have some with the carriers to stop them from putting in their bloat as system apps. And it should start producing world phones instead of the hundred models they have for each carrier and country.</comment>


BitPatron – A Bitcoin Censorship-Free Patreon Alternative - <AUTHOR> https://bitpatron.co/ <comment><USER2> Kinda saturated of the so called "censorship-free"-Patreon solutions if you follow the space, but the whole point is to not have to trust that someone won't block you.

So a solution is not yet another platform but everyone (that cares enough) to run their own decentralized way of accepting payments/support.

Just install BtcPayServer ( [https://btcpayserver.org/](https://btcpayserver.org/) ) and you can start accepting payments in Bitcoin and other coins even via LN, without having to trust any intermediary plus no extra middlemen fees.

<comment><USER3> Why is there need for software to accept bitcoin donations? Can't one just put the bitcoin address on the website?

<comment><USER4> The goal of BTCPay server is to use the Lightning Network for Bitcoin payments, which only generates single-use payment requests. Also important to point out that LN will not be functional for years, so...

<comment><USER5> You seem to be misinformed about this because LN is absolutely functional today already. What are you talking about?

Is it not functional in BTCPay server perhaps? Nevertheless, the network itself functions already and functions well. (Adoption will take time to spread, yes.)

<comment><USER4> "Absolutely functional" is when a user can send+receive a payment as effortlessly as Venmo. You cannot do this with LN at any time in the near future - routing payments, automatic channel management, sending a push payment, etc. I don't mean to bash LN but its simply disingenuous when people suggest these features are anything but pre-alpha

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can someone explain exactly what is pressuring payment processors to pass moral judgement on the payments they're processing? I'm sure MasterCard would rather not waste resources moderating Patreon users, so what's pressuring them to do so?

<comment><USER7> Many of the voluntary donors on Patreon are averse to supporting their favorite creators on a platform that does not take a "moral" stand when needed (at the donors' discretion). This has been the actual user behavior (even organized protests against Patreon!) for not banning certain political figures.

<comment><USER8> This seems counter to Patreon's claims that Mastercard has forced them to make decisions. If there were complainants on Patreon, would they not just complain to Patreon first?

<comment><USER7> You're referring to one specific case (of which there are many). Also, even in this specific case, I encourage you to evaluate the facts, press, and public statements yourself, ask yourself the right questions, and do your own critical thinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem BitPatron and others are solving for is of opaque political interests exerting influence on an oligopoly of payments providers. Right or left, payment freedom and diversity is a problem worth solving.

If people are seriously accepting moral leadership from credit card companies, what is there really to add.

</comment><comment><USER10> This are the platforms we need more. Not this, hey I invited this new coin named XYZ around my/this service which will revolutionize the industry, ICO & trading soon blablabla "whitepapaer" & "scam" & "fill-my-pocket scheme" here.

Just build something around Bitcoin or Ethereum for the payment/payout centric problems in this world and use a very good exchangable well established, EXISTING cryptocurrency. No need to reinvent the wheel again&again.

</comment><comment><USER11> Persistent, powerful people who want to push their moral imperatives on others have avenues other than payment processors. I think we need more decentralization than this.

<comment><USER12> Their moral imperatives or society's agreed upon moral imperatives?

<comment><USER13> If "society" had agreed upon it, there would be no reason for Mastercard to do anything because society wouldn't fund these people.

<comment><USER14> IF 99.99% of society is against something, there are still hundreds of thousands of people left to fund it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I see "censorship-free" and think "BitPatron is to Patreon what Gab.ai is to Twitter, the 'censorship-free' alternative."

<comment><USER16> This comment reminds me of something I read a while back about Tor, I2P, and Freenet-- that the fact that those services are loaded with child porn and other nasty stuff is in a way a positive commentary on our society. It shows that the mainstream is healthy enough that the vast majority of speech and activity does not feel a need to go underground. You could say the same thing about "censorship-free" alternatives being full of fascists and racists and people announcing that they're "going in" before shooting up a synagogue.

That being said I do subscribe to the Larry Flynt doctrine of free speech-- free speech is measured by the freedom of the least sympathetic speakers. The fact that platforms like gab.ai can be created without _legal_ ramifications means that we still basically have free speech.

<comment><USER8> Most Chinese citizens do not feel the need to go "underground".

North Korean citizens generally don't go "underground" either.

Do you think they're well informed about the world?

It's a different story in the west now, where information is generally available without the need to go "underground", so to speak - so why would be not be intent on keeping it that way? It seems that some people would like to drive things underground because it hurts their feelings. Is China the role model we're aspiring to become?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Who are these guys? We submitted this exact idea with the exact name to YC Summer 2018 and had an interview. Proof: [https://i.imgur.com/a8B5KJ7.png](https://i.imgur.com/a8B5KJ7.png)

<comment><USER18> I'm the above poster's cofounder that pitched this in person with YC on April 30, 2018 - exact same name and idea. I'm definitely curious if this is just innocent coincidence.

<comment> bitpatron-co Definitely coincidence, we are not even based in U.S. and we never had any connection with Y.C.

We wanted a simple name and this was one of the first options we thought, together with BitSubscribe .

Hope you understand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> To me this type of thing is the biggest indicator that Ethereum is the right path going forward.

Because their programming language builds in support for systems like this with smart contracts. And also Ethereum is tackling scaling and microtransactions head on with major upgrades to their core.

<comment><USER5> What technical function exactly do you assume such a platform needs from Ethereum, that is not already provided in Bitcoin?

<comment><USER19> That's such an Erlich question.

You should just go back to Tibet.

Bitcoin does not have smart contracts or a programming language and the scaling in the new Ethereum is going to be better.

<comment><USER5> Why do you need smart contracts (besides the additional transaction types that Bitcoin provides) to implement a Patreon? Why can't the website just redistribute funds, if it is going to be centralized already? (It has to be hosted somewhere, handle user support etc.) What specific functions would you need from a smart contract there? I honestly don't see any.

<comment><USER19> The distribution is handled by the smart contract.

<comment><USER5> So the funds go to one contract address, and the contract distributes them to another address (of the content creator)? What is the point, that is just money transfer, it could be done with bitcoin donation address (and in fact is done that way currently by many creators successfully).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Lot's of activity in these censorship-free alternatives to popular applications.

Interesting to see if this is just a fad or are these going to make any impact incumbents.

<comment><USER21> I doubt twitter is too worried about Gab

<comment><USER22> Same with Reddit and Voat.

<comment><USER23> I think you and eli are both right. Neither Gab not Voat are likely to succeed, because of network effects.

The only way a new social network is likely to succeed is if it is part of a federation of social networks that communicate using protocols such as ActivityPub, making one big network where the whole exceeds the sum of thew parts.

<comment><USER21> Sure, but mostly because they're full of exactly the sort of people I don't want to interact with

<comment><USER23> That may well be true. But maybe some Gab people want to interact with some Voat people, and if the applications were interoperable they would be able to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "There already is a crypto patreon - bitbacker.io , and this one has some scandal surrounding it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/aey3x8/were_creating_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/aey3x8/were_creating_a_patreon_alternative_powered_by/?utm_source=reddit- android)

<comment> bitpatron-co This is someone under .io domain, nothing to do with us.

BitBacker is nice, but tbh, it still lacks the necessary features and even more important a proper ux to be a real alternative for most of Patreon users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is censorship a problem with Patreon?

<comment><USER26> Apparently yes. Visa/MasterCard pressure Patreon to drop users with views they don't approve of. Most recently alt-right users. I think it's important to protect free speech, especially the kind I don't agree with.

<comment><USER27> _Most recently alt-right users._

Most prominently, recently, a center-left commentator whose opinions certain executives don't like.

<comment><USER28> The one I'm aware of is Sargon of Akkad, who I'd certainly consider to be alt- right. Who are you referring to?

<comment><USER29> He was fighting against alt righters that had targeted him for months in the clip he got banned for where he called them out on their bigoted opinions and poor behavior, and is a known target of theirs. To say he is alt right is unreasonable and incorrect, although for some he is certainly divisive.

<comment><USER27> One of the odd things about the clip he got banned for, was that the most likely way it could have come to the attention of Patreon, was for the Alt- Right to have submitted it. Basically, it looks like Patreon was doing the bidding of the Alt-Right by doing what's politically convenient for the far left.

 _To say he is alt right is unreasonable and incorrect, although for some he is certainly divisive._

That's basically the same kind of tactics religious fundamentalists tried to pull in shaming homosexuals way back when. That sort of social manipulation through dishonest labeling, that spirit of squashing dissent -- it's the same kind of tribalist petty evil practiced by bigots back in the day. People who know better need to stand up and call it out.

<comment><USER29> You seem correct in the observations that the far right and left believe in the same worldview with opposite arrows, seeking to oppress any dissent to this worldview through fake outrage. Both share the worldview that the superior whites need to either help or rule, depending on which fringe we are talking with. Both unfounded beliefs as there are bigger variance within than between identity politics groups.

<comment><USER8> This is Horseshoe Theory ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory)). Commentators from both sides will vehemently defend their position and claim it to be nothing like the other side. From the reasonable person's perspective (more towards centre), both extremes are authoritarian, and their similarities are more striking than their differences.

<comment><USER29> It is not a horseshoe, as it is not a continuum. Far-right is pre-modern and far-left is post-modern, and both have a distinctly different view in opposition to the modern enlightenment project. However, the current dominant ideologies on the fringes seem to share some important core tenets and a tendency towards tyranny.

Btw, the article you link seem to argue that there is a historic parallel to this argument. However, post-modernist is a much newer concept and ideology than the historic events listed in it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> laurynas-s Great to see alternative built with cryptocurrencies.

Since biycoun doesn't have subscriptions, you'd need to topup your account X amount which then gets distributed over the months to bitpatreons?

<comment><USER5> Would that really be such a big nuisance? It could even be set up automatically in some wallets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Yet another interesting service made possible by blockchain and cryptocurrency. But HN commenters will continue to say crypto is nothing but a useless scam.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's the payment providers who are the problem, and you can't really skip a single one. Want to exclude a PayPal option? your content creators will get say %20 less, want to exclusively use crypto with current adoption rates? i'd assume you'd see only a fraction of the money you'd get on regular patreon. There's a reason Patreon has ex-paypal insiders working for them.

</comment><comment><USER32> In any sane world, the ability to accept payments would be a service every bank would offer.

</comment><comment><USER33> Where's the added value? Patreon handles fiat payments. Anyone can accept crypto directly, zero need for any intermediary.

</comment><comment><USER34> This just replaces one problem with another. How do you convert your Bitcoins into useful money? Is there a censorship free exchange, or do you have to trade with individuals directly?

<comment><USER35> It's, at least, much easier to "move money around". You could find some difficulty to trade for "local money", but to "really stop you", the censors would need to put an immense effort. Without this alternative, it's basically "effortless" for them to cancel your banking access. So they'll lose this "effortless advantage".

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What happened to Hatereon?

<comment><USER36> I believe Paypal and other Processors discontinued their ability to process CreditCards

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Coinbase is already blocking users for content reasons, so it may be hard to get your bitcoin through the exchange if others follow suit.

</comment><comment><USER38> Oh man, this will go great. Let me grab the .

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm sorry, I just can't get worked up over The Hitler Store not being able to use Paypal.

</comment><comment><USER40> I don't understand how this works.

If I am giving you money and your are giving bitcoin to the people I am supporting, then mastercard will not allow you to take money if you facilitate right wing views.

If I am giving you bitcoin and you are giving money to the people I support, then Mastercard will cut you off if those people have right wing views.

If I am giving you bitcoin and you are giving bitcoin to the people I support, then how is it different from just giving bitcoin?

It doesn't really solve the free speech problem as what is needed is a way for all views to be paid with the ease of a credit card, instead of just approved views.

<comment><USER41> Mainly microtransactions. The bitcoin fee can be high and might not make sense if you want to give someone say 10 cents for every article you read.

<comment><USER42> This is what BAT is for

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Show HN... $CashPay$

$CashPay$ is a pivot on the Offering Plate employed by the church and by beggars for millennium; cash.

FAQ

Q: As a content creator, how do I accept payment for my work? A: Content creators disclose a PO Box address.

Q: As a patron of content creators, how can I support them? A: Patrons can send cash, pre-paid debit cards, money orders, etc. in an envelope to the disclosed PO Box address.</comment>


Lift Weights, Eat More Protein, Especially If You're Over 40 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/well/move/lift-weights-eat-more-protein-especially-if-youre-over-40.html?mabReward=ART_TS7&recid=10Dw62jOOFNMOm01S55O0ETnzkP&recp=0&module=WelcomeBackModal&contentCollection=Politics&region=FixedCenter&action=click&src=recg&pgtype=article <comment><USER2> > _The impacts of this extra protein were not enormous. Almost everyone who > started or continued weight training became stronger in these studies, > whether they ate more protein or not. But those who did ramp up their > protein gained an extra 10 percent or so in strength and about 25 percent in > muscle mass compared to the control groups._

Maybe it's me, but 10% extra performance and 25% extra muscle mass sounds like quite a huge difference to me - "not enormous" is technically correct but also lowered my expectations to a few percentages.

<comment><USER3> * RET = Resistance Exercise Training

* 1RM = 1 Repetition Maximum Strength

 _" The average RET-induced increase, with all measures of 1RM included, was 27kg (mean±SD; 27±22kg22 32). Notably, dietary protein supplementation augmented the increase in 1RM strength by 2.49kg (9%; figure 2; see online supplementary figure 4), which strongly suggests that the practice of RET is a far more potent stimulus for increasing muscle strength than the addition of dietary protein supplementation."_

 _" In addition to increasing changes in muscle strength, RET alone (≥6; 13±8weeks) resulted in an increase in FFM (1.1 ± 1.2kg), an increase in fibre CSA (808±) and an increase in mid-femur CSA (52±30mm2). Dietary protein supplementation augmented the increase in FFM by 0.30kg (27%), fibre CSA by 310µm2 (38%) and mid-femur CSA by 7.2mm2 (14%). The postexercise protein dose did not affect the efficacy of protein supplementation on RET-induced changes in FFM whereas training status (positive), age (negative) and baseline protein intake (positive) did. Relative to untrained participants, resistance-trained participants have a smaller potential for muscle growth and an attenuated postexercise muscle protein turnover. As a result, we speculate that trained persons may have less 'degrees of freedom' to change with RET and therefore have a greater need for protein supplementation to see increases in muscle mass. Our thesis is supported by the observation of a more consistent impact of protein supplementation on gains in FFM in resistance-trained individuals than in novice trainees._"

So working out regularly increases your 1-rep max lift by 27kg. Supplementing with protein can increases that max that by 2.5kg. Resistance exercise can increase your muscle mass by 1.1kg and protein can increase muscle mass further by 0.3kg. There was no difference past a protein dose of 1.6g/kg/day and supplementation mainly benefit those starting from a higher point of muscle mass and strength.

[http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2018/01/18/bjspor...](http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2018/01/18/bjsports-2017-097608.full.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Ah, thank you. You guessed correctly that I misunderstood to which the percentages applied (although I blame the phrasing of the article)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think we are making a grave mistake by associating going to the gym and exercise with lifting weights.

Let me explain.

I think what most people _should_ be doing is calisthenics. I've been lifting weights for over a decade, but only started calisthenics two years ago. Personally, I feel calisthenics gives you a much stronger and durable body over all compared to lifting weights. It also strengthens your joints and connective tissues, which people don't really think about until it's too late. Aesthetically, I also feel strong calisthenic trained bodies look much more well proportioned and hardened due to the active use of stabilizer muscles. People who have trained calisthenics for a long time are deceptively strong. They don't look particularly huge, but they perform feats of strength that even the most professional weightlifter would struggle to do. To me, this is a sign of true mastery over one's body.

If you're just getting started in your exercise career, try _calisthenics_.

<comment><USER5> Do calisthenics have the same effect on bone density(that is, increasing bone density and decreasing chances of developing osteoporosis) that lifting weights does?

I agree with your point generally though that the best exercise routine(or diet) is one that you stick with and progresses you towards your goals.

<comment><USER6> Calisthenics is weight lifting.

It just so happens that the weight you are lifting is your own body's weight rather than weights external to your body.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The benefits of protein are historically documented by all the great bodybuilders. Nothing new here. Mainstream is always behind the freaks who dare to go against "science".

<comment><USER8> Which is amusing, because in this context the bodybuilders are fundamentally doing science. They have experiments (aka, exercise and eating regiments) that, as I understand it, are repeatable, and consistently produce the desired outcome, at least in terms of sculpted muscle and body fat.

<comment><USER9> Modern bodybuilders don't have incredible life spans, either, so they face the consequences.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, pumping yourself full of tren, clen, and designer drugs, as well as getting up to 400+ lbs will do that to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Protein is good, but not too much from meat:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27479196](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27479196)

> CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE:

> High animal protein intake was positively associated with cardiovascular > mortality and high plant protein intake was inversely associated with all- > cause and cardiovascular mortality, especially among individuals with at > least 1 lifestyle risk factor. Substitution of plant protein for animal > protein, especially that from processed red meat, was associated with lower > mortality, suggesting the importance of protein source.

<comment><USER12> Thanks. Do you know of any naturally-high-in-protein plant-based source that isn't soy (i.e. tofu etc) or hemp?

Asking cos I've had a hard time finding protein dense plant based alternatives, and as a vegetarian, it's really hard to get a lot of proteins from plant-based sources without processed stuff like Vega etc.

I do eat quinoa but 1) it's very expensive and 2) you have to eat 2 or 3 cups of cooked quinoa to get like 25 gms of protein which is a lot of quinoa per day.

<comment> racer-v Plant sources tend to have a higher ratio of calories to protein, so it's tough if you're limiting calories. Chickpeas, eggplant, and tahini all have protein; Trader Joe's Eggplant Hummus has all three, but somehow manages to claim a lower calorie-to-protein ratio than any of its ingredients (not sure how that can work). Mushrooms are good too. Also seitan if you don't mind something a little more "processed".

<comment><USER13> > somehow manages to claim a lower calorie-to-protein ratio than any of its > ingredients

Hummus usually has more oil added on top of the tahini. And chickpeas are the main ingredient and they have a lot of starch on top of the protein.

<comment> racer-v Right, that's why I find their nutritional claim hard to believe: 2g protein per 35 KCal is better than tahini, eggplant, or chickpea individually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would add a clarifying conjecture that probably the 1.6 grams per kg of body weight per day, should be based on your lean weight, i.e. how much you would weigh with only 10 or so percent body fat. If you're obese and weigh 200kg, you don't need to eat 320g of protein per day.

</comment><comment><USER15> What would be a natural way to find if you're taking enough protein? If my sleep patterns, digestion, stomach, bowel movement, muscular recovery are fine, am I taking enough protein in accordance with my workout regimen? Or could it be that I may be absolutely fine but still taking less protein than the one my workout requires and hence building up less?

Edit: by natural I mean without using scales, going just by how I'm feeling and body is doing.

<comment><USER16> From: [https://examine.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-can-i-eat- in-...](https://examine.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-can-i-eat-in-one- sitting/)

 _That being said, since fecal losses of protein and short-chain peptides tend to smell incredibly bad one can use a 'sniff-test' after bowel movements to assess if protein is being lost in the feces and thus not taken up by either the intestines or the muscle._

Not pleasant, perhaps, but should be effective :-)

<comment><USER15> The link was unbelievably informative. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not even a single mention of the risks of increasing mTor signalling due to extra protein. You would be well advised to keep that in mind.

<comment><USER18> First I've ever heard of this, and google tells me that mTor is a unit of vacuum - could you explain please?

<comment><USER17> Sure. Check these out -

[https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/05/...](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/05/07/too- much-protein-triggers-aging-cancer.aspx)

[http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/protein-how-much-is- too...](http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/protein-how-much-is-too-much/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you want to learn more about the basics of strength training and eating healthy with more protein, you should watch this lecture from a doctor and strength coach who would agree with the ask from this article:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tsTwcOb_0k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tsTwcOb_0k)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is weights better than HIIT for over 40?

<comment><USER21> over 40 your main concern is to make it sustainable and avoid injuries. A mix of moderate weights couple of times a week and HIIT couple of times a week would work best.

<comment><USER22> [citation needed]

I'm mid-40s and have no problem doing low-rep high-resistance (> 85% 1RM) sets 2-3 days per week and alternating with 2-3 HIIT sessions on bike, run, or swim for triathlon training.

You have to decide what your goals are (endurance = 12+ rep sets at 30-50% 1RM, hypertrophy = 8-12 rep sets at 55-75% 1RM, strength = 1-6 rep sets at 85% - 100% 1RM) AND you have to have excellent form for the prime mover exercises (deadlift, squat, bench press, bent-over row) to avoid injury, but with the right diet, discipline, and proper recovery consistent 5% gains per three- to four-week cycles are possible

Reference: _Periodization Training for Sports_ by Bompa, [http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all- products/periodiza...](http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all- products/periodization-training-for-sports-3rd-edition)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How does one start lifting weights or exercising when you have no motivation to.

<comment><USER24> Find a competent trainer - gyms that teach Olympic Weightlifting are going to have higher caliber trainers than the typical commercial gym full of 'personal trainers.'

There's a massive technical aspect to learn that puts a more scientific spin to appeal to people like us.*

* You're on HN, right?

<comment><USER25> Training to be better at something that you will never do for real is somehow depressing, especially if you only do it in a gym. Run or ride a bike, at least you have a chance to do something useful instead of moving a weight for the sake of moving a weight

<comment><USER26> >Training to be better at something that you will never do for real is somehow depressing

I would argue with the "never do for real" when it comes to weight lifting, and I would also argue against the entire concept.

You lift weights all the time. Every time you stand up, every step you take, every time you move any muscle, you're lifting weights. If you're helping a friend move, you're lifting weights. I bought a file cabinet the other day and the guy was amazed that I got it into my truck on my own even though it was 50+ pounds... but I think a normal person should be able to lift that much weight into the bed of a truck no problem. Need to open a pickle jar? Need to move a couch? Need to carry more groceries in from the car? That's what you're training for.

And also, people train for things they never do "for real" all the time. Every time you play a video game you train for something you'll never do for real. Every time you play guitar but you're not in a band, you're training for something you'll never do for real. Every time you make a joke if you're not a stand-up comedian, you're training for something you'll never do for real. Every time you take a picture but you're not a photographer you get the idea. You're not really training to be an olympic weightlifter, you're training to lift that weight right there in front of you. That's just as "for real" as anything else you do as a hobby.

How is running or riding a bike any more "for real" than lifting a weight? They're all things you do for exercise to be healthy. No one's running everywhere they go, running is something you do in order to run, and you run to get better at running so you can run more. You lift weights in order to lift heavier weights so you can lift more weights. Same exact thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anyone have a link the study they're talking about?

<comment><USER3> Yep, it's here:

[http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2018/01/18/bjspor...](http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2018/01/18/bjsports-2017-097608.full.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> We get these type of fads every decade. Cholesterol was bad for you then fats were bad for you. Then it was running. Then hiking. It never ends.

My grandparents lived well into their 90s. All you have to do is eat well and try to be active from time to time.

But there is a growing weightlifting movement with a healthy marketing budget...

<comment><USER29> Many people who smoke have lived into their 90s. That's not a good reason to smoke. Anecdotes are not data.

<comment><USER30> Data is not the whole picture. Maybe more protein is great for adding muscle mass, and bad for a different reason...

The article lists beef as it's first source of protein besides protein shakes. Beef is a class 2A carcinogen. I stopped reading there.

<comment><USER27> I saw "Beef is a class 2A carcinogen" and suspect you just watched "What the health"? If so there are claims that that movie got a few things wrong. [https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-health-a-movie- wit...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-health-a-movie-with-an- agenda/)

<comment><USER27> Also class 2A carcinogens are simply a class of things that probably increases your chance of cancer. That doesn't mean it gives you a huge chance of cancer most of the time the increased risk is trivial.

To give some context red meat is on the same list as:

      Hairdresser or barber (occupational exposure as a)

      Shift work that involves circadian disruption

      Very hot beverages (more than 65℃)

      High-temperature frying, emissions from

      Household combustion of biomass fuel (primarily wood), indoor emissions from

Source [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_2A_carcinog...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_2A_carcinogens)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> But can't eat the protein all at once:

 _Research by McMaster University's Dr. Stuart Phillips and others has found that if you eat more than 20 to 30 grams of protein at a time, you don't get any further anabolic boost. Any extra protein is simply burned for energy; unlike carbohydrate or fat, you can't save it for later._

[https://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/why-and-when- you-...](https://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/why-and-when-you-need- more-protein)

<comment><USER32> It's not as black and white as that article makes it seem.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJpdPYedWjc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJpdPYedWjc)</comment></comment>


Perspectives on Cloud Outcomes [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.accenture.com/content/1101/files/ResearchReport.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Plenty of Accenture fluff in here, but a little worrying that so many companies are not getting what they want out of cloud technologies.

"The barrier noted most frequently by respondents in their top three was "security and compliance risk" (65%), a view echoed across nearly all segments. The second most commonly noted barrier was "complexity of business and organizational change" (55%), with "legacy infrastructure and/or application sprawl" (43%) coming in a third, followed closely by "lack of cloud skills with the organization" (42%)."</comment>