Show HN: LearnSearch – User Curated Learning Resources built with Vue, Firestore - <AUTHOR> https://learnsearch.xyz/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks! I just spent the past few nights building LearnSearch, a web app where you can share learning resources and upvote the ones that help you or are valuable in someway. I asked a lot of people what they wished they knew when they started self teaching or learning something new, and the feedback was always that they wish they could tell the good resources from the ones that lead them astray, and that others were vital in letting them know about this. I wanted to make this same interaction scaleable, so I built LearnSearch!

At it's core, LearnSearch is trying to bring that experience of asking the right person and getting actionable advice on how to learn something, to scale so that we all can tap into our collective experiences.

LearnSearch is still in its early, early infancy, and I'm going to continue to build out different feeds, my big vision is that users will eventually be able to upload their own learning guides and paths, linking together relevant resources in meaningful ways. You'll also be able to search the body of knowledge to find exactly what you need.

It's my first real crack at a side project, and it's got about 50 users so far! Small things like that make me happy. I'm gonna grab a quick nap, since I haven't slept in a while, but I'd love to hear what you guys think ;)

<comment><USER2> good project to work on! I too had similar idea (especially about confidently pointing out to good resources) but never started it.. instead I just created curated resources for topics I'm familiar with

obviously you haven't yet implemented search, do consider doing something like [https://learn-anything.xyz/mathematics](https://learn- anything.xyz/mathematics)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, yeah I love learn-anything, i just think there is a more fluid contribution mechanism that could be implemented.

Search is a feature I really want to add, it's been my intention to always make this a sort of human curated search engine for learning. The ability to be able to type in a query and see actionable links rated by their upvotes would be magical.

Thank you for the feedback, I'll keep hacking and trying to improve it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, OP here! Sorry if it shut down momentarily, the traffic exceeded the firebase read quota for a free account. Nonetheless, I paid their fee and it should be up and running now!

</comment><comment><USER3> A bit OT.

Please don't use .XYZ TLD.

It consists of abc.xyz (Google) and the rest is exclusively used by SEO spam/regular spam/malware/scams.

I block the entire TLD.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah I feel the same way. I actually got it because it was only 5 bucks, i could swing it for an mvp without having to spend to much cash. Maybe learnsearch.io would be better

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A little ironic, it's called learnsearch but you cant't search :D And what's the registration for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahaha yep, incredibly ironic. I'm working on adding search ASAP, I didn't expect to get this many eyes on it so fast as it's an mvp still.

The registration is really to contribute and upvote. Since we're trying to build a reliable, credible learning community, having real users, and future functionality like karma or reputation is important, I think.

After all, what hopefully sets this apart from other resources like wikihow and the like is that its focused on actual rated resources uploaded by actual learners like you and I. Or at least, that's what I hope!

I'm super new to all this, so I'm honestly just trying to build it and see where it takes me haha

<comment><USER4> alright, definitely a cool start! I wish you all best on your journey :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a pretty cool tool but I would recommend using a more eye-friendly color scheme on the website. How was your experience in working with the new Firestore DB?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'll update the color scheme! Firestore is pretty sweet, the querying is a little strange to get used to, but its definitely a good tool. Still in beta, so there are certain usage limitations

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What framework did you use for the Material Design look? Pretty cool website!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey man, thank you! Hopefully I'll be adding some value to the world with it.

I used vuetify, [https://vuetifyjs.com/vuetify/why- vuetify](https://vuetifyjs.com/vuetify/why-vuetify), which was awesome and really quick to get started with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> hsikka is a rising star. Definitely a person to watch. Great stuff here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks b-ry

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> darn...didn't work.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the total reads exceeded my free firebase quota LOL so I had to shell out like 20 bucks, but it should be back up now</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Resources for learning ASP.NET? - <AUTHOR> Hey Guys,<p>For any of you who at one point or another had to pick up ASP.NET what resources did you use? <comment><USER2> The ASP.NET website ([http://www.asp.net/](http://www.asp.net/)) itself has a bunch of useful guides. Beyond that, Microsoft Virtual Academy has a few training videos/courses that might be useful.

[https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/en-us/training- cours...](https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/en-us/training- courses/introduction-to-asp-net-mvc-8322)

[http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training- courses/crea...](http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training- courses/create-web-apps-with-asp-net)

[https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/en-us/training- cours...](https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/en-us/training-courses/web- api-design-jump-start-8689)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, It's funny coming from having to learn Node.js in my old job really quickly there was so many tutorials that were easy to get started with.</comment></comment>


PlantUML Is Just - <AUTHOR> http://plantuml.com/ <comment><USER2> It is okay, it breaks often though, e.g. versions after 1.2018.03 does not work with directions anymore: "A -left-> B"

It is also has a rather crazy syntax.

Still it is very useful and a lot easier and quicker than drawing by hand.</comment>


Japan to begin broadcast trials of 8K (7680×4320) UHD in 2016 - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/nhk-flaunts-8k-ultra-hd-compact-camera/

<comment><USER2> John Zubrzycki at the BBC was responsible for the 8K broadcasts during the London summer olympics in 2012. He has both written about his experience and held a presentation where he explains how the BBC did recording, post- processing and transmission of the TV signals. They used equipment from NHK that is also being used in this new upcoming trial. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2012/08/th...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2012/08/the- olympics-in-super-hi-visio.shtml) [http://www.fxguide.com/fxguidetv/fxguidetv-167-cvmp-hi- visio...](http://www.fxguide.com/fxguidetv/fxguidetv-167-cvmp-hi-vision-at- the-olympics/)</comment>


The end of the Facebook era - <AUTHOR> http://takeaswig.com/the-end-of-the-facebook-era <comment><USER2> Here are some titles for the next story.

"The end of the Apple era"

"The end of the Microsoft era"

"The end of the Netflix era"

"The end of the Yahoo era"

Seriously, why do people waste time writing these types of stories? My guess is that it's because it's so much easier than actually trying to build something of value. The real problem is there is no penalty for being wrong. Everyone simply forgets. Write a thousand stories and if just one of them is right then you get to claim your genius.

Where are those guys who predicated that Apple Stores were such a stupid idea? We need to start keeping score.

[http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary- so...](http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary-sorry-steve- heres-why-apple-stores-wont-work)

<comment><USER3> Why. Why must you do this. Why must you dismiss articles on hackneyed grounds and kill the chance for an interesting discussion about the nature and direction of social technologies.

I thought this article was very interesting, it brought to light several factual points, and several not-heard-before insights -- e.g., I thought this in particular was very true and interesting:

        This is why social networks, like Google+ (where I
        worked for one year), are struggling even more than
        Facebook to get a foothold in the future of social
        networking. They are betting on last year's fashion

I'm surprised it wasn't Google that made an offer on Snapchat, since it's normally quite forward-looking. But then again, social has never been Google's forte has it.

<comment><USER4> > social has never been Google's forte has it.

It hasn't been anybody's forte except for facebook by that standard. On the contrary g+ is far better than facebook by any measurement you choose to use, it isn't missing anything. A supportive user base mostly absent only in the minds of people vehemently dying for it to be absent. These people who repeat the idea that using google for social networking is the worst thing they've ever heard or thought about. The technology is still sound, meanwhile.

<comment><USER5> "On the contrary g+ is far better than facebook by any measurement you choose to use, it isn't missing anything."

The G+ API sucks. Bad. It might as well not even be there for all the use you can get out of it.

Do a serious comparison of the Facebook Graph API to what passes for an API on G+, then tell us again that it isn't missing anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees > LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections._

I've heard it a billion times that teens aren't using Facebook. But _who cares_? I just don't see any evidence that this heralds the end of Facebook.

It's not necessarily any more meaningful than "people ages 65-70 don't use Facebook". It's a small percentage of the population. And there's no indication that teens are using something else that will _replace_ Facebook when they're in their 20's and 30's -- you can't organize parties on Instagram or Snapchat. Every indication is that teens get onto Facebook once they stop being teens, correct me if I'm wrong.

Can we stop talking about this ineffable "cool" factor, until there's any kind of evidence that it is actually necessary for Facebook's continued success? I mean, I don't remember Facebook _ever_ being cool. It's always been pretty drab, a pretty bland boring blue, with an interface much like an OS. But it just works better than the alternatives, and keeps working better. Why people are suddenly constantly talking about this "lack of cool" is beyond me.

<comment><USER7> I don't care about teenagers, but I do find it very interesting that the "founding members" of Facebook, people who were college students in 2004-2005 who excitedly joined and engaged with Facebook in its early years, are just not very engaged with FB anymore (I'm one of them), unless they maybe just had a baby.

It's almost disturbing that these days a company can be founded, become an overnight success, grow immensely, have a huge IPO, then get disrupted and on the decline in a span of only nine years.

<comment><USER8> I joined facebook in 2005 and I think I'm just as engaged as ever.

I use it for sharing pictures with my friends and family. Hiking, skiing, camping, vacations, whatever. My family loves seeing that crap. My friends do too. The group album feature released a few months ago is AWESOME for that stuff.

Organizing events without facebook is tough. Facebook handles RSVPs. Has polls for things at the event (where should it be, what should we eat, etc.). Lets you post pictures. Lets you discuss everything.

Groups are fantastic also. I have a group where people post if they're going skiing this weekend. I used a group to coordinate 10 people training and participating in a Tough Mudder event. I have another group to coordinate a small semi-startup I'm a part of.

I can't imagine my life without facebook anymore.

<comment><USER9> I highly recommend deactivating for a month, just to experience the difference. It's phenomenal. If you choose to reconnect, you'll look at everything differently. It's just amazing, you have to try it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> An alternate opinion: Facebook is heading toward the Trough of Disillusionment of the Hype Cycle: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle)

Facebook was so ridiculously hot a few years ago that it couldn't possibly have met all of its expectations for changing how we all communicate, replacing all other messaging mediums, dominating how we shop and buy, the portal for all things entertainment, etc.

> Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn > – like a utilitarian place to manage connections.

This sounds a lot like the Plateau of Productivity to me.

<comment><USER11> Weirdly the Google 'trends' graph correlates _if_ you click on the 'forecast' button:

[http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz%2C%20...](http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz%2C%20%2Fm%2F04ny5g&geo=GB&cmpt=q)

However, a forecast is just a forecast, not happened yet. The 'trend' graph spikes with the IPO which had no relevance for 99% of Facebook users. Take that spike out, ignore the 'forecast' and Facebook is doing the 'myspace curve' and in a similar time frame.

Anyway, where is the Facebook login for Hacker News?

<comment><USER12> I got GB region only from your link. The worldwide view shows ongoing growth: [http://bit.ly/1dIbkpF](http://bit.ly/1dIbkpF)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >> Teens likely see Facebook the same way the Facebook generation sees LinkedIn – like a utilitarian place to manage connections.

This is why the "millennials are leaving Facebook" worry isn't actually real. Yes, middle schoolers and high schoolers aren't using Facebook. They are at a stage in their life where the idea of their parents being able to see into their life is scary. Their social circle is also disproportionately made up of people they can easily see every day. Facebook's utility for contact management, event planning, and keeping in touch doesn't really begin until people turn 18 and go out on their own. This doesn't even begin to touch the ease of using it to sign up for other products that are built on top of it.

<comment><USER14> I'am 18 and I agree with you. The way the discussion one day happened in status updates have now moved to usually hidden groups. The groups are usually built around some specific event, say prams, or alternatively around some common interest such as LAN gaming or binge drinking. It works as a new and more appealing way to create what you may consider mailing lists. Engaging in those groups is easier as you post something relevant to the topic and know that your or your friends aunt will not see what you said.

<comment><USER15> Great, welcome to the age of bulletin board.

<comment><USER13> >> welcome to the age of bulletin board.

Facebook was created as an online replacement for something that had been around in physical form for a long time. Welcome to Facebook.

<comment><USER16> I think boomzilla was talking about electronic bulletin boards, i.e. BBSes and the web-based forum replacements that grew from them. (And it's an apt comparison -- forums remain an important social aspect of the web.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very interesting. A few years back, I was fascinated to see how much Facebook had become the native medium for the whippersnappers. Some of our interns thought of email like I thought of fax machines.

But even if Facebook is prone to stumble, I'd encourage entrepreneurs not to try to be the "next Facebook". As I wrote elsewhere [1]: "Honestly, there probably won't be a 'next Facebook', for the same reason there hasn't been a next Amazon, next Oracle, next Google, or next Apple. There hasn't even been a next Yahoo, because the secret to success for many startups wasn't being another Yahoo, it was being different. Something you should think hard on: Zuckerberg didn't set out to make the next Facebook, or the next anything. He was just making something fun for himself and his fellow Harvard students. It was only when he saw how powerful his creation was that his ambitions increased."

This seems especially relevant to me now that I'm seeing ads around San Francisco for two new social networks that are lamely trying to be the next Facebook.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/Is-it-foolish-to- go-t...](https://www.quora.com/Entrepreneurship/Is-it-foolish-to-go-to- Startup-Weekend-like-events-and-widely-pitch-my-next-Facebook-idea-in-search- of-co-founders/answer/William-Pietri?share=1)

<comment><USER18> Wasn't Facebook the "next Friendster?" I feel like it was actually a relative latecomer to the social networking party of the early '00s. Not to diss FB or their achievement, but it certainly felt like an evolution rather than a revolution upon launch. Only once they built up steam did it really begin to become an entirely new sort of beast.

Same with Google, no? I feel like they entered a crowded market of search engines and came out on top, but certainly weren't the first of their kind.

<comment><USER19> Some of us have longer memories than others.

* Facebook was the "Next MySpace"

* MySpace was the "Next Xanga"

* Xanga was the "Next Homestead"

* Homestead was the "Next Geocities"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >As your Facebook network becomes saturated, it can feel very public. It puts the focus on managing your image, rather than truly bonding with people. Young startups like Snapchat are providing shelter from the institution of Facebook by serving as a place where you can express yourself comfortably. A place where you don't feel like your every move is being watched.

This is something I will likely never understand. _Why_ do people have so much trouble with being themselves? This isn't a Facebook problem, this is a society problem. Facebook just exposed it.

Instead of talking about the end of the FB era and making new social networks, we should talk about making people more comfortable with being themselves. The first step is to stop spending so much time judging everyone.

<comment><USER21> >Why do people have so much trouble with being themselves?

Because people's lives have different sections that often have parts you don't want to overlap. You probably don't want your boss seeing a photo of you drunk at a party, and you probably don't want your conservative uncle to see that you are politically liberal.

In both those circumstances it's not that you'd necessarily _hide_ those parts of your personality from the other parties involved; your boss probably gets drunk too and your uncle isn't going to stop speaking to you because your political views differ. It's more that it doesn't improve the relationship with that person.

Yes, it would be great if people didn't judge each other but unfortunately that's not how the psychology works.

So, unless you live a life in which you're comfortable revealing every opinion you hold and every action you've taken (in which case _wow_ that's impressive) you have to maintain a certain image that you broadcast on a service like facebook.

<comment><USER22> Well, for one thing, when working for an American company, having real flaws kills your career. Alcohol abuse in the past. Getting arrested once for drug abuse. Having participated in manifestations. All of those will turn a ridiculous amount of Americans into your personal enemy at work, to extents that I never saw in Europe.

If you ever want to be working for a large American firm : firstly, you deny anything remotely like a character flaw, you almost violently pursue a "perfect" online image. Second you hide and deny things like your real political opinion (esp. the political one). The big public secret about politics in America is that there is no real difference in tolerance on average between republicans and democrats, and they're simply all very intolerant of even minor differences of opinion, and will do everything in their power to damage you or your reputation merely because of political differences. Thirdly, realize that people around you will also act like this. So pushing to hear someone's political opinion, finding out if they really like this charity they're contributing to that just happens to be the exact same one as their boss ... DO NOT GO THERE. Get an alias and make sure it can't be tied to your real name.

I actually made a mistake against this once, and got myself terminated after an infuriating 3 month period where my performance, which easily bested the rest of the team, was constantly criticized. Not by coworkers, strictly by management. A minor mistake was "revenue-impacting" according to my boss, 5 minutes after the sysadmin manager took me out to an expensive lunch on the company's dime for catching his mistake before it became a disaster. I had double the number of bugs closed of the next team member, and the whole team constantly asked me to look at their work. My boss, who never even showed up at the office, called me in at exactly the interval documented in the HR procedures to complain about my performance, never citing a single source. After 3 months I was "let go" for bad performance. I got 2 recommendation letters from a team leader and an operational manager without even asking. I am NOT making this mistake again. This all started after a political discussion.

Of course these rules will not make facebooking with your coworkers a particularly pleasant experience. You got to have priorities, and "being yourself" is lower than having a good job and career. Not that I am a great fan of social interaction online or offline. Especially the empty "look at my shiny" that happens on facebook/google+/youtube/... And the shouting matches, even less.

<comment><USER23> You don't have to live/work in Utah.

Its a peculiar graphical distribution such that anywhere within 300 miles of Chicago (including rural wisconsin, etc) or on the coasts, no one cares about stuff like that. But god help you in between the areas of freedom. Appalachia, Dakotas, the remaining English speaking parts of the south, that U shaped area of wanna be theocratic dictatorship is right out of one of Charlie Stross's novels, not even a parody, really.

<comment><USER22> Sorry to repeat myself, but San Francisco or New York is no better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> While much of the debate here on HN is around why authors continue to write pieces about "the end of X" or "the demise of Y", I couldn't help but ask the question: "Why do we continue to read them/link to them?

Possible answers:

1\. Many of us (or our employers) rely on these audiences for revenue, so knowing where they are and what they're interested in enables us to have success

2\. We're interested in what drives success/failure, despite logic indicating that -- in both scenarios -- random chance plays one of the largest parts

3\. It's like good old-fashioned gossip, where everyone who doesn't actually have anything to say can still speak up

4\. We hope to learn from history as it happens to us; if we can accurately predict why people are leaving Facebook and where they're going, we can be part of -- or the driver of -- the next wave.

</comment><comment><USER23> "What was cool in the 70s wasn't cool in the 80s."

Its very important he phrased it that way, because bell bottoms had another day in the sun. Happily young women wearing skin tight spandex/yoga pants from the 90s had another day in the 10s. Its difficult to find a womens fashion fad that doesn't repeat every 20-ish years.

The endless rotating wheel of fashion and fads doesn't rotate at a speed of 1 rotation per decade. Its more like 1 rotation per 2 decades aka generation.

I predict that 2030 will be an excellent year for 2010 style social networks.

<comment><USER25> I'm unaware of communications and technological trends falling into cycles like sartorial fashion.

You can use a 20-, 30-, or 50-year-old scarf or jacket you find in a thrift store, but not a phone or a computer. And very few people would want to.

<comment><USER23> This is very much like the first century of clothing probably was. After technological innovation in the field ceases, you'll be able to use old stuff.

You can use a 50 year old wired POTS phone no problem. The sound quality is superior to modern wired phones, and those are superior to any cell or voip tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A big counter point to the Facebook is a fad is Pepsi. Pepsi was considered a fad in the 60's when it was already 40 years old. It's still around. It buys coolness with a massive marketing budget. Pepsi is water + corn syrup + some flavor. And it's been around for many, many decades. Pepsi, and Cola, show that being old does not mean you can't still be cool.

<comment><USER27> > _Pepsi was considered a fad in the 60 's when it was already 40 years old. > It's still around._

Tons of things have been considered fads through the decades, some rightly (hula-hoops) and some not (rock music). The question, when making an analogy, is how they relate to Facebook.

Unless you connect Pepsi and Facebook with something more besides (both have been considered a fad), we cannot draw any conclusions from Pepsi with regards to Facebook's situation except this:

Sometimes, people can consider something as a fad when it isn't.

If you want to make this analogy work, you have to show why Facebook will be more like Pepsi and less like the hula-hoop or piano neck-ties.

<comment><USER28> Maybe it'll be that the concept of social networks is here to stay forevermore, but Facebook is just a brand. Social networks are becoming a dime a dozen, so using Facebook is a brand choice.

There's a social cost to be seen doing the things that everyone else is doing (the equivalent, say, of wearing a mainstream band t-shirt), so having a presence on Facebook is just meeting the bar. To be "cool" you need to find the social networks nobody else knows about, and hang out with your friends there. Bonus points for alluding, on Facebook, to conversations you had on the not-Facebook social network.

It may be amusing to find in 10 years that using Facebook becomes a new fad again and is seen as "retro". Certainly a possibility if Facebook does not innovate itself to non-recognizability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What about leaving the endless discussion about FB's destiny aside and just focus on creating a __new pattern of behavior or activity__ that appeals to a mass audience if you really want to build a large network on its own?

Examples of things that worked:

\- Follow updates of celebrities

\- Collect nice looking things on a website

\- Make even the worst picture look good

\- Be the best cat gif curator

Examples of things that didn't work:

\- Facebook but for ten friends

\- Facebook for Google Accounts

\- Facebook with open data portability

Let Zuck worry about the hype cycle and start building.

</comment><comment><USER30> Friendly wager offer: I'll bet anyone $100 that Facebook is still the largest social network based on monthly active users in 5 years. (Facebook itself, not any companies it acquires.)

We can either use public company stats, or a couple of respected publications' reported usage stats, or a combination of both to decide the winner.

<comment><USER31> Just as Microsoft Windows is still the largest desktop OS, but nobody seems to care. It is entirely possible to have continued dominance of industry (X) only to find that the value of dominating industry (X) isn't what it used to be...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The downfall of Facebook is what was the crux of its initial success: the comprehensive largeness of one's social network. On Facebook, most people accept all acquaintances and friends they have in real life (should they get a friend request)-- it would be rude not to-- and as a result, one's Friends List is usually a pretty good indication of one's entire social network. This allowed Facebook to gain its initial network effects, but this is also now paralyzing the activity of its individual users. I feel uncomfortable posting extensively online because there are many people in my friends list who I feel uncomfortable seeing my things (and I don't care enough to create Private lists).

As far as addressing the teen exodus, and related to the above impact, Facebook's NewsFeed is just not interesting anymore. Back when Facebook started, I was friends largely with 100-300 people whose lives I actually was interested in. I am not interested in the minutiae of my current 1000+ friends' lives, and their endless and meaningless statuses bore me to no end. Facebook wanted its NewsFeed to break out of the echo chamber effect, and therefore made the NewsFeed algorithm more random, putting the onus of creating relevant NewsFeeds on the individual user (through the creation of individual lists of friends). But USERS WANT THE ECHO CHAMBER EFFECT! I don't want to know what's happening in the "town square,"\-- I want to know what's happening with my 20 closest friends. Because teens joined on when this new paradigm was already in place, there's nothing to draw them in. It's just not interesting-- and apps like Instagram and Snapchat are more engaging as a result because they're more personal.

Lastly, Facebook is way too cluttered. It has an atrocious UI, so many buttons all over the place. Mark Zuckerberg's utilitarian aesthetic lives to today, only it's way worse because Facebook has so much more (useless) functionality. Instagram and Snapchat are clean and elegant-- it's not jarring to open those apps like it is to navigate Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER33> As a younger person that these types of articles are so fond of talking about (I'm 21), I don't agree that members of my generation are leaving and that we don't perceive Facebook as cool. I think what's changed with the new social media companies is the timeliness of when we do things.

Perfect example- I was out for a Secret Santa dinner with a bunch of my friends. While we were at the dinner, we took tons of pictures, some of which ended up as Snapchat stories or on Instagram. But later that night, every single one of those pictures went up on Facebook. Cover photos were updated aplently. Why? Because all of us are on Facebook and Facebook is still the best way to permanently store and share the experiences you've had with your friends (while also tagging them in the photos).

</comment><comment><USER34> I found this article really interesting. I started using Facebook in high school, back when high schoolers were to use hs.facebook.com to access Facebook and networks were heavily emphasized. I left Facebook about one year ago today.

One particular observation that the article makes that I want to flesh out a bit is the following: Facebook has grown and grown in terms of the size of the application itself, and it is clear that they have pushed very heavily for the 'platform' model. It seems like this is getting replaced by a series of more specialized, more mobile-centric social applications, like Snapchat and Tumblr. Of course FB owns Instagram so they have that going for them, but this does seem to hint at a bit of a growing trend in social networking.

</comment><comment><USER35> Social networking needs to be a specification. Imagine if email worked the same way social networks worked, it would be ridiculous. You could only communicate with other gmail users, or whatever users were on the platform you adopted. I understand from a business standpoint _why_ social networks have evolved the way they have, but from a utility standpoint it is a lose/lose to have these walled gardens.

What would be much better, is to let users use whatever platform they wish and implement some common protocol for following, status updates and private messaging.

<comment><USER23> RSS feeds on a blog and "click here to email me" links?

Personally I'm waiting for someone to "reinvent" NNTP.

<comment><USER36> Done. It's called reddit, and unfortunately not federated.

We're in a recentralization cycle of services, because it's easier to build (and more monetizable) than similar distributed services.

When we have the technical building blocks and business creativity to break the cycle, things will get interesting again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I see the evolution of social networking evolving from connecting with everyone in the world, aka public networking to only connect with the ones you actually care about, aka private networking. When Facebook was cool, it was cool to know that you can post a status update and have the "whole world" see it. With the rise of messaging services (snapchat, whatsapp, line and so on), we are moving to the stage where you only share with a very small group of closely connected individuals. A more intimate network.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think FB is simply transitioning from product to utility, like electricity.

Just one example is its utility to sign up and log in to other services, which is 95%+ of my FB activity.

<comment><USER39> Unlikely. I have never had a facebook and with the exception of spotify, which now has email sign up, no service I use has required fb to log in.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands >>> But it's rich, so it can buy cool. Facebook's $1 billion acquisition of Instagram was their first big move to strengthen their position with the youth of this country.

But with young people, if Facebook is uncool, then by proxy Instagram is uncool as well. This is how teenagers think these days. They can sink as much money into other social platforms, but you won't ever get rid of the Facebook stigma.

<comment><USER40> I think you're overestimating how many teens know that Facebook owns Instagram.

<comment><USER41> No, I bet quite a lot of teens are at least aware the sale happened. But they don't think about it every day. They don't care. Because Instagram is cool. In spite of facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> "Social" isn't a fad, but channels dedicated to being "social" might be. This is pure conjecture, but I think a major component of Twitter's success was that participating did not require you to use an official Twitter client. Ubiquity spurred growth. It's an example of "social media," not a "channel for social."

Another major component of Facebook's decline was their lack of a mobile strategy. Again, pure conjecture, but as mobile use in teens increases, the mobile experience matters more -- the Facebook app was unusable for a long time, and that probably had an effect on growth and reputation.

In my opinion, the biggest risk for Facebook is the paradigm shift in how we share photos. A big component of their growth in 2009 - 2011 was their dominance in the photo sharing space. They're the number one photo sharing site in the world. Now photo sharing and picture taking are a mobile experience (e.g., Snapchat, Instragram), being the number one photo sharing site isn't as big of a deal. The purchase of Instagram was smart.

</comment><comment><USER43> Very well written. Bravo! No doubt, facebook hasn't been cool to me for a least 2-3 years now for me -- if it ever was from the very beginning.

</comment><comment><USER44> I agree 100% with the author. I log into Facebook once a day, maybe. I don't have fb messenger on my phone. I use mailing lists (set one up for your friends, great, simple way to share photos etc w/ a select group of people)/WhatsApp/Snapchat/IRC (IRCCloud on my phone, because SSH eats up battery).

I used to be a much heavier Facebook user. Now I get hassled by family for saying uncouth things, and generally see it as a chore. Everything you do on Facebook is chronicled on your timeline, and has a certain amount of permanency, and while I'm sure you can delete a lot of it its clearly not the intention, so it does require more "curation", as compared to transient chat apps. The privacy controls are opaque and its hard to be sure exactly who you're sharing with, which makes it hard to be comfortable really sharing a lot on Facebook.

<comment><USER45> You "log into Facebook once a day, maybe."

How few companies can you say that about? That you use their product every day? Your mattress. Your refrigerator. Your toothpaste. Your car. Not only have all of their manufacturers have been around for nearly a century, but they all have perfect substitutes: Crest and Colgate. By your own anecdote, Facebook is in a very enviable position.

<comment><USER44> They're not going to disappear, that's for sure, my point was my level of engagement on Facebook is not what it used to be, the way I use it has changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Mobile has radically changed the social adoption cycle more than we've realized. Facebook is clearly the product of desktop world, where much of the information that made it valuable, particularly the social graph, needed to be contributed to the product to be effective.

The move to quickly-adopted "apps" has accelerated in mobile because the plumbing is already in place:

1\. Contact list / address book Implicit network already exists, does not need to be built in the new product.

2\. Location GPS takes apps beyond check-ins - adding context and information to posts. Even enabling new sorts of dating networks.

3\. Media Photos and video, combined with location, contacts and persistent connections on one device make it easier than ever to include photos and video.

This combination (not to mention building on the Facebook platform) will continue to enable faster developing and more narrow focused "networks".

</comment><comment><USER47> The author here makes a convincing argument that there is a "cool factor" in internet apps but then overstates his case dramatically when he sees the end of FB on the horizon. Simply because a tool loses it's cachet doesn't mean that the network effects go away.

Or put more directly: sure, hip 20-somethings don't give Facebook the love they once did. Who cares? FB doesn't have to play the "I'm the coolest kid in town" game any more. As the author says, they can _buy_ cool. All they have to do now is remain the only tool to wish Grandma a happy birthday.

Or, as some FB'er put it years ago, they're the phonebook, dammit. Their goal is to be a utility. They want to be the radio station, not the rock band.

</comment><comment><USER48> I can say I use Facebook Connect to log into web sites everyday, and sometimes I post to Facebook using other sites (if I pin something on Pinterest) but I actually check my facebook page one a month or so.

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord All social networks have remarkably short golden eras. That said, even though Facebook is declining, I still think all the articles about the "end of the Facebook era" and "death of Facebook" are sensational and exaggerated. They're still, what?... The second or the third highest traffic website internationally? Over a billion registered accounts (regardless of whether only half are legitimate and being used, it's a lot).

As the author noted though, Facebook can still thrive in the "cool factor" with their acquisitions.

</comment><comment><USER49> Even if you don't care or agree about what revolves around Snowden and the NSA, I'm sure it got many people wondering about how facebook operated and how information works.

Even if nothing is done about the NSA, it will have the merit of making facebook less and less popular, and make people not trust websites who might be information hungry.

I wonder if people thwarting the way they post their info can really make those info gathering useless. That'd fun to watch.

</comment><comment><USER50> I see it so much around me. Small Whatsapp groups, going back to sharing with just the ones we want to share it with. No content police. No long on-line history.

</comment><comment><USER51> Facebook is a fad. There is no Facebook "era".

<comment><USER52> If it's a fad then it has a time period where it is popular, which is entirely reasonable to call an "era".

<comment><USER51> I had similar comments from other people, so I will reply here:

In my native tongue, 10 years wouldn't be called an "era", hence the disagreement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I believe another reason teenagers are leaving Facebook is the insistence of using your real identity. Teens don't want their mom finding them online. That's why they're flocking to services where they can be anonymous, like Tumblr, where you can also meet new people outside of your circle of friends.

</comment><comment><USER54> > What teenager wants to hang out in the same place as their parents?

Parents have been on Facebook for a long time. Why are teenagers today leaving but not teenagers from 3 years ago?

Also, why is it assumed that teenagers who stopped using Facebook today aren't going to come back when they get older and have adult-things they want to share?

<comment><USER55> ahh, it's not that the teenagers are seeing adults share things and not liking what is being posted, it's that people are uncomfortable posting things because other people may see them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Who cares about Facebook "era".

</comment><comment><USER57> Teenagers become soccer Moms and sports watching Dads wondering what happened to their high school friends. There is no better place than Facebook to casually stay in touch. It's part of our life now, like it or not, even though it's not new or fresh anymore.

</comment><comment><USER58> "We filter too much, and with that, we lose real human connection."

The one (most outstanding) treat that turned me off from the very first moment I saw that site is that the most "facebook people" tend to filter too little!

</comment><comment><USER59> Do Teens spend a lot of money online ? If they dont then Facebook need not worry about "teens" as such. What happens to todays teens once they are in their 20s ? That is more important question here.

</comment><comment><USER60> I really enjoyed this post and found it oddly inspiring. Similar to the Steve Jobs quote about knowing you will die someday and how it helps make decisions. Thanks to the author.

</comment><comment><USER61> "Facebook is a public company now, which means it has to operate like a business."

Pretty sad indictment of the tech industry that operating like a business had to be qualified.

</comment><comment><USER55> "No one wants to play in your creepy tree house"

Facebook has turned into a creepy tree house - it's no longer a place for people to play. Because it's creepy.

</comment><comment><USER62> In my experience, comments are moving from Facebook to apps such as whatsapp.

</comment><comment><USER63> Decentralized social networks is the new thing.

</comment><comment><USER64> Facebook used to be fun. Now it's a chore.

</comment><comment><USER65> Snapchat is a frivolous, silly app mainly used for sexting. I agree that there is something in combing asynchrony and ephemerality, but come on. Nothing run by the likes of Evan Spiegel is going to threaten Facebook. He's not in the same class as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. He's not even in the same class as me. He's a rich kid and a lottery winner and should have sold at $3 billion and let someone else run it.

Now, what's going to beat Facebook and LinkedIn and much else in the _long_ run-- and by "long" I mean 2020-25 is something I call "quality social". Facebook provides "social" and there is no meaningful filter on quality. That's not a knock on Facebook; that's not its job. People can fill your feed with junk. Of your 400 "friends", 390 are really acquaintances. I have the most respect for what Meetup is doing ("use the Internet to get off the Internet") but the problem of providing a _quality_ social experience over the Internet is an unsolved one. (Meetup just helps people plan offline experiences.) I think that it will start with multiplayer games. Board games are great at alleviating social awkwardness that forms when people are new to each other or haven't kept in touch for a while. It goes beyond games, though; really, the problem is how to allow people to have meaningful and social experiences in such a way that they can be online, offline, or mixed (i.e. a game where some people are physically in the same place and some are not, or a game that persists as their locations change). Maybe we should try this out, do an Ambition tournament some time in 2014. Anyway, there are a lot of unknown variables-- especially around mobile devices-- but Quality Social is where the future (of social/consumer web) is coming from.

<comment><USER66> > Snapchat is a frivolous, silly app

Sure.

> mainly used for sexting.

Is this actually true? It hasn't really been my experience, but maybe my friends are prudes.

> I agree that there is something in combing asynchrony and ephemerality, but > come on. Nothing run by the likes of Evan Spiegel is going to threaten > Facebook. He's not in the same class as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. He's > not even in the same class as me. He's a rich kid and a lottery winner and > should have sold at $3 billion and let someone else run it.

The amount of butthurt in this comment is off the charts. You just took butthurt to 11.

Mark Zuckerberg was also a snotty, privileged rich kid once (he's not a kid anymore). In any case, who are you to put limits on what some 20-something kid is capable of? Because you have a lot of imaginary points on a comment board? Maybe his success is due to luck, or maybe it's because he didn't spend his time tearing down other people on a comment board.

Anyway, go ahead and build out Quality Social. Take the $3B offer, or maybe you should decline it because you're in another class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> It can't end soon enough.

The open internet meant that anyone with TCP/IP could see all content.

Facebook put everything behind a wall that was both effective at blocking open access and ineffective at protecting privacy.

The centralization of the internet into a handful of sites -- Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google -- is destructive to the original mission and concept of the internet.

</comment><comment><USER68> Teen use on Facebook is declining? Well teens don't generally have much money anyway. How does this translate to the end of Facebook? How many teens use Linkedin?

</comment><comment><USER69> I think Facebook will change from a product to a technology conglomerate, similar to Yahoo or Google.

<comment><USER70> Low traffic on facebook.com domain = no money</comment></comment>


The two App Stores - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/208454730 <comment><USER2> It's funny--they profile Ramp Champ and Skee Ball. Apparently these are two games modeling the same real-world game, and Ramp Champ doesn't use the Skee- Ball name or iconic game representation anywhere so it doesn't do as well.

At least for me, they're entirely correct. I must have seen that game in some list or another (new releases, etc.) at least 20 times, and I until now assumed it was a skateboarding game. Really hammers home how important the icon and name are.

<comment><USER3> I can't seem to find the article "Losing iReligion" on the Iconfactory blog -- but if the implication is true -- that Iconfactory is claiming their lack of success is a fault of the appstore -- thats a pretty ridiculous implication...for exactly the reason you point out here (and is the focus of the article).

What we think is good marketing (what the iconfactory has done), isn't just good per-se. What makes it good is its effectiveness...and by that metric. Ineffective marketing <> a bad AppStore.

<comment><USER4> I don't believe its on the Iconfactory blog, just the blog of one of their developers. Here's a link: <http://gedblog.com/2009/09/28/losing-ireligion/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It always amazing to me to hear people fail in some business and then blame the market, and this seems to come up a lot with regards to the App Store on Hacker News. It's refreshing to see someone critique that sort of analysis.

There is always a new blog post talking about the mathematical impossibility of making money on the app store, dependence on Apple for exposure, unfairness of the App Store rules, etc. Some of these articles even have some credibility. It's fair to say that it is difficult to make money on the App Store (or any other market). It's fair to say you can get a boost from Apple. And it's true that the App Store is not transparent.

But before you write that next screed about the App Store being an impossible- to-win game with no real reward for success, remember that you don't understand everything. As this article points out, it could simply be a market misunderstanding, which will doom a product anywhere.

Before you complain that the game is fixed, remember a lot of normal people make money on the App Store. Instapaper makes money, I make a living of the App Store, as do two close friends of mine, and none of us has ever been featured by Apple. We make good products, don't have VC capital or money to market, and the sales rise over time. You can make money on any category (not just games). I do well in Navigation, my buddy Ish does well in Social Networking, and another buddy Dave does really well in utilities.

If you try and make a product for the App Store and it fails to sell, you have no one to blame but yourself. The App Store is the absolute easiest way for an indie developer to sell software on a mobile phone... heck, to SELL software at all.

As a caveat, if you choose to play in the Games category, I suggest you be a good game programmer with a good idea, and not some two-bit hack with a get rich quick scheme. The competition is steepest in games. But, you can still win.

</comment><comment><USER6> Towards the end of the article the author lists other developers in the "appstore B" but I don't see that any of them have made any games. I think this is more of a comparison of games vs other apps in the store (although undoubtedly there is some crossover).

Really what this article is about is that a non-game developer went head-to- head with a company that has made and marketed several successful iphone games and came out "losing".

</comment><comment><USER7> It's not only "two app stores", it's actually applied to everything - literature, art, movies etc, etc. There's always a "mainstream" which has more mass-market appeal, and then there is something more deep and complex, but it only is of interest to a smaller percentage of, well, "customers".

</comment><comment><USER8> A well-written article that provides not only a description of the current struggles of iPhone developers but points to some solutions as well. Refreshing for those of us interested in making things better instead of just complaining, thank you!

</comment><comment><USER9> Marco, did you do any marketing for instapaper? How did you promote it?

I'd love to see a follow up post to this about how to Market to App Store B. Include everything from naming and screenshots to networking with bloggers to buying ads.

<comment><USER10> Instapaper started as a web site, which as far as I know spread by word of mouth. I was following him on Tumblr at the time, and spread his link right away. Remember that Marco's the second employee at Tumblr, which has an audience of nearly 2 million. Not all of them read what Marco's got to say, but a lot of them do. To make a really hasty judgment: I run tumblelogs with fairly high follower counts, and I know that like/reblog conversion is fairly low; judging by how popular his posts get, I'd imagine he's got an audience of a few thousand on Tumblr alone, and then all the people that read his blog via RSS, which isn't as easy to track.

Instapaper had one of the easiest sign-up processes I'd ever seen (when I designed notadouche.com, the goal was to one-up his sign-up), it was really simplistic, and it was free. The iPhone application came a year after Instapaper's site, so he already had a built-in audience. Then Instapaper became one of the top apps on the iPhone, reputation-wise, it introduced tilt scrolling to the design scene, and so Marco's become one of the "in" bloggers that gets quoted by John Gruber and Andy Baio and their enormous crowds. At some point he was picked up by Fusion Ads, but that was way later, after they'd started their strategy of placing advertisements on iPhone apps.

Marco's written multiple times about how he refuses to "network" on his blog, and how he refuses to promote what he writes in any way. <http://www.marco.org/166210052>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It was only a matter of time. The same thing happened on Verizon's 'Get It Now' store.</comment>


Mick Johnson Talks About StartupBus 2010 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.startupbus.com/perspective-from-an-alum-mick-johnson

<comment><USER2> _I volunteered to code the back-end in Google App Engine: a technology I'd never touched before._

I hate this confusion between a startup BUSINESS and a learning/teambuilding exercise - this is not a startup, it's a coding project.

<comment><USER3> They were offered 25k funding by The Capital Factory, received mentorship from super-angel Naval Ravikant, and had coverage all over the media like WSJ.

The reason the team didn't proceed is because of personel issues among the team which had they planned better would have no been an issue.

So how's this not a startup? All that would have needed to happen to make it a legal "business" are some documents signed by everyone (which were already prepared)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to protect one's privacy? How difficult is it? - <AUTHOR> (This comes in response to another HN thread[1] about why it's bad to lose your personal information.)<p>What are some ways to protect one's privacy? And for each such method, how difficult is it?<p>[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18829422 <comment><USER2> \- Don't use the Internet.

\- Don't use a computer.

\- Don't use a phone.

\- Don't use a credit card.

\- Don't use a bank.

\- Don't go to hospitals and clinics.

\- Don't live in a city with CCTVs.

\- Don't live in a city with tourists taking pictures/videos.

\- Cover your entire body when you go outside.

Basically, live like an hermit, or live in a remote undeveloped location and use cash for everything.

A better approach would be to stop being so possessive about your personal data, and understand that privacy is not inherently valuable.

</comment><comment><USER3> One step I am taking besides trying to reduce Google usage (eg use fastmail, DuckDuckGo) I am trying to stop using my real name as my username and when I want to particularly reduce links to my email use a service like Abine Blur which provides email and phone forwarding with multiple email aliases.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'll take an actual stab at this, as this is something I've been working on for the better part of a year

Prerequisites (non-optional): 1\. A good VPN 2\. A non-Google browser (Mozilla Nightly/Privacy browser) 3\. Extensions - AdBlock, UMatrix 4\. Browser settings - purge all trackers, don't save history, etc. 5\. Private, secure services (e.g., Protonmail for email, something similar to a Dropbox for filesharing, etc) 6\. there are other things to mention here, but for brevity, I'll skip them (e.g., TOR)

Now that you have all the necessary tools, this is where things get a bit tricky.

See the fact of the matter is, _you have to settle for some part of your life being public online_ \- this is simply non-negotiable.

But this isn't inherently a bad thing right?

I'm sure there are people who know that your name is $NAME, and you work at $JOB, and you have $N siblings, etc - basically, parts of your life are already _very_ public and that's OK. The same goes with online. It's totally OK for some parts of your digital life to be public. Example: you visit github.com regularly, you check your Gmail account, you watch youtube videos, etc. For these _public_ aspects of your digital life, DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT use a VPN, or a privacy browser, or any privacy tools. You want to come off as being a regular person, doing regular people things (this is sort of the bait).

This way, you can build an online profile that says "Hey, John Doe's online behavior looks like $XYZ, so if we see something that looks like $ZYX, it probably has a low probability of being John Doe".

However, this strategy requires you to almost live a double online life (a sad necessity), where you're John Doe by day (i.e., watching youtube, checking gmail, looking at funny cat memes, not using privacy tools), but Doe John by night (i.e., using all of your privacy tools to do what you _actually_ want to do online - look at conspiracy videos, read up on politics, etc).

It can be a bit cumbersome and tiring to switch back and forth in that way, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes much more natural. You learn not to mix your "John Doe" digital life, with your "Doe John" digital life. Because if you log into say LinkedIn via your VPN and they record your VPN IP, that can _easily_ be cross-referenced across other platforms/sites for that same IP (it's not an exact match, but it can leave a trail of cookie crumbs).

So can you protect _your real_ digital privacy when needed? Yes. Is it hard? To start, yes. Even when you get comfortable with switching back and forth, it can still be cumbersome. But until the world catches up and realizes that digital privacy is important (maybe in 50 years we'll be there), I wouldn't sit around waiting for things to change. Take action into your own hands.

Cheers

<comment><USER5> Many VPN services have shady data collection policies that aren't obvious to the user. Although you're more easily fingerprinted, Tor provides much stronger security and privacy and allows you to continually get new IP addresses.

<comment><USER4> I definitely agree that most VPN services are a cash grab, and can be nefarious to the unsuspecting user. Would definitely encourage the OP (and others) to do diligent research before signing up for one. And TOR would definitely fall under #6 in my answer, gonna go back and add it now</comment></comment></comment>


RadioShack files for Bankruptcy - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/02/05/384128304/radioshack-the-electronics-chain-files-for-bankruptcy

<comment><USER2> I think there is going be a resurgence in retail soon. There is something to be said about actually seeing and using something in real life versus looking at photos online.</comment>


The Ideological Turing Test: How to Be Less Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-polymath-project/the-ideological-turing-test-how-to-be-less-wrong-6803a8c290cf <comment><USER4> > _"The idea behind the meta-induction is that all of our theories are > fundamentally provisional and quite possibly wrong. If we can add that idea > to our cognitive toolkit, we will be better able to listen with curiosity > and empathy to those whose theories contradict our own."_

One thing I didn't see addressed anywhere in the article is the dimension of wrongness through time helps you decide which of you is less wrong.

He knows timeline is a factor, cited that quote earlier:

> _""Here's the gist: because so many scientific theories from bygone eras > have turned out to be wrong, we must assume that most of today's theories > will eventually prove incorrect as well."_

But then the miss — two people discussing "scientific" theories, if one theory is built on the shoulders of the other, probabilistically, which position is more likely to be "right" for continuing progress?

I can pass an Ideological Turing Test for a flat earth and turtles all the way down, but it's not the greatest use of my time.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_center_of_the...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_center_of_the_Universe)

Rather, what's the next thing we need to learn, and the "right" position to learn it from?

Learning builds on learning (this is why 'discoveries' happen all over around the same time), so recognize where parties are on that timeline. Fine, you're probably both degrees of wrong, but which position incorporates the most learning?

That's the position I want to stand on to discover what's next.

// PS. Yes, on the bleeding edge, what we know is "true" can flip back and forth. That's just natural selection at work. Same applies, just be aware where you are on the timeline.

<comment><USER5> As I see it this thought process only takes you so far in most areas of importance. The main purpose of an ITT is for those areas for which capturing knowledge and comprehension of that is trickier.

In the hard sciences, objective truth serves and you can talk of approximating towards something truer than before. That is something linear. The model gets measurably improved.

Most of everything else in society, economy, social, politics, ecology - <USER2> don't think runs well on such thinking to the point using it is counterproductive aka you will not survive by thinking like this. Practical people with rational ideas inserted into the political arena appear to typically get eaten alive. You're left with ogres, hopefully enlightened ones. It's likely the spectacularly convoluted nature of human politics is responsible for our biological evolution - like A/B testing with millions of lives, there's a nice essay musing on the cruelty of ourselves called Meditations on Moloch at Slatestarcodex.

Objective truths remain in all of those areas, society, economy, social, politics, ecology but they're the kind of truths which are not especially helpful. There's these cyclical patterns, emergent phenomenons.

One day the model will be Fedualism, another Liberalism, another day Communism, another day another -ism, but what is really going on? So maybe some of the time some people are wrong, but more often the new -ism is saying "incomplete model" and if your society decreases in complexity it may even start to say something like "reduce model", deregulate, even promote anarchy.

The most appropriate model is that of a Garden. You may grow blackberry plants or oak trees, but you can't really think of "how do I optimize it all" because bluntly you're not that intelligent and nobody is that intelligent. Instead you get weeds, experiments, patterns of growth, environmental conditions, incentives, bad weather - all those joys. In one way you may read scientific literature on optimizing particulars - but I wouldn't say that's what Gardeners really do unless their only goal is to produce spuds - and even then any farmer will update you on just how much of that is outside their control. It's like that with Society but we're in a worse devil of a position. Talk about legacy code, yikes.

tldr; You're maybe not looking for "the truth" as wondering "how do you get a benevolent gardener" and still deal with the slugs :-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, > basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and > intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessment of > other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds when > we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously > assuming that we are very close to omniscient." > > Why do we feel this way?

I feel this way because I've spent the last 34 years of my life gathering evidence, forming the views that I hold, and testing them against alternative interpretation.

I don't think it's unreasonable for an adult to believe that their well- considered views are correct, barring strong evidence to the contrary.

I do my best to have "strong views that are weakly held". Yes, I'm confident that I'm correct in most things, but I'm very interested in hearing someone tell me I'm wrong and why, and I am open to changing my views if confronted with strong evidence of their incorrectness. Honestly, it's rare that this happens, but it _does_ happen.

<comment><USER7> > _I don 't think it's unreasonable for an adult to believe that their well- > considered views are correct_

Millions of teenage voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. Suffering under a "reasonable" but wrong adult is an extremely common life experience. So common that the sheer weight of observation suggests that "well-considered views" are usually wrong, if not completely ridiculous.

Many of my adult coworkers and friends have stated that they are just "making up adulting as they go" \-- and I share this observation. Few, if any of us, really understand how things work, why things are the way they are, or if our actions are fair and correct. We would all be much better off if we admitted this poor state of affairs more openly.

> _I feel this way because I 've spent the last 34 years of my life gathering > evidence, forming the views that I hold, and testing them against > alternative interpretation._

Inductive reasoning, the process of building up small pieces of evidence and observations and forming a larger conclusion, is inherently unsound. The conclusions you build from this process are fallible, and should be held with suspicion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The teenager argument is sooo stupid. Yes, he wanted X as a teenager, now he isn't and wants Y. It's a different but related personality, rights and wrongs just don't ever enter the picture.

Unless he either overcommits as a teenager ("I would never grow up to want Y") or becomes a hypocrite later ("X was never a good idea").

<comment><USER9> Is your comment meant to be ironic? Your criticizing his weakest argument :)

<comment><USER8> I'm not actually arguing about the whole point. But the argument itself might get your idea discarded even before getting tried on its merits. Think of it as of Bayes of ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> TL/DR summary.

\- Everyone walks around thinking they are right

\- author digresses on how everything from his younger days was "wrong"

\- We cannot all possibly be right

\- we approximate

\- Scientific ideas that we thought were true have now been proven wrong. Hence we are most likely "wrong" in our views

\- To ensure you are "less wrong" seek out conflicting views, multiple perspectives

\- you only truly understand a conflicting view if you can convince others you believe it

Now to get a bit meta, I will analyse why the view above could be interpreted as being more wrong then right.

What the post describes is actually a symptom, and not the cause. What is being described can be explained by a few axioms:

\- we socially construct our reality

\- we have an inherent need to make sense of the world, to understand

given the above

we reinterpret the past based on our current knowledge and judge something as wrong based on the present.

Another simpler way to put this, is you can never know you are wrong/right in the present.

Only once you have done something can you evaluate if it is right/wrong.

It is like the halting problem, for anything of some complexity we cannot know if we have the right answer also have a look at P versus NP.

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts? Let me know

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm honestly not sure if that title is intentionally referencing Less Wrong or if it was an accident. I'm leaning towards intentional, since this seems to be far too close to what I'd expect from the rationalist community (steelmanning, etc) for him not to have heard of it...

<comment><USER12> Almost certainly intentional. Caplan is very close to the rationalist community, and rationalists quickly embraced his idea of the ITT - <USER3> occasionally ran public ones:

[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/ideological- turi...](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/ideological-turing-test- contest)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Meta thought: is this article wrong? (Partly tongue-in-cheek, partly not)</comment>


Chicago Hackers & Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR>

Wanna get together sometime? I saw a few "we're from Chicago" refs in another thread. <comment><USER2> I live in Oak Park and have an office downtown.

I'm working mostly on web apps and some business/finance services ideas (with software seasoning, of course.) I'm also an entrepreneur-in-residence for a small alternative asset fund that occasionally invests in SaaS start-ups.

I've went to one "start-up event" in Chicago since moving here. It was a waste of time. (The event was held at a bar and it was too loud to have any meaningful interaction with people. I was also hit up a few too many times for funding and/or free technical input by people that had ideas for things they couldn't share except to say their idea was "like MySpace, only bigger!")

;-)

I'd prefer a smaller, more informal meeting at a bookstore or something where the signal to noise ratio was a little better. And, even then, only if there was a compelling reason to take time away from coding...

</comment><comment><USER3> I just set up a campfire for Chicago news.ycers if you want an invite drop your email to cubend#gmail.com It'll be easier to work something out in there.

</comment><comment><USER4> I live in the city north side - Lincoln Square. What are you guys working on? Web apps I presume?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm in Lakeview. Is there an area we'd all want to meet in that's kinda central to everyone?

</comment><comment><USER5> I from the 'burbs. Are there any informal bar-camp type things coming up?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> i'm from the burbs too. i don't know what's coming up. opencoffeeclub was yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER6> web app guy in lakeview...</comment>


BlackBerry Doesn't Need to Stake Its Survival on Consumer Handsets - <AUTHOR> http://www.eweek.com/mobile/blackberry-doesnt-need-to-stake-its-survival-on-consumer-handsets/

<comment><USER2> Sorry, but this is all bullshit. Blackberry is in the business of ripping of people. Their BBM/PIN2PIN encryption is a joke. All devices use the same predefined AES key to 'scramble' pin messages. The only reason it is popular in emerging markets is that you can get a bbm data plan for like 2 bucks a month and do unlimited texting.

Their enterprise server is a pain to run, and if u try to use your BES dataplan in roaming prepare to pay thru the nose.</comment>


In programming style, as in most things, moderation - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-01.html#e2010-01-05T15_25_06.htm <comment><USER2> It's pretty difficult to have an intelligent conversation about programming languages. Thus it's likewise difficult to advance the state of our art.

You try talking to most FPers about this stuff, and they get angry because you're telling them that Haskell is not the most optimal language for building a GUI. Go look at XMonad, they say. I'm sorry, but one damn example doesn't quite cut it.

You try talking to mainstream folks, and they always default back to the "where are the big, successful functional programs?" For christ's sake, when did the size of your codebase become something to be proud about? Did you become a goddamn excel-spreadsheet manager or something? The fact that all current systems are done in OO/imperative is not a good thing because quite frankly, most code SUCKS. And you know it.

For myself, personally, I've found the purity and laziness of Haskell too useful to dispense with. It's just _that_ much better than other languages like OCaml because of the lazy bit. So what do I advocate? Leave the UI code to the imperative/OO languages, and do the backend in Haskell. This wins no fans in either camp.

But the pure FP camp is the one that has something to prove, so we're the ones at a loss here.

I think we should try to build _part_ of a good, stable system in something our language is good at. In the real world, 80% is usually good enough, so lets get the 80% we're really darn good at (yes, I think _pure_ FP is good at 80% of any task in any stack). Things that exploit parallelism and/or correctness seem ripe for the picking. Things like databases, or any sort of data processing.

Look at what the Erlang guys are doing with CouchDB. Even a full blown web backend seems like fair game. The problems I've had doing one have not been technical or related to Haskell. They're psychological (i.e. student syndrome). Someone with more experience than me ought to just go and do a better job.

</comment><comment><USER3> An interesting read, but I found this a bit bizarre:

 _No one seems to place a purity test on stateful programming: "Try writing that without any functions!"._

It seems like the author is somehow placing imperative and functional languages on opposite ends of the spectrum, but in reality imperative programming is just a direct model of programming physical machines and functional programming is a constraint layered on top of that to impose a much more reasonable order.

State is an unavoidable consequence of machines operating in time and space. Functional programming just lets you pretend the physical computation doesn't exist to various degrees, but under the hood it's all imperative.

<comment><USER2> Imperative programming arises from the fact that modern architectures are based on the Von Neumann model. FP programming arises from a lambda calculus model, so I feel that his argument is accurate. Note that this is not placing things on a spectrum, per se. One day we may not be using Von Neumann architectures for everything, anymore, and then his analogy will become more apparent.

<comment><USER3> Pardon my shortsightedness, but how can a physical architecture be devised that doesn't ultimately compute via a sequence of state modification (ie. imperatively)? Von Neumann seems neither here nor there. Lambda calculus is a mathematical model, it exists only as a concept, it can not physically be excecuted in spacetime without an imperative implementation. Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER2> There are people working on architectures that are mind-bogglingly different. Google for Fleet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> After linking to James Hague's article "Functional Programming Doesn't Work", Wallingford argues that a practical compromise is to write programs that contain about 90% pure and 10% stateful code. Interestingly, Hague came to the same conclusion in a followup to his own article:

 _"My real position is this: 100% pure functional programing doesn't work. Even 98% pure functional programming doesn't work. But if the slider between functional purity and 1980s BASIC-style imperative messiness is kicked down a few notches--say to 85%--then it really does work."_ <http://prog21.dadgum.com/55.html></comment>


Dropbox deprecates API v1 forgetting obj-c - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.dropbox.com/developers/2016/06/api-v1-deprecated/ <comment><USER2> It looks like the best option is just to get rid of the dropbox api in any existing code and use Apple's new Document Picker instead. It's just a few lines of code, and users can still select dropbox as a provider.

<comment><AUTHOR> Picking a file yes, but having a working syncing solution... not a few lines.

UPDATE: The Obj-C SDK link is still broken: [https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/objective-c](https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/objective-c)

But 1 hour ago "A Dropboxer" on the developer forum mentioned: "we are working on it, eta August" [https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en- us/community/posts/207430...](https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en- us/community/posts/207430726-API-v2-for- Objective-C-?flash_digest=be7bb64085d2b171265e66d370d76da05ca29cb7)

<comment><USER2> For me, all I need is a file picker, so the Document Picker will work for me.

For you it sounds like the best solution is just to wait and see.

I'm very surprised at dropbox doing this. Dropbox is about the only API I've been able to just integrate and not touch for the past 5 years. It's worked reliably without any issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> How a company this size can take this approach to an API upgrade is beyond me: It is not like most Dropbox-API-using iOS apps out there are written in Swift... in fact, the large majority of users - by far - are using apps written in Obj-c.

And indeed, I don't even want to touch the syncing code. It has reliably worked for the past 4 years.

<comment><USER2> My guess is that they might eventually produce a backward compatible API.

From what I can see it is the underlying REST API that has changed. I don't see any reason why they can't keep the same iOS API, and just update their iOS library to use the new v2 REST API internally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> They are "planning to add [obj-c] to the _migration guide_ before we retire API v1".

Which sounds a lot like obj-c will not be supported, and is not even addressed in the migration guide at this time.

This makes it hard to prepare for September 28 when users will start gettings warnings about obj-c apps if the developers have not acknowledged the deprecation they cannot prepare for.

<comment><USER2> It lists the objective C SDKs in the "community SDKs" section. However both of them appear to require a certain amount of rework. I just want an updated DBRestClient that I can just slot in. Is that too much to ask?

Your users won't get warnings if you sign in and click the "I confirm that I'm aware of the deprecation" button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Whew, I actually started to build my app on top of the Dropbox API a couple months ago, but switched it up to Google Drive since their API seemed more powerful and up to date.

At the time, API v2 seemed to still be in flux, so I started with V1 since it seemed more "stable". Now it's deprecated and will be turned off? It seems like I can't keep up lately.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here is a working Objective-C SDK for Dropbox API v2: [https://github.com/CloudRail/cloudrail-si-ios- sdk](https://github.com/CloudRail/cloudrail-si-ios-sdk)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Any experience with [http://www.ensembles.io](http://www.ensembles.io) ?</comment></comment>


Washington Residents Smoke Way More Weed Than Officials Thought - <AUTHOR> http://nation.time.com/2013/12/18/washington-residents-smoke-way-more-weed-than-officials-thought/?hpt=hp_t3

<comment><USER2> The article says that the state is limiting the amount of _land_ that can be used for marijuana cultivation? For thirty years all of the best weed in Washington has been grown indoors with specially timed lights, often hydroponically with CO2 enhancement. Surely they mean square footage.</comment>


Google, Oracle Workers Enlisted for Obamacare 'Tech Surge' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-31/google-oracle-workers-enlisted-for-obamacare-tech-surge-.html <comment><USER2> If I just learned that a government spent time and resources to tap my fiber- optic network and record the internal operations of my company, I'd be _damned_ if I would then lend said government some of my prized technicians to pull their asses out of a fire of their own making.

But that's just me.

I wonder what the end-result of this "surge" will be, besides the obvious (a website that is declared "working" whether or not the processes behind it are): will we start to hear horror stories of the mess behind the scenes of healthcare.gov, after _real_ professionals get to see the sausage factory in operation?

<comment><USER3> The idea that someone would refuse to help get more people insured in a country where health care financing will for at least the next 10 years depend entirely on insurance because of something the NSA did is emblematic of how annoying nerds like us are when it comes to public policy.

That'll show 'em! All 10-15 people in the government who might get fired over Obamacare, along with the 10 MILLION people who will spend even more time uninsured. You get 'em!

<comment><USER4> So it's perfectly okay for the government to play the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" and other nonsense games, but here it is "emblematic of how annoying nerds like us are when it comes to public policy"?

I also really don't think a goddamn website stands in the way of affordable universal health care. Implement a Weberian bureaucracy and have it run on good old paper and mail, that is how its done everywhere else, and by the looks of this IT disaster we'd come out on top, jobs and everything!

<comment><USER5> Are you going to be paying taxes this year? I don't know who people think pays for the NSA, but its the money we pay in taxes every year.

I encourage all americans on here who will owe taxes for 2013 to take a stand and stop paying taxes until the FISC is dissolved as a matter of principle.

It's ridiculous the number of HN members ready to cast the first stone because they judge _someone else 's_ leverage to be sufficient that _they_ should be taking a stand. It's the exact same phenomenon that gives us zero approval for congress yet astronomical rates of incumbency every election.

If you aren't willing to withhold tax payments, clearly you at least recognize there is _some_ line at which you can actively support a government that is engaged in something very wrong because the benefit of not doing so would be tiny compared to the harm. Now imagine that instead of funding a tiny, tiny portion of the government, your support would instead be helping millions of people to find insurance coverage.

\- We cannot allow our rights to be ignored.

\- There are millions of people forgoing medical treatment every day because they don't have insurance.

\- There are thousands of people going into personal bankruptcy every day because they don't have insurance.

Luckily we can work on fixing more than one thing at once. The idea that we should ignore one until the other is fixed is ludicrous, and I would argue a net immoral act if put into practice.

<comment><USER6> _> If you aren't willing to withhold tax payments, clearly you at least recognize there is some line at which you can actively support a government that is engaged in something very wrong because the benefit of not doing so would be tiny compared to the harm._

You don't think that someone might be unwilling to break the law for a cause because prison isn't such a nice place?

<comment><USER7> You could always defund the government by giving your taxable income to charity. But I expect most people think they deserve their income more than the government doesn't deserve it.

<comment><USER6> it's not just a matter of desserts. Unlike corporations, which are taxed on a _profit_ basis (i.e. income less costs), individuals are taxed on an _income_ basis. So if you give 100% of your income to charity, there is nothing left for food, shelter, etc.

<comment><USER7> Don't give 100% away, just give the taxable part away. Don't most countries have a personal tax-free allowance?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Adding more workers to a late software project makes it later"

see the Mythical Man Month.

I wonder if there's an additional scaling factor for gigantic government cluster fucks.

Yep, obamacare is doing nothing to provide more doctors.. just more computerized bureaucracy to boost IT salaries. But I hope we all know the government doesn't give a fuck about your health, or privacy....

<comment><USER9> True, but replacing (potentially) incompetent workers with very competent workers will probably help, as long as they're allowed autonomy.

<comment><USER10> Actually, no. Again, read the book. It doesn't work that way. The more competent workers will want to rewrite everything setting the whole project back. Many times, staying with the incompetent crew is better even if it means things move slow as molasses and the final product is buggy as hell.

<comment><USER11> > _The more competent workers will want to rewrite everything_

That's at odds with describing them as "competent".

<comment><USER12> Not exactly, what if the existing code/architecture has inherit security flaws in a high value Healthcare system? Something that competent workers won't just let exist to "finish" the job.

<comment><USER11> I continue to believe you do not understand what a competent developer is. A competent developer will do what is necessary to accomplish the job they are given, in this case making an already-launched service work as quickly as possible. That may include unfortunate workarounds for security issues pending a real fix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can see the Fox News headlines already. "Not even the nation's best tech companies could save Obamacare."

</comment><comment><USER14> Fully open source the pricing tables, and we can do the rest in a matter of days.

Nothing the 'data hub' is doing is actually necessary to "help" the American people price out an insurance policy, and decide if they want to buy it or pay the "fee" instead. I think the allure of feasting on all that Big Data and tying all their systems together for more efficient error correction, de- duping, and mining for "other purposes" was too much to resist.

thetylerhayes mentioned [http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/insurance_plans?zip_code=3670...](http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/insurance_plans?zip_code=36701) which is a good example of what's easily possible. It's not much more work to _ask_ for household income, birthdates, and tobacco use, and calculate the exact cost.

It's trivial to take a given household income and show the resulting subsidy. Personally I think checking for Medicaid eligibility is out of scope, but it's not black magic either, just the questions you would have to ask would vary per state.

If they would open source the APIs and schemas for submitting completed applications to the insurance companies, then starting from scratch a team of 5 could have the whole system online before Thanksgiving.

</comment><comment><USER15> The more this drama unfolds, the more I think it's going to make for a great book for nerds. A big-ticket IT project, behind on schedule, lots of political flak, all the usual dysfunctional behaviors that happen with off-the-rails projects, the VP just called us all geeks, now Oracle and Google are parachuting in "alpha teams"

Sounds like something out of a Tom Clancy book for liberal nerds. Big Government program on the rocks. Select team comes in and saves the day. Hell, might even be a movie in there somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is really smart of Google and Oracle. By lending their engineers over to Healthcare.gov, their engineers are going to get the best healthcare systems training possible. It's the best domain knowledge enhancement program available. Healthcare.gov is attempting something no other start up in the nation has the opportunity or capacity of accomplishing, because of the sheer scope of it.

If I worked in a healthcare start up I would be making every effort to get contracted.

<comment><USER17> > Healthcare.gov is attempting something no other start up in the nation has > the opportunity or capacity of accomplishing, because of the sheer scope of > it.

Opportunity? Indeed, no.

Capacity? Oh my yes. Just look at what @MMWasser was able to build in the few days since healthcare.gov's launch based on healthcare.gov's and related sites' data: [http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/](http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/)

Plenty of talented engineers are just waiting to pounce on any and all data and opportunity made available to revolutionize this space. There's more than enough capacity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anyone know how to get in on that? :) Being a senior level enterprise java developer in the health care sphere, I'd be interested in helping out.

<comment><USER19> I imagine Obama calls you. Most of these guys may have been on his re-election engineering team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The "tech Surge" will be no doubt meet resistance by the "Talebug" terrorists. This war will not be won in our lifetime (or the lifetime of this thread at any rate).

</comment><comment><USER21> Ok so we have a buggy website and this is going too be fixed by using outsourced engineers. Not exactly a solution and for all we know Oracle could send the same engineers that made mistakes in java, not impossible.

Just so long as the website does not start insisting upon a toolbar to be installed, then nobody will get any more upset pressing F5 repeatedly to check if the site is down. If anything this website is suffering a bit from what I call fashion denial of service, bit of a fotm.

</comment><comment><USER22> More engineers make a project later. So this is bad news.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Hey, uh, Google... We are sorry we secretly stole information from your personal networks and spied on you and your users activities. Can you be good pals and help us get our site working?" — what a joke. If only Obama dedicated as many resources as he does to his spying programs, then the site might have made its deadline flawlessly.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anything about too many cooks in the kitchen?

I'm just wondering how they can so straightfacedly say that it will take one month to fix what is clearly not an easy problem...

</comment><comment><USER25> What platforms is it hosted on? Did that have anything to do with who is helping out?

<comment><USER26> i'd speculate that Google is brought in because it is good PR, and Oracle, well, it sounds like healthcare.gov backend is running something like 4-6 node RAC (most probably Exadata). Good luck to them as they would really need it :)

<comment><USER27> Google SREs have a lot of experience managing very complex systems with very little downtime. There're certain architectural patterns and practices you can use if you want to keep a large distributed website highly-available.

Oracle I'd imagine is there for expertise with specific technologies.

Also, it's worth remembering that these are specific _engineers_ who volunteered, and not their employers. So a lot is really who was willing to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> At what point do we stop handing over ideas to the spaz for implementation?</comment>