Rome in Ruins - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/travel/rome-pollution-trash.html <comment><USER2> I've driven into Italy from Switzerland on a few occasions. It's like one of those MMOs where you know you're in a new zone immediately. Even though you're driving you can tell exactly where the border is, not just where the official building for the import/export inspectors are, but the exact place where the Swiss asphalt ends and the Italian begins.

Switzerland: Asphalt is perfect. No potholes, it might be a Formula One track you're on. There's no weeds sticking up. There's no plants growing over the signs or the barriers on the side. Signs themselves are pristine, like they were made today. No debris such as tyres or hubcaps on the roadway, though you do cross a piece of trash every now and again. You also come across the maintenance vehicles that keep all these things clean.

Italy: Not like that.

Most of Europe is like this. Germany is pretty good. France is a bit less decayed than Italy. Denmark is better but still weeds, trash, and potholes. UK is like Denmark, not perfect but you don't get that sense of failed state that you get crossing into Italy.

One social/political thing that always comes to mind is they could hire people to clean things up. They wouldn't be highly paid, but people on low income getting paid could be good for the economy. Italy and France also have reasonably high unemployment rates, so there must be some people who would be willing? And they'd be providing a public good: everyone wants to live in a clean country.

<comment><USER3> I've heard a lot from other Americans about thinking France was a dump when they visited, and I really thought they were exaggerating. When I visited, I was actually pretty surprised to find it just how they described it. I wasn't sure if it was just that it was different, but I guess it's nice knowing at least some Europeans seem to agree.

What really shocked me was how often I've heard terrible things about China from Euros/Americans, but going and seeing brand new, pristine streets, no litter in the rivers and streams, and not even cigarette butts on the sidewalks. I know dirty areas exist, because they do everywhere and China is the world's manufacturing capital, but they're doing great with their urban areas these days. But most Western cities make me depressed these days. You can see what they used to be, but they feel like they're wasting away.

<comment><USER4> I was in Paris over the summer; it wasn't a "dump" by any means, though there was a layer of grime to everything that many cities have. Also the amount of smoking was shocking and to me, very unpleasant.

On the other hand, Normandy and it's various towns and villages were so heartbreakingly beautiful, quaint, and filled with joy, I could barely believe that such a place could exist on Earth.

<comment><USER5> Sounds really strange coming from Americans. Maybe they all lived in some over-priced suburbs? Any major US city is definitely as grimy as Paris

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is how I see New York City. Living there I was so used to it, then I went to San Diego for a wedding, couldn't believe my eyes when I saw people walking around outside barefoot. Because everything was clean, why not? Everyone else wore sandals, I was the only one wearing shoes.

I came back to NYC early Monday morning, rode the subway from JFK and had to walk through Times Square to get where I was going. Times Square on a Monday morning, cleaning up from the weekend, is so gross. Of course trash, also urine and vomit and food smashed into everything, broken glass, etc. Of course all that and more in the subway, and rats here and there. The wind tunnels that are the streets blowing the detritus in your eyes, basically aerosolized rat feces. Stepping over little rivers of dog, or even human, urine was routine anywhere. And this is Manhattan, one of the greatest concentrations of wealth anywhere.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I was in NYC for the first time this year and I was impressed by the filth and general dilapidation. The subways are exceptionally dirty, and the stations/trains along the A line seemed to be in advanced decay.

It's nowhere as bad as Chicago though ;P

<comment><USER8> It's not that they don't pay people to clean up. I used to get on the A at the very first stop. The train would be parked until it was time to go, and there was a whole crew of cleaners. The cleaning went like this, the workers would start in each separate car, when the doors opened they'd walk in, then walk towards each other trailing their mops, sit down and start talking. That was the cleaning that the MTA was paying for.

This used to drive me nuts. Then one day a high level supervisor came on the train, and a group of the cleaners were in the car I was sitting in. He sat down with them and proceeded to explain how if they went to this certain building and filled out some paperwork they would start getting paid $40 per hour. He was going around, not inspecting work, but on behalf of their union, explaining how to work the system.

The MTA is the worst, and taught me the dangers of some unions. I never saw an MTA employee working. Once I saw 4 MTA employees standing around as two contractors changed light bulbs. NYC has a heavily utilized subway system, and it definitely isn't free. But they can't even pay the expenses for maintenance let alone improvements without tax payer support because of these leeches. This is why NYC and elsewhere are like this, people not doing what they are paid to do.

<comment><USER9> r/thatHappened why do people post stuff like this? completely unverifiable and highly exaggerated at best complete fabrication at worst

<comment><USER8> Because I lived in NYC and rode the subway multiple times every day all over the place and this is what I experienced. Lots of data points collected that were all consistent. Of course you don't have to believe me. I provided a couple short examples that demonstrated what I was talking about. I've seen plenty of other things but they are more difficult to explain. If you have routinely used the NYC subway and had a different experience please share, otherwise just take it as the impression from a fellow HNer.

<comment><USER9> cool man. i lived in nyc too and rode the A and C all the time never witnessed anything but white glove service.

>otherwise just take it as the impression from a fellow HNer. on the internet everyone is a dog

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been in around 20 countries in Europe and Italy was the second-worst (after Georgia) in terms of rubbish.

The problem is not only with Rome. I have lived for three years in Milan and it is as dirty. Turin is only marginally better. In fact, on some days the road from Milan's Bergamo airport to the city was so dirty that it looked almost as if in a third-world country.

Interestingly, from my experience there was very little dog poo on the streets. Italians always seemed to painstakingly collect the poo of their pets and put it into rubbish bins. No such enthusiasm with other types of rubbish.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm currently visiting Rome and am shocked by the volume of garbage (and dog shit) on the street. It's everywhere and quite strange to see juxtaposed with all the fancy marble. I just don't get it. In comparison, my region in the USA is very clean. Additionally, I just came from Russia, which has a littering problem. But even even Russia is a clean paradise compared to the trash heap that Rome has become...

</comment><comment><USER12> It's not just Rome, I saw this in other Italian cities as well. The tourist areas are well-manicured, naturally, but the outskirts of many Italian cities are crumbling. Infrastructure is generally outdated and poorly designed, if not actively falling apart. The Italy of postcards and travel videos is a far cry from the Italy most Italians live in.

<comment><USER13> Spain is in the same situation, although maybe not so pronounced yet. It's a stark contrast to post-Soviet countries, which are relatively well maintained and seeing trash dumped is practically unheard of.

<comment><USER14> Interesting, I am from Czech Republic, I was in Spain recently and I didn't feel like that at all. I have been mostly in Andalusia and the cities look great, Madrid looked fine as well.

<comment><USER15> Madrid is a fine city but I also was 'lucky' to visit it while there was a huge demonstration occupying the city centre. Didn't look so well during that time. I think right before that the garbage men had a strike leaving all the trash on the streets.

I guess in a way it doesn't take much to make a city look clean (or dirty) but it takes a lot of work for it to be constantly good looking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Last time I was in Rome I had exactly the same impression. I even saw a discarded air conditioning unit at the feet of an ancient wall and it felt like I was in some dirty outskirts. I turned the corner and there was the Colossuem. Some Italian cities are very clean, others are even more dirty. It really depends and my guess is that after a while locals just stop seeing this. Clean and dirty is very subjective after all.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've thought for a while now that there is a special depravity to things like littering that makes them worse than, for example, small-time theft.

At least the thief has a rational reason to steal and gains from his crime roughly what he has taken from another. The litterer by comparison gains so little but does so much harm.

<comment><USER18> I get the impression theft usually pays the thief a lot less than the value of the loot -- they have to fence it, etc. You could view that as a quibble about profit-sharing, but OTOH in the bigger picture theft is highly negative-sum because of the costs around prevention and the thief's extra work in overcoming it (and other costs). So theft actually is rather like littering in this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm always struck about how many people complain about trash, but seemingly so few actually do anything about it in their neighborhoods.

While preventing littering is a laudable goal, the solution is achievable by all of us. Just pick up a few pieces and ay and throw it away. If everyone who complained about littering did that, the problem would be solved.

Sure, there would still be litterers, but at least the neighborhood would be clean. I'd posit fewer people would litter if there wasn't already trash everywhere.

<comment><USER20> This helps to a point, but people only have so much time and can only do so much if the system is systemically broken as it is in Rome, where they are simply not able to process trash even when placed in dumpsters. Plus if the trash contains lots of things like broken glass or sharps, it might be dangerous for untrained citizens to dispose of trash on the street.

America hasn't really made a dent in domestic poverty even though charitable donations are the highest in the world per capita. At some point you do need an organized government response to problems.

<comment><USER21> American charitable donations are only so high because church tithing counts.

When's the last time you saw a church organize a street cleaning party, though? (or opening its tax-free building to the homeless?)

<comment><USER22> In the USA churches provide a substantial portion of the shelter available to the homeless.[0] Church tithing is often charitable, and churches often open their doors to provide community services.

Churches may not regularly organise street cleaning parties, but I don't think that they consider litter to be one of society's great sins either.

[0]: [https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=s...](https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=176953)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Pretty much all large cities are dirty. People like to stereotypically dunk on Paris but to be frank it's got nothing on London or New York. There's just something inherently filthy that comes with large concentrations of human beings. The only exception I've seen first hand is Tokyo. I guess if you're not used to large cities it must be shocking.

"There was a certain something about the air in [Ankh-Morpork]. You got the feeling that it was air that had seen life. You couldn't help noting with every breath that thousands of other people were very close to you and nearly all of them had armpits." -Terry Pratchett, _Mort_

<comment><USER5> HN's beloved Bay Area (esp SF) is by far the dirtiest city I've been to and I've been to a lot of cities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The physical conditions of the city are a manifestation of the destitution of its people. I've lived in many cities around the world that were utterly poor - yet, the people kept the streets clean. Things were orderly and maintained.

I firmly believe its a matter of the principles of the society. In a progressive, wealthy nation such as exist in Europe, recycling is a thing. People don't want to live in trash - they use it for energy, or recycle it as much as possible. Those who sort trash, promote a cleaner eco-system .. those who eschew the waste anyway, as 'responsible consumers', also help a great deal. These are cultural phenomenon you don't find widely promoted in various civic contingencies around the western world; corruption persists in environments which support its ill-gained prosperity.

In Europe, at least, we can find as many good as bad examples of this. I think its clear, the same cannot be said of other of the western nations ..

</comment><comment><USER25> Process. There's so much process and bureaucracy in Italy that you can't singlehandedly do anything. You need politicians - or rather, well connected busybodies - to call in their clientele, a couple private phone calls and "trovare la Quadra" which is an euphemism for finding a solution that appeases all interests.

I don't know, maybe it's a reaction to authoritarian fascism, or just something intrinsic to us (read several accounts on how it was all just the same during Fascism) but it's just too difficult to manover such a large ship with small engines and little fuel.

It's not just Rome, it's everything around her that makes it so.

</comment><comment><USER26> In Singapore they have a zero tolerance policy for littering.

</comment><comment><USER27> The blog mentioned in the article (romafaschifo.com) is pretty readable via google translate. I noticed the vast majority of the articles are about political corruption and failure and not garbage. Compared to those issue, and speaking here as a Washington DC resident that is watching a similar kind of political decay, the trash is kind of charming.

</comment><comment><USER28> Well, they have a mayor outside of the system that's draining the swamp for the last few years...you get what you vote for.

<comment><USER29> Although not all faults can be attributed to the current mayor, the current one is IMO the worst the city could have: elected because she was "honest" and green (as in inexperienced).

It turns out that real or perceived morality without any semblance of skill is not enough to handle a city, even more so a large city like Rome.

<comment><USER30> As an aside, these people aren't really "honest". They're just the kind of people who, in front of difficult problems and complicated situations, do the exact opposite of assuming good faith: in a textbook case of Dunning-Kruger effect, they think that things are easy to fix and _therefore_ those who haven't fixed them before must have been dishonest.

In fact in their cluelesness and will to always point elsewhere for the source of the problems, they're the same as those who preceded them, just worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I had been in room recently on a "business" trip. While I haven't noticed the trash that much (1) what I noticed most was that literally every walk way was broken and had holes in it.

(1): I might have seen dirty streets to often/frequent to take much note of it.

</comment><comment><USER32> This article is seriously lacking in photo evidence. Aside from the headline image, and one of dumpsters, none of the photos contain any trash or graffiti.

<comment><USER33> That's because its main point is... more than a bit overdrawn.

Yes, there's an obvious trash problem in certain areas (especially near Central Termini) and in certain parks. Which can be a bit eye-popping if the standard you're comparing to is on the order of, say, Switzerland.

But by and large it's just not that huge of a problem in most areas - and at the end of the day, it's still a fantastically beautiful city. Its main problems are: (1) lack of first-class transportation system (2) tourists (3) of course, Italian politics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Rome in "ruins" is still way more beautiful than 90% of the larger metropolises out there.

</comment><comment><USER34> This description of Rome is how I see San Francisco. Formerly such a beautiful city, now all I see is garbage.

Recently my grandparents, who had never been outside of Germany before, visited me in San Francisco. As we left SFO by car and drove into the city, they eagerly took in the new sights. Everything they saw was new to them. After a long period of silence, they asked me, with a certain level of disbelief in their voice, "Why is there so much garbage on the streets in America?" I was stumped. Later, recounting their experience, they told me, "Driving into San Francisco felt like entering a land fill." I will never forget those words.

<comment><USER35> What they perhaps didn't see is that the US has a higher rate of personal car ownership. People don't like to walk over garbage, but they don't mind driving over it to an extent. The areas with trash are the ones where people of means drive and the walkers are mostly poor, like freeway underpasses.

<comment><USER36> You're right that freeway underpasses are particularly egregious but I found almost of SF to be pretty dirty compared to German (or Japanese!) standards. The incredible number of homeless people is also really shocking for visitors.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: My startup idea just won Startup Weekend Louisville...What next? - <AUTHOR>

link: http://insiderlouisville.com/news/2013/09/23/louisvilles-startup-weekend-recap/
Friday afternoon I am sitting at home waiting for the kids to get off the bus when I get an email that mentions a startup weekend. I think, what any crazy person would...that would be fun!
Little more than 48 hours later my germ of an idea won the competition and now we have invitations to lunches with CEOs, a meeting with a venture firm and several other requests for meetings.
I am not into the funding scene, more of a bootstrap guy myself but I feel I owe it to the team of people who joined me on the idea this weekend and to myself, to explore this opportunity and see what happens.
Where do I go next? What should be my next step?
(In case you are wondering, our pitch was a service called pivotal which used bits of metadata in and associated with your photo collection to help establish context and better organize it. Coupled with a fun new way to visualize the collection and you have the basic idea. Much deeper than two sentences but you get the idea) <comment><USER2> I don't know..build your product?

I feel like sometimes people get too caught up in the startup scene..and should be concentrating on building a product and making sales.</comment>


BedBudd - The answer to bed-based arguments - <AUTHOR> http://bedbudd.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this thing for real? Not sure, looks nice though!</comment>


The bizarre tale of John McAfee, spymaster - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/the-bizarre-tale-of-john-mcafee-spymaster/

<comment><USER2> There is something very wrong with this man. Whether it's drugs or mental illness, I hope he gets the help that he needs, especially since there is the possibility he may have already killed someone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Despite displaying obviously irrational behavior, the dude did pull off some non-trivial documented tricks like founding initially successful hi-tech companies, escaping across several borders into the States, and (possibly) getting away with murder.

Some details like a harem of 8 gfs were reported by others including CNN. Think about the dude's age - 67! Despite all the mocking of his "just cuz I can" motivation, I've known some powerful people that by the time they got to 67 would do random crap just for the hell of it.

So… don't write it off completely as bath salt fiction. Sometimes a combination of rich aging control freak idle hands can produce surprising results. And for the millionth time, it really would make a fun movie.

</comment><comment><USER4> I, for one, think that he's telling the truth. Belize is a very corrupt country and I'd take McAfee's word over theirs any day of the week.

<http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=15542>

> "Belize's corruption perceptions index is off the charts - literally!"

Same problem for last year's corruption perceptions index:

[http://www.plustvbelize.com/Featured/NewsDetails/tabid/63/Ar...](http://www.plustvbelize.com/Featured/NewsDetails/tabid/63/ArticleId/4647/Belize- not-on-2012-Corruption-Index-insufficient-data.aspx)

> Observers say Belize is not disclosing the necessary information for it to > be ranked.

This is a huge red flag, since, as the article says, Belize would actually stand to benefit from releasing their data:

> Experts say that if Belize provides that information, it stands to benefit > in various ways, by showing the rest of the world that it is serious about > tackling corruption.

<comment><USER5> Belize having corruption issues doesn't mean you have to believe in <insert crazy story>. There are a lot of rich retirees in Belize that don't <insert McAfee's story>.

<comment><USER4> There being a lot of rich retirees there who don't have this problem does not indicate that McAfee is wrong either. Given the rampant corruption, perhaps they are paying their protection money while McAfee opted out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This just keeps getting better and better. True or (probably) false, this definitely needs a Hollywood adaptation.

<comment><USER7> Supposedly he sold the rights already. I finally got around to watching The Dark Knight rises recently, and I think Bale would be perfect for the role. At the beginning of the movie, having isolated himself for several years, he looks quite a bit like mcafee did after being on the run. Also, he knows how to play crazy people like no one else (see the machinist or American Psycho.)

<comment><USER6> Especially after that _Terminator Salvation_ thing exposed his real personality, I'm pretty sure he would be able to play McAfee quite well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sounds like mental illness to me. Like he's delusional.

</comment><comment><USER9> Bath salts are a hell of a drug.

<comment><USER10> I had to channel Rick James to make that funnier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a bit like when Sheen was lifted to the high realms of the internet during his Twitter meltdown. Granted, the story is utterly fantastic and fantastical, but it feels a bit like the world at large is helping feed his ego and it just keeps going and going.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think the gist of it is probably true. I can easily imagine south american officials being very happy about receiving free laptops and using them without hesitation.

What is more difficult is keeping your private army quiet, but i guess enough money could do that.

<comment><USER13> I don't think a word of it is true. For a simple reason: these are serious crimes and McAfee is probably rational enough to recognize that it is harmless for him to brag about capers he didn't pull, while if it was true there would be heaps of evidence that ultimately points at him.

<comment><USER12> Illegal where? In Belize where he is wanted for murder anyway? I think it's fair to say he is simply burning his bridges to a country he has no intention of returning to and this could be part of the reason he is not going back: " McAfee has refused to turn himself in for questioning saying he fears Belizean police would kill him."

I think he is confident the US is not going to allow his extradition although the US does have an extradition treaty with Belize.</comment></comment></comment>


Nobel winner declares boycott of top science journals - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner-boycott-science-journals?CMP=twt_fd <comment><USER2> What's interesting here, is that this is not a technology problem. Nor is it a science problem. Nor economics. Its a strictly speaking one of sociology. The things ostensibly being bought, sold and traded are not the tru determinants of value. The value of Science to an investor is a function of its monopoly position in the distribution of its content; and on its dervivative value as a "citation" flag to grant-writers and tenure comittees. The demand to "feed" this system is really driven on the supply side. The monopoly side on the backend is just an artificial scarcity model and barrier to entry, that indirectly feeds back into the supply function. That is to say, the "citation" credential needs artificial scarcity to function in its role of extracting derivative rents. It is the grant writers and the tenure comittees that ensure they have this subsidy, as a negative cost (free labour) of production. While none of this is new to anyone reading here, the mechanics are worth thinking through. Because the system is sponsored by public money (on the grants and indirectly, the academics) on the one hand, and on the other through public policy (monopoly rights to the iP that comes out of publicly funded research is <given for free> to monopolist publishers). The sociology of all of this is to avoid "mistakes" in the allocation of funds and tenure. That is to say, the adbication of the experts...to other "experts". But as the article points out...the grant writers and the tenure comittees are abdicating responsibility to.... _journalists_...not scientists or actual experts, per-se in their fields. At least, that is the essence of the critique leveled herein.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting how they don't use the word "open" even once in that article, whereas the Nobel prize winning scientist makes that a cornerstone of his proposed solution:

 _There is a better way, through the new breed of open-access journals that are free for anybody to read, and have no expensive subscriptions to promote._ [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/how- jou...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/how-journals- nature-science-cell-damage-science)

<comment><USER4> It's probably worth pointing out that open access, while important, isn't really relevant to this discussion as publishers like Nature already embrace open access.

(disclaimer, I work for Digital Science, which is owned by the company that owns Nature)

<comment><USER5>
        It's probably worth pointing out that open access,
        while important, isn't really relevant to this discussion
        as publishers like Nature already embrace open access.

Uh, I just tried accessing a random article in Nature and hit the $32/article paywall. So no, don't think so.

<comment><USER6> I think Science articles are free one year after they're published.

<comment><USER7> Just in case anybody wants to read a bit more about this: This is Green Open Access, which usually means that the publication is blocked for a while, but usually doesn't cost the author (or their institution) anything extra. The other option is Gold Open Access, which, depending on journal, can get rather pricey, but makes the article openly available _immediately_.

→ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#Implementation_pra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#Implementation_practices)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an impossible system to break when grant distributors completely require that you have recently published in a luxury journal in order to garner funding. The same problem happens with tenure track committees.

Most of the scientists I know are _desperate_ for funding now, and so they have made an even bigger push to publish in a big name journal. It's an insane system, but I've never heard of a viable solution for it.

<comment><USER9> I just want to put this thought out on the open, what about crowd-funding? Would that ever work for research? Like you can make all the papers free to read, and at the end provide a link to donate to their research. Or they can showcase that this is what we are working on, this is how far we have gotten. Now we want to do this but for that we need this amount of Money. Help us out?

Would something like that work? Or the primary success of crowd sourcing is that people see it as a "pre-order market for cool new gadgets" instead of the whole "this thing should exist! I'll help!" ?

<comment><USER10> There is some crowd funding for science, but it's pretty much small potatoes - it'll cover a trip, or maybe a single publication, or the budget for some preliminary data.

Even tiny, "Pilot Study" grants are often for an order of magnitude more than usually comes in via crowdfunding. And some of the large studies...just isn't going to happen without _major_ changes in how and what people fund.

Science is expensive.

<comment><USER11> What do you call it when tens of thousands of volunteer birdwatchers pay for their own personal efforts (in time and money) to do bird monitoring in the UK? Cumulatively that's a lot of money, not "small potatoes."

[http://www.bto.org/about-bto](http://www.bto.org/about-bto)

The BTO isn't the only example. There are many others (e.g. the BOINC projects, Planet Hunters, EyeWire, The Amateur Sky Survey).

Maybe you'll object, saying that's not "crowdfunding." If it's not, then what is it? There's definitely funding being spent, on scientific research, by "the crowd" (i.e. the general public).

<comment><USER12> It is, and those are great examples. But it's only accessible to the most sexy, most accessible, most 'fun' disciplines. The harder stuff just cannot be crowd-sourced right now. Biomedical research is expensive, dull, and removed from most peoples' experience, and so it'd be very difficult to get a crowd interested in funding basic biomedical research.

<comment><USER9> But i think Biomedical can still attract people. Nobody likes diseases. everyone would be ok to contribute to eliminating diseases or coming up with better cures/surgeries.

What's tough, is to get funding for weird theoretical quantum mechanics stuff. How do you ask for funding to things people have absolutely no idea about?

<comment><USER13> maybe you could crowd fund the first expensive study into CACK-3 protein that may or may not be related to disease X. But after the 100th randomly named protein investigation people are going to be bored and sceptical it makes progress. These studies just say protein X seems to be related to protein Y. It takes an excruciatingly long time to make progress on the high level goal of understanding a pathology. I bet half the bio people doing experiments don't even know why they are doing them either.

<comment><USER14> Classic example highlighting the difference between Research/Discovery _vs_ Development.

Kickstarter and their crowd-funding ilk are fine when it comes to Developing a product but good luck getting funding for anything as iffy as R&D, more so in the biomedical realm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Honestly - ex academic here - I've come across a couple of research topics that I'd really like to publish in, and I have zero interest in pissing through a peer review process.

I am thinking of throwing something into the glossy professional journal, and maybe doing a whitepaper or two on the corporate website. That way, people will link and refer to it if it is good, and they won't if it is not - and it will disappear or be referenced accordingly.

I intend to include the data and code, so everything can be verified independently.

That the rest of the publishing world is simultaneously going down that same path seems to me an inevitability.

<comment><USER16> You might also think about putting it on the arXiv (arxiv.org). I think they take articles that haven't been submitted to journals, and it is a bit of a recognized source of articles (there are citation guidelines for arxiv articles for example).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> These top science journals may want to look at Encyclopedia Britannica's recent history because the article's quote from an executive editor at Science sounds suspiciously like what people at Britannica said as they saw what could have been their opportunity pass them by like they were standing still.

> _Monica Bradford, executive editor at Science, said: "We have a large > circulation and printing additional papers has a real economic cost … Our > editorial staff is dedicated to ensuring a thorough and professional peer > review upon which they determine which papers to select for inclusion in our > journal. There is nothing artificial about the acceptance rate. It reflects > the scope and mission of our journal."_

On another note, if I were an enterprising graduate student looking for a project to work on, I'd see this as a great opportunity to work with a Nobel- prize winner on something important enough to him for promoting science that he took this stand, taking away time to work on his other passions.

<comment><USER18> The analogy of Britanica is off due to one fact:

Britanica could get a thousands and some millions for not producing a single issue off their old catalog! As a former Digital Librarian it is a serious racket!

<comment><USER19> The same is completely true of large journals. Access to their back catalogs is still incredibly expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _Monica Bradford, executive editor at_ Science, _said: "We have a large circulation and printing additional papers has a real economic cost…_

One wonders if _Science_ is one of those journals that invites reviewers to work for free because being a reviewer is so prestigious. Unpaid review constitutes a significant subsidy to the academic publishing industry: [http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/402189.article](http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/402189.article) It seems to me that the marginal cost of publication is actually fairly low, especially given the rather exorbitant prices the top journals charge just to read a paper ($30 for non-library purchases, which is more than the cost of the print edition).

<comment><USER21> don't forget the $300 per page charged to the author for any colour reproductions in print.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> In our field, it is time to support USENIX over IEEE and ACM, over the Open Access issue, too. I'm boycotting IEEE and ACM until they support Open Access.

Amazingly, they're going after authors making their own papers available!

<comment><USER23> Not quite sure this is true about the ACM. From their policy about rights permanently retained by the author [1]:

* Post the Accepted Version of the Work on (1) the Author's home page, (2) the Owner's institutional repository, or (3) any repository legally mandated by an agency funding the research on which the Work is based

* Post an "Author-Izer" link enabling free downloads of the Version of Record in the ACM Digital Library on (1) the Author's home page or (2) the Owner's institutional repository;

[1] [http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Re...](http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Retained)

<comment><USER22> This wouldn't allow the author to post it to another repository, if not legally required, distinct from his home page. (It was IEEE which was more aggressive recently, but from reading Matt Blaze, it looks like ACM and IEEE have traded off that role; neither is as bad as Elsevier, but they're allegedly 'on our side' vs. a commercial publisher, so anything short of full OA brings dishonor to them.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The key is to start developing better ways to measure researcher productivity. That's where all the different forms of altmetrics come in. For us (Publons.com) we're using peer review itself to generate article level metrics (and give reviewers credit for it) that focus on the quality and significance of a paper, not just its popularity.

</comment><comment><USER25> Are there any funding sources focused entirely on the unsexy stuff? E.g. showing X is reproducible or that targeting gene Y does not do anything interesting. Seems like an area where targeted NSF funding can help.

<comment><USER26> good luck getting NSF funding for anything new

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm curious, because I don't really know this system, if other scientists feel this way. I have some inkling that journals can often publish erroneous papers (maybe I got that idea from Nate Silver?), but that would be so very unfortunate for Science's reputation. I hope it's not that bad.

<comment><USER28> Journals like to publish sexy/novel papers. That can lead to them publishing some things that are "hot", but not necessarily well proven. The arsenic bacteria from a couple of years back is a good example [1].

In their rush to publish, solid work which may not be as sexy can get pushed to lower tier journals, whereas "novel" things that aren't as well proven can get elevated to top-tier journals. At this level, things aren't necessarily the pure meritocracy that we like to think it is. Then again, these are for- profit publishers. There is nothing that says what they _have_ to accept, and they can choose what they want to publish. The only thing that will change the system is large-scale or big-name boycotts like this one.

[1] [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1163](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1163)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The Nobel laureate profiled in this article researches biology, and has won the Nobel prize for medicine and physiology. You would hope that research on medicine, of all subjects, would be published in journals that never make mistakes, but Science, arguably the most prestigious journal in the world, definitely published a mistaken article about cell biology quite recently,[1] so we have to wonder how well even the most prestigious journal does peer review of what it publishes. A medical doctor who studies the scientific research process in general thinks that a great many published research findings are probably false,[2] so there have to be greater efforts on the part of scientists to get peer review right, and improve scientific publication practices.

From Jelte Wicherts writing in Frontiers of Computational Neuroscience (an open-access journal) comes a set of general suggestions [3] on how to make the peer-review process in scientific publishing more reliable. Wicherts does a lot of research on this issue to try to reduce the number of dubious publications in his main discipline, the psychology of human intelligence.

"With the emergence of online publishing, opportunities to maximize transparency of scientific research have grown considerably. However, these possibilities are still only marginally used. We argue for the implementation of (1) peer-reviewed peer review, (2) transparent editorial hierarchies, and (3) online data publication. First, peer-reviewed peer review entails a community-wide review system in which reviews are published online and rated by peers. This ensures accountability of reviewers, thereby increasing academic quality of reviews. Second, reviewers who write many highly regarded reviews may move to higher editorial positions. Third, online publication of data ensures the possibility of independent verification of inferential claims in published papers. This counters statistical errors and overly positive reporting of statistical results. We illustrate the benefits of these strategies by discussing an example in which the classical publication system has gone awry, namely controversial IQ research. We argue that this case would have likely been avoided using more transparent publication practices. We argue that the proposed system leads to better reviews, meritocratic editorial hierarchies, and a higher degree of replicability of statistical analyses."

[1] [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2010/12/this_paper_should_not_have_been_published.html)

[https://www.sciencenews.org/node/5635](https://www.sciencenews.org/node/5635)

[http://www.nature.com/news/arsenic-life-bacterium-prefers- ph...](http://www.nature.com/news/arsenic-life-bacterium-prefers-phosphorus- after-all-1.11520)

[2] [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124)

[http://www.bx.psu.edu/~anton/bioinf1-lectures/mccarthy2008.p...](http://www.bx.psu.edu/~anton/bioinf1-lectures/mccarthy2008.pdf)

[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003081)

[3] [http://www.frontiersin.org/Computational_Neuroscience/10.338...](http://www.frontiersin.org/Computational_Neuroscience/10.3389/fncom.2012.00020/full)

<comment><USER30> >You would hope that research on medicine, of all subjects, would be published in journals that never make mistakes

I wouldn't hope this, and maybe it's pedantic, but there's an important point to make here. Scientific articles are evidence, not truth, and people (and systems) make mistakes. The hallmark of a robust system is not the absence of error, for it is arrogance to believe you've ever achieved it and foolish to have it as your absolute goal. What is important is setting a reasonable expectation of accuracy, the types of errors committed, the root causes of those errors, and responsible, transparent reactions when errors are made.

A system is much more trustworthy when it has a solid history of errors with reasonable responses than a system which claims or appears to suffer from no error at all.

<comment><USER31> Exactly. Reviewers expected to be experts in a field can only check claims against their own knowledge. Their role should be recognized as limited to that and not to have some monopole on the "real truth". Fear of error could make them overly protective if not paranoid.

In my sense, scholar communication means should be open but with mechanism to weed oud obvious crap and mechanism for efficient self correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> OK, Tenured Professor at UC Berkeley with loads of Nature, Science, and Cell papers who recently won a Nobel Prize ... I'll go against the grain here upon your command and not follow the footsteps of those that made it to the top of the system off of the back of luxury publications.

</comment><comment><USER33> This almost sounds like they should take away his Nobel prize immediately. Abusing the spotlight to promote his own journal is just ridiculous. (Open access != free)

Bonus points for getting the Nobel prize through publications in those journals, and only denouncing them after he won.

<comment><USER34> Better late than never, I say. Nor do I think he waited to win his Nobel to promote open access, as his editorship of an OA journal would attest to.

It's also worth pointing out hat eLife is actually free to publish in, at least for the moment. The founding organizations (HHMI, the Wellcome Trust, and the Max Planck Institutes) are footing the bill for the first few years.

<comment><USER35> So, get a base established and then start charging $5000 per submission?

<comment><USER36> Try waiting until that actually happens before you get outraged over it. Getting yourself worked up over hypothetical situations that play out in your mind is not good for your health.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Science needs better disruption and I am very happy that a nobel winner is willing to do this.

Whenever I read these stories I feel a little ashamed that I'm not working towards this disruption right now.

</comment><comment><USER38> /slowclap

Bravo sir. Bravo.

Here's to a world where a researcher who _hasn 't_ won a Nobel prize can do the same to journals that manipulate impact factor without regard for the consequences to science!

<comment><USER10> Indeed. It's a step forward, sure, but it's easy if you _have_ papers in Cell, Nature and Science (which he does) _and_ a Nobel to say "Yeah, nuts to this".

I'd be much more impressed by a public stance defending young tenure track faculty making a commitment to open access.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi Easy or not, this kind of statements from big names is exactly what is needed to solve the problem. If I say this kind of things (as a young researcher with a modest track record) no one will listen to me. If every Nobel prize winner said this kind of things, maybe the politicians who set the evaluation criteria for grants and tenure (yes, often their are scientists, but they are doing politics) would be forced to change things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It is sad that the grant system is focused on selecting "elite" people, rather than improving the system. Improvements to the "research system" should be encouraged.

</comment><comment><USER40> The thing is, once you have a Nobel Prize, it doesn't really matter where you publish...

</comment><comment><USER41> If Aaron Swartz would live and hear it.

</comment><comment><USER42> would be great if he declares this in his acceptance speech to a stadium full of top researchers.</comment>


Hardly any coders among GCSE ICT entrants despite student increase - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/careers/3466636/hardly-any-coders-among-gcse-ict-entrants-despite-student-increase/?olo=rss

<comment><USER2> This article outlines (one of) the biggest problems with schooling here in the UK - the source material for a Computing GCSE exists, but no schools are willing to pick it up, run with it and offer it to their students.

This isn't because there aren't enough kids interested, it's because very few schools offer the course.

So why aren't schools offering a Computing GCSE? My speculation is that it's still pretty new and the prospect of re-training teachers into being able to teach this stuff outweighs the number of kids that would pick the subject.

Right now, by not offering this in more of our schools, we are actively _discouraging_ any kids who _do_ have a genuine interest in development and design because we're locking them into learning how to make elements on powerpoint slides animate successfully, instead of the creative development encouragement they need, and, well, deserve.</comment>


Ask HN: Where are some low budget and good CS College? - <AUTHOR> Where are some free or cheapest CS Colleges? (anywhere in USA) Coming from an European background where education was all free until now. <comment><USER2> I'm assuming you are asking about undergraduate schools since you did not specify. University is not free or cheap in the USA, unfortunately this is a reality that you will have to deal with if you want to study here. Most schools offer merit-based (scholarships / grants) and need-based aid. Need- based aid may be hard to come by if you are not a US citizen (perhaps other users with experience can chime in). IMO for undergrad financial aid will be the most important thing to bring down the price, so you should engage with the office of financial aid early at whatever colleges/universities you are applying to.

Public Universities tend to be cheaper, especially if you live in the state where the school is located. This is especially important if you live in a state with good public CS schools, like Illinois (University of Illinois @ Champaign Urbana is a top 5 program) or California (see the various UCs, including of course Berkeley). So if you are lucky enough to live in those states then that is a viable option.

If you win the admissions lottery and can get into an elite program (unfortunately it _is_ a lottery, in many ways due to simple supply and demand, and I say this as someone in a top-ranked CS program), it's gonna run you up to $60,000 per year without any financial aid depending on the school. Many people will take out student loans to offset this cost, and with a CS degree it is easier to pay off the loans, but that is still a financial risk you need to consider.

Honestly, if possible, just go to school in the EU if you're an EU citizen. There are many great schools there and the cost of flying there and finding a house is likely lower than the tuition on this side of the pond. Many Americans would kill for the opportunity for a free education.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the U.S. we have what is referred to as land grant colleges. They are publicly funded and they began in the late 19th century as technical colleges focused on improving agricultural methods.

As an example, North Carolina State University has a very strong CS program. In addition, they have developed under graduate and graduate level courses in data analysis/statistics. Combining a CS degree with exposure to courses which apply these methods is good value for the money.

Consider moving to the state you are interested in, establish residency for one year. That way, you pay in-state tuition fees rather than out-of state fees which are typically 3x or 4x.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> You'll want to look at colleges that offer financial aid to international students, specifically colleges that are "need-blind" in their admissions, even internationally. My school, Grinnell College, is one such institution, which is why we are 20-25% international students. Total need-blind admission and a 100% meeting of demonstrated need for international students is somewhat rare for colleges but such schools do exist.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would say that under almost all circumstances it would be better to study in Europe if you can. German universities are free and pretty good (LMU and KIT for compsci for example). The cost of living is comparable. Even favoring the ~1 year of language course that you would need, you would be far better off financially.

</comment><comment> non-entity Are you looking for graduate degrees? Georgia Tech's OMCS seems to have decent reviews from what I've heard

</comment><comment><USER6> if you can look at eu schools, then this will be a lot easier</comment>


40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-household-finances/index.html <comment><USER2> I think we as a nation should consider this an issue of national security. This type of financial instability in such a large percentage of the population could lead to making short-sighted or bad decisions in tough times, increased violence, increased rates of incarceration (both of those increasing the cost of government for all), among many other things. The reasons for it are multi-faceted I'm sure. I hope voters and politicians recognize statistics like this as an opportunity for reflection and change.

<comment><USER3> We should but you know personal responsibility and all that jazz. The wealthy only care when the pitchforks come out. The biggest achievement of the wealthy has been to convince the middle class to eat itself.

<comment><USER4> But personal responsibility is actually an important concept. It is completely unacceptable to not have $400 on reserve for an emergency as a functioning adult. That is a situation that can _only_ be achieved by poor decision making and a lack of personal responsibility. Any strategy that is employed to remedy this has to contend with the fact that the individuals who need to have this situation remedied for themselves are the same ones who have gotten themselves into this situation.

I will say this again. As a mobile adult, in the United States, to not have $400 on reserve for an emergency is simply not possible with proper decision- making. Individuals at that level of poverty have national and state level food stamps, welfare, disability, affordable housing, rent control, minimum- wage laws, child-support, often social security, medicare/medicaid. It's not as though the country has a non-existent social safety net. You simply can't propose that the solution can exist independently of the personal decisions made by the individuals in this position.

<comment><USER5> Spoken as someone well north of the poverty line.

The reason for _some_ people not having the money around is undoubtedly poor decision making, but for a great many others they simply have no gainful employment, no prospects of obtaining gainful employment and are often trapped in debt spirals due to past financial desperation.

I'm real happy for you that you're so far removed from their situation that none of this occured to you.

<comment><USER4> Being trapped in a debt spiral due to past financial desperation is just a way of iterating forward in the loop of bad decision making. What I am saying is that to enter financial desperation in the United States is not actually possible if you utilize the available social safety net and make proper decisions.

<comment><USER6> Untrue. Get majorly sick or in a major accident and lose your insurance because your job finds a reason to restructure your department. Trust me, you will enter financial desperation very quickly while you wait for the social safety net to catch up, and by that time you're thousands of dollars in debt, likely already out of your house, and totally screwed.

<comment><USER7> All of you couldn't do a better job to make me very very glad of the taxes and other money I pay to the state and public health insurance here in Germany. As long as we can protect this system this will never happen to me or my neighbours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wealthy investors are happy to tell founders that a smaller percentage of a bigger pie is a better deal, but then seem not so happy to make their percentage smaller in order to increase the size of the pie for society at large.

<comment><USER9> Investors have to fight hard and endure a long time for every % of return. Society on the other hand will never be satisfied with their piece, they will always need more, and sooner not later.

<comment><USER10> Society has to fight hard and endure a long time for every % of return. Investors on the other hand will never be satisfied with their piece, they will always need more, and sooner not later.

Or as Adam Smith put it: "All for ourselves and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."

[https://www.quora.com/What-did-Adam-Smith-mean-when-he- said-...](https://www.quora.com/What-did-Adam-Smith-mean-when-he- said-%E2%80%9CAll-for-ourselves-and-nothing-for-other-people-seems-have-been- the-vile-maxim-of-the-masters-of-mankind-%E2%80%9D)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's a lot of negativity in this thread and the title is very sensational. The point that should be highlighted in the article - "The bright side? That's an improvement from half of adults being unable to cover such an expense in 2013. The number has been ticking down each year since."

<comment><USER12> I wonder if that's tracked to inflation. A $400 medical expense from 2013 is likely closer to $500 today, which might account for the difference from 50% to 40%.

<comment><USER13> The BLS calculator ([https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm](https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm)) says $400 in 2013 is ~ $430 today. Seems unlikely to account for that much of the change.

<comment><USER14> Govt inflation numbers represent a portfolio consisting of all commodities in equal quantity. But if you hold a portfolio of iPhones, Toyotas, and etc (assuming they are non depreciating assets) that number would double very easily.

<comment><USER15> Government inflation numbers don't work like that at all. They are based on the Consumer Price Index, which uses a market basket of consumer goods and services.

[https://www.bls.gov/cpi/](https://www.bls.gov/cpi/)

<comment><USER14> "Average price data for select utility, automotive fuel, and food items are also available."

All of these are commodities. And every single product derived is based on commodity. Most commodities can be traded on commodity markets.

<comment><USER15> Yes, but all of them being commodities (what I said) is not the same as inflation only being accurate when someone purchases every commodity available in the marketplace (what you said).

<comment><USER14> Thats exactly how asset managers construct a portfolio thats suppose to track inflation.

<comment><USER15> Inflation of a portfolio of iPhones is completely different than inflation that an average American pays due to cost of living changes in the economy. You're cherrypicking a hypothetical scenario that doesn't apply at all to the example at hand, which is the average person's ability to pay for emergencies that arise related to living expenses.

<comment><USER14> All I am saying is that $400 in 2013 is not worth $430 today, Its wort a LOT MORE! Stop arguing like a idiot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I had a coach that when I'd ask about how to get out of tricky situations he'd often respond with something along the lines of "Bro, you f'd up a long time ago"...

I don't think 40% is some magic number to begin hysteria. Neither is $400. Selling something to cover your expenses might be a blessing in disguise if the thing you sell is a liability in the first place (ex: a car you cant really afford).

My observation of America is that for a whole lot of people we F'd up a long time ago... These people need financial education, they need to be taught to not buy things they dont need, they need to be taught delayed gratification and to not be consumerists.

<comment><USER17> "They" need to be taught to demand a degree of rights, protections and subsidies in line with the rights, protections and subsidies afforded the already-wealthy.

<comment><USER16> Sure, to exercise their rights as part of democracy.

<comment><USER18> You cannot exercise this right when there are no viable choices that will do so. Welcome to bipartisan politics with both sides not being socialist.

<comment><USER16> Then you can exercise your right to add to the viability of another party, create one etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow, everything in this thread is "those evil rich people, fleecing the poor." Quite aside from the fact that the target audience of this site can expect to make around 2X the median income of the US--meaning that _we_ are those evil rich people--surely the problem isn't this one-sided.

The poverty rate in the US is about 13% [1]; we would expect those people to not have any savings. That leaves about 33% unaccounted for. It looks like 42% of workers in the US make less than $15/hr [2], which does fit the figure fairly close. However, some of those are teenagers, so they don't count as they aren't living on their own.

I'd like to see some analysis of spending. How many people don't have any savings because they aren't spending wisely. This girl [3] discovered that she could actually save for a deposit for a house in London, despite making under £40k (about $53k). That's less than the median US income and presumably doesn't go all that for in London. She was simply spending a lot of money on food, drinks, and specialty coffee.

[1] [https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate- un...](https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united- states)

[2] [http://fortune.com/2015/04/13/who-makes-15-per- hour/](http://fortune.com/2015/04/13/who-makes-15-per-hour/)

[3] [https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jan/29/can-you- really...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jan/29/can-you-really-save- for-a-deposit-by-ditching-coffee-and-avocado-toast-i-tried-to-find-out)

<comment><USER20> I would push back on this bit about teenagers: > so they don't count as they aren't living on their own.

I think it's a significant assumption to make that parents would be able/willing to cover a random $400 expense. The study did not specify a specific type of emergency expenditure, just that it was unexpected. I can fully imagine a scenario where parents would cover hospital visits for a bad case of the flu, but not cover an abortion, or repairs to a car from an accident where the child was at fault.

The latter two examples still seem like fair 'unexpected expenses' for the child dependent making < $15/hour

<comment><USER19> This is kind of tangential, but I find it a sad commentary on our society when an abortion is considered a "fair unexpected expense" of a teenager. Abortion is 100% avoidable [1]. And regardless of your view on women's rights, etc. the fact is that a living human is killed in an abortion. "Don't have sex until you are okay with the possibility of getting pregnant" apparently isn't very popular, but the situation is entirely preventable. (I'm not trying to push an agenda here, just reacting.)

[1] Unless rape is involved, but that isn't the normal case. (Abortions because rape are 1%, according to [http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.ht...](http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html). Disclaimer: I scanned the link for figures, I didn't try to figure out if it is pro- or anti- abortion.)

<comment><USER20> You're right, this is tangential, and frustratingly derailing from the point I was making.

> the fact is that a living human is killed in an abortion.

This is absolutely the talking point of somebody pushing an agenda and represnting it here as a simple "fact" is specious at best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Perhaps the bigger issue is: X% amount of Americans can't afford to lose work for N days. Where X is likely very large and N is < a week.

</comment><comment><USER22> "More concerning are the 25% of Americans with no retirement savings whatsoever, according to the report."

Is that true? What happens when those 25% retire or can no longer work? Ahh: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/9902745/The- best-pensions-in-the-world.html) \- not too bad - the US got a C, UK got a C+.

Now back to the headline: $400 in available readies? You do have to start measuring somewhere when looking into poverty but it is harder than it seems on the face of it. Many people will drain their balance regardless to zero or below, (nearly) no matter how well off. I recall being a youngish lad with an income of £30 per hour - let's realistically say ~£50,000 per annum (gross, pre IR45). At that point in my life, I too would often qualify for "can't find £350" right now. My real point is that you have to be really careful how you measure this sort of thing, ie trying to quantify bits of people's lives with simple pithy statements.

<comment><USER23> > What happens when those 25% retire or can no longer work?

They eat cat food on their meager social security payments.

<comment><USER24> I'm skeptical that this happens much. It reeks of urban legend.

Now, I'm sure _some_ seniors do this, but I suspect it's due mental issues rather than fiscal concerns. Is cat food even cheaper than really cheap canned food?

<comment><USER25> In my experience, nobody wants to hear this, but basic food is damn near free. I get it, I get it -- it's just a silly thing Sean Hannity says. It also happens to be true. Nobody has to eat cat food to save money. Have you priced beans and rice lately? It barely costs _anything_.

<comment><USER26> Beans and rice ≠ protein, and yes, carbs are giveaways. But that's not all good.

Anecdote here, but I knew two competent, capable seniors (each on Social Security) who in fact ate canned pet food because it was a source of meat that they otherwise couldn't afford. I doubt I knew the only two people in America who do that.

<comment> your-nanny Beans have a ton of protein (@15g/cup) plus a lot of fiber.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> 40% of America's lowest-income families' consumption goes to luxuries.

The bigger problem is American's terrible spending habits not lack of real income.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/g...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/A6F97A7E-5C30-11E7-A41A-5BB15E25ABAD)

<comment><USER28> You make it sound like poorer Americans are blowing their paychecks on designer handbags, but the article makes it clear that that's not what's happening. "Luxury goods" as economists define them are not what you'd expect. To quote the article:

 _> It's worth noting that by the specialized nomenclature of the dismal science, even eating at McDonald's is a luxury — that is, we do it more as our incomes rise — while smoking and lottery-ticket buying are categorized as necessities._

<comment><USER22> _while smoking and lottery-ticket buying are categorized as necessities._

I gave up smoking a couple of months ago after 30 odd years - I now feel rather stupid, given how clever I really am. I have never been a gambler but the parallels are very clear to me and I have a couple of friends who are gamblers and display the same stupidity. I keep my gob shut.

I do not agree with the definition of necessity implied above. Gambling and drug taking (smoking int al) are not basic requirements for life. Eating is. Eating at McDs is simply buying calories and possibly a few other basic life sustaining requirements and consuming the same. McDs may not provide you with all the nutritional requirements for a healthy life but you will get a lot of calories in. Until embarrassingly recently, the sole stated purpose of eating was calories. Brits are still not known as Limeys for nothing.

Fags and bandits can go and __* ////<comment>~ bbbbzzzzt OFF!!!!

<comment><USER22> _sigh_ fags are cigarettes and bandits are coin operated gambling thingies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> No surprise that low income consumers choose to consume rather than save as saving account with a low balance has no direct impact on generating additional wealth.

</comment><comment><USER30> [https://www.thestreet.com/story/14296470/1/americans- spend-b...](https://www.thestreet.com/story/14296470/1/americans-spend-big-on- lotto-tickets-and-here-they-spend-4-times-the-average.html)

so the average american doesn't have $400 saved up, _and_ spends $206 per year on lotto tickets.

if we're in society collapsing danger, maybe we could look at the organizations running the lottos?

<comment><USER31> The average American spends about twice that on just beer (not all alcohol) every year. I share your concern for poor people dumping money into the lottery, but that's actually a pretty small vice.

<comment><USER30> easier to get rid of lotteries; no constitutional amendment required. some of the beer spending also comes from people more able to tolerate the wasted funds; those with the least are the most likely to play lotteries.

[https://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/personal-f...](https://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/personal- finance/research-review-lotteries-demographics)

<comment><USER31> I'm not sure that's true. The Supreme Court just struck down an anti-gambling federal law.

[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/us/politics/supreme- co...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/us/politics/supreme-court-sports- betting-new-jersey.html)

It's not clear at all that the federal government could ban the lottery without a constitutional change.

<comment><USER32> Here is the opinion: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf)

The court found the law unconstitutional on procedural grounds. In particular, the federal government did not ban gambling. It required states to ban gambling. The court ruled that the federal government cannot force states to pass laws.

<comment><USER31> Interesting. I wasn't aware that was the basis of the ruling.

I'm not entirely clear about the legal implications, though. It's unclear if the majority would also overturn a direct ban, but obviously this case would not form precedent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone know of a datasource that analyzes this as the number of people living paycheck to paycheck vs. spending habits?

</comment><comment><USER34> We can't improve the money situation without improving the "free time" situation too. For people with 2+ jobs and hours of commuting, when is there time to do anything that would remotely fix their financial situation? Exhaustion for starters. No time for more school or other improvements that might net a better job. No time to even research where a better place to live might be. Heck, even _voting_ for someone to help change your situation takes a lot of time, if you want to figure out which candidate is truly in line with what you want.

</comment><comment><USER35> People wonder why payday loan companies are becoming more popular. It might be kicking the can down the road, but when $400 is a killer then people will kick the can.

</comment><comment><USER36> The question I'd love to know the answer to is: If we gave every American $2000, what would the % be by the end of the summer?

</comment><comment><USER37> > Those who don't have the cash on hand say they'd have to cover it by > borrowing or selling something.

Be careful about concluding that these people are poor. I'm not poor, and I have no cash. Everything is invested. Piling up cash in a savings account just means it'll get eaten away by inflation.

This is hardly uncommon. If you've got a house with a large payment, you aren't poor, even though you may not have any cash. Your money is invested in the house.

<comment><USER25> A version of this comment appears every time this is discussed. This isn't what we're talking about. These aren't liquidity problems. People really just don't have the money.

<comment><USER37> It's literally what the article is talking about. I included the quote. I suggest they are misinterpreting their data, and are measuring the wrong things.

It's like that daft statistic a few years back that 40% of corporations don't pay any income tax. This raised all sorts of righteous hysteria. Never mind that 40% of corporations lost money that year, and income taxes are not due when you lose money.

<comment><USER25> Maybe the best thing I can do here is concede that "can you find $400 for an emergency" is an imprecise question that this article doesn't (and can't) answer.

I think I know what it's saying (probably because I have a lot of experience with the type of people I'm imagining) and you guys think you know it's saying something else (because of your own experiences having money that's inaccessible), but, ultimately, the question is too imprecise for either of our claims.

So, yes, I _strongly_ suspect I'm right -- "selling something" is pretty plainly not referring to financial instruments -- but it's true that it's more intuition than fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I do not believe this. Even when I was flat broke starving I could always scrape up 400 somewhere and that was decades ago. Credit cards, friends and family, pawn shops. There's a way. This is a VERY misleading headline.

<comment><USER39> So basically, things were different for you decades ago, therefore the article headline is misleading?

You may want to rethink that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This makes it clear why our current capitalism doesn't work. The ruling class / rich and wealth people and businesses could extract _more_ wealth out of the middle and lower classes than they do now, if the lower classes were more stable and secure.

In the US especially, but nearly everywhere, there are hoards of people trying to lower or eliminate social services, basic science research, etc, with the dog-whistle claim that those things are not necessary and should not be provided by the state or using state funds. This line of thinking is extremely common in conservative circles, where they claim that societal prosperity would come from hurting the poor as much as possible in order to extract the greatest amount of wealth from them.

But when you look at statistics like these, it is clear that there is no more wealth to be extracted from the lower classes - they are all just merely trying to survive. Provide UBI or something like it, along with all other things necessary for a strong social net, _and watch the rich get even richer_ while the poor grow into a stronger middle class.

It is especially confusing that this outcome seems to be hated by the rich, despite it certainly lifting their wealth. It makes me wonder if much of conservative policy is just as much about hating the poor as it is helping the rich - because conservative policies that hurt the poor are increasingly obviously hurting the rich. I just don't understand why it isn't taken for granted that we need a stable society to make more money over time. That seems clear to me.

Many of those in poverty today are there because of the systematic oppression of the poor across America for the last many hundreds of years. Blaming them for it isn't going to help - they aren't even being provided basic education, as that is also being cut in many places in the USA (so how do you expect them to become financially aware, anyway, if they are not taught that growing up in school? Parents raising children in poverty are in no place to teach their own kids financial management skills).

To lift people out of poverty we must change our attitudes towards class and capitalism and be more compassionate to create a more stable society.

<comment><USER41> I am and know many conservatives. I don't see any "poor hate," though I don't argue it doesn't exist. Rather, it seems conservatives get upset at the idea of an unlevel playing field, i.e. creating policies that favor one group over another. Well-intentioned as any given policy may be, we are opposed to crafting government rules or benefits that apply to one set of people and not another.

<comment><USER42> > Well-intentioned as any given policy may be, we are opposed to crafting > government rules or benefits that apply to one set of people and not > another.

Conservatives talk about poor people as if it's a permanent attribute that can't be changed like "race". Poor is a tangible attribute. The programs which you fear so much are there to help people change that attribute.

But I get the feeling that many of the so-called conservatives use poor as a euphemism for undesirable people they don't want to see get ahead or mingle with. Why else would you refuse a helping hand to someone in need?

<comment><USER43> What I find ironic (as an exmormon/ex-christian now semi-agnostic person -- I still quasi believe there could be some sort of afterlife but the bible is dead to me.) is that those on the 'christian right' are more prone to push out the poor and neglect them those who are on the left more anxious to help and alleviate their pain points. -- I've known humanists, secular buddhists, atheists, and agnostics with bigger hearts and more care for the poor than the majority of God-fearing people regardless of faith.

One reason I stopped believing is because of all the hypocrisy I'd hear. Go to church on Sunday, leaders of the church officially deny supporting a political agenda, then they go about instituting anti-gay propaganda and fighting against legalizing marriage, or legalizing medical marijuana. Heck the LDS church is trying to ban the ability to record someone (like a Bishop) without them knowing, because they're afraid of the backlash they themselves might have (and so far are having with recent events).

Yet, I still admire Jesus and what he taught... the sad thing is.. there's no Jesus in most of America or they'd be fighting to cure the sick and the poor, they'd want universal healthcare and guaranteed basic income. Even Jesus forgave the Harlot and welcomed her at his table, so why not forgive the drug addict and give them a home regardless?

I say make GBI require you spend it on rent/mortgage -- to receive it you can't be homeless - you must have a physical address and only one check per address + x amount per person living in house, --maybe 2k per house/apartment, 500 per adult/child extra living therein.

This even helps the economy as poor people are most likely to spend the money locally instead of squirrel it away in a trust fund or investment.

If I had GBI, I'd quit my day job and finally launch a side-business or go freelance full-time, but I work 60 hours a week on salary for 80k as a developer because I have to pay the bills and my wife stays home with the kids. I could really use that money personally to just float by when freelance dries up, or my side project fails, and I start building the next one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> UBI N O W.

</comment><comment><USER45> America is over. The class divide has surpassed any reasonable threshold and in time it will only further crystalize. This country needs an Elon Musk to replace every part of the government, which is itself a jobs program at this point. We do not live in "America" anymore.

<comment><USER46> I was with you until your Musk comment. We don't need more centralization of power; instead, we need _de_ centralization--more local sustainability in place of the just-in-time global economy we live in now.

<comment><USER45> My Musk comment was more about how much of NASA had turned into a jobs program than anything.

Take a very simple example, the BMV. We've had good internet now for a couple decades and you still can't do basic transactions without going to the BMV in the middle of the day.

Almost all other government agencies have been entirely immune to technological change as well. They are, jobs programs.

<comment><USER47> Can you explain why you feel NASA is a jobs program? There's certainly a much larger, constant-stream funding source going to national defense and national sciences. NASA is being paid to continue our usually unprofitable interests in space. Everything else falls under the non-compete restriction. Also, NASA employs some highly employable folks who would make much more in private industry.

<comment><USER45> I'm actually not going to do this. If you want to have this conversation go read up on it. Not trying to be rude but your question makes it sound like you've never heard the idea before. Given that, I feel like you're not ready to have this conversation. ...I'm trying not to sound rude but it isn't working. I am not expressing malice towards you.

<comment><USER48> Any links to good articles about this? I for one have not heard of this before.

<comment><USER49> I just googled this [https://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/nasa-is-a-jobs- program?u...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/nasa-is-a-jobs- program?utm_term=.yuo66PDYXO#.sr3GGgkB60)

Again, I have to say I really hate how my previous comment sounded. There's just a lot to this and I didn't want to try and defend the very idea while arguing about government reform because it would have been an uphill battle. Sorry for how rude that sounded.

The basic idea, though, is that NASA (while awesome) has been building a heavy lift but also disposable and expensive new rocket. There are a lot of traditional contractors (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, ATK) across the country helping to build the rocket. This means jobs. So congress supports the program, despite its cost, because it means jobs. This stifles innovation as evidenced by what SpaceX has been able to do on a fraction of the budget. This branches and goes deeper with organizations like the ULA which charges several times that of SpaceX but has failed, completely, to innovate. Anyways by the time NASA's new rocket will be ready SpaceX will be have been launching Falcon Heavy for years and possibly even launching the BFR. This means SpaceX will have more powerful, more reliable, reusable, cheaper rockets. All this time NASA has been unable to innovate because ??? and now the entire SLS is nothing more than a jobs program.

<comment><USER47> The article is about congress using NASA to send money to their districts by building out the lift program.

Thats Congress being dumb. NASA may have become a jobs program, but it isnt supposed to be, and Musk is a response to that, in my mind.

"A surprise billion dollars may sound good. But while adding money to "Space Operations," the Appropriations Committee also cut $660 million from NASA's science, aeronautics, and space technology programs that build the telescopes, observatories, planes, and landers that make the agency so beloved. In justifying this decision, the committee wrote that the rocket "is the nation's launch vehicle that will enable humans to explore space beyond current capabilities.""

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Well on our way to to he oft depicted dystopia of sci-fi movies.

I figured Trump would go down in history as a modern money baron president, the likes of Coolidge, Harding and Hoover.

<comment><USER51> That number has decreased since the Obama administration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Yet 77% of Americans have a smartphone. (Not a cell phone. A more expensive smartphone.)

This is a self-induced injury. Financial education should be mandatory, and started in elementary school.

</comment><comment><USER53> I find this truly hard to believe. Half of the country is on the verge of homelessness and poverty? Bullshit. Get out of your bubble and go see other parts of the country. See the rampant consumerism and tell me this isn't fake news.

<comment><USER54> > go see other parts of the country. See the rampant consumerism

How does that dispute the article at all?

<comment><USER53> Then you should dutifully put the blame on the users, not the system.</comment></comment></comment>


Open source Projects for Java juniors - <AUTHOR>

Hello guys. I am a java guy who have a decent knowledge and understanding of J2SE, and after a while I have noticed that to be really good at programming in java , it will be better to join an open source project that is implemented using Java. So, here I am seeking an advise for a java open source project which i can join to give me expertise in Java and programming in general and also give a hand to that great community. I would really prefer open source projects that still in the first phase and also that us using some Agile methodologies. That is it and Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> You could look at these projects Hibernate, Spring Framework, ActiveMQ, Cassandra, etc they are not quite in the first phase.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really appreciate your response, but those Frameworks are in a far phase !!, which i could not follow or start participating in the current code. Please advise me guys, it is very important for me.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys we are looking for a helping hand from the HN community.
We are building a game that aims to bring your drawings to life exactly the way you envisioned them. graFighters is an online fighting game for your hand drawn characters. By taking a picture of your drawing with you phone and going through a quick process we can bring your character to life to battle other drawings on the site. The interesting part is that you don't control the character, they take on a life/attitude/stats/abilities all on their own based on our systems analysis of how it was drawn. We are calling this algorithm "Cornelius".
I'm reaching out to you guys for feedback on the concept and the potential to spread the Kickstarter link to people who might be interested. This algorithm has been underway for a year and it is not cheap, so we are looking to raise 20,000. Thanks!
graFighters on Kickstarter - http://kck.st/cnTzcP
Main Site- http://www.graFighters.com
Footage from the Demo - http://bit.ly/9J1wdc
More videos - http://vimeo.com/user1881676/videos
Feedback, criticism, verbal abuse, and donations will all be highly valued. <comment><USER2> There is something really cool and compelling here, but I found it deeply disappointing that I wouldn't be controlling my drawings in battle. That makes it less of a game and more of an animated art gallery.

<comment><USER3> I'm really glad you brought that up, many of people say that when they first hear the idea. However, we assure you by not controlling your drawing, its actually much cooler. Its not really about me vs you, its about my ninja vs your dinosaur. We are bringing these drawings to life. By letting people control the characters it would belittle the intelligence behind the game and be like every other fighting game out there. It is much more rewarding to see your character preform an epic karate kick because you have drawn long legs and a headband rather than just pressing the B button. Its more of a strategy/design/creation game rather than a traditional fighting game. All the fun is had with a pencil and paper.

<comment><USER4> The point is that you will also very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it. In the demo movie you showed I was deeply rooting for the gullible girl with huge arms but had to see her getting beaten over and over. After putting that much time into your first character, only to see her not being fit for fight, I don't think anyone will be coming back.

Providing a quality product means meeting people's expectations. You say that many people expect to control their character, so let them. You're in awe of your excellent algorithm, but people are not going to be so happy when they don't get your algorithm on the first try.

You could still map different moves to different keystrokes depending on the output from your algorithm and make the result depend on the characteristics .

Last but not least, don't look down on "every other fighting game out there". The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game. They will expect to be able to use their honed fighting game skills in your game as well, but with the awesome addition of bringing their dream character to life.

Above all, they will not get back to the drawing board when their awesome character is shredded to pieces by a simulation over and over.

<comment><USER3> "very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it"

In reality you are able to do alot about it. Aside from the actual fight, everything you do controls what will happen. How your draw, who you choose to fight, what arena you fight in, what items or weapons you select etc etc. Simply because you are not pressing buttons at the time of action does not mean all hope is lost and everything will become a random simulation. A la the video, we are working on the balance of the game.

"The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game"

Disagree, almost all of the people who have sent us sketches are not from the typical gamer crowd. They are drawn to the fact they don't have to control them, it takes the pressure off.

"You say that many people expect to control their character, so let them."

This is a really interesting argument that I go both ways on. History has shown both times where it pays to listen and times it pays to ignore your users requests and show them something new and better that they never even thought of. "Providing a quality product means meeting people's expectations" Or exceeding them :)

Thanks for your feedback though, you bring up some interesting points. We aren't ruling out controlling your characters forever, but for the initial launch we think it will ruin the purity of the game. We are exploring adding more decisive elements without adding live "control" if you know what I mean. Mini games etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Clickable: graFighters on Kickstarter - <http://kck.st/cnTzcP>

Main Site- <http://www.graFighters.com>

Footage from the Demo - <http://bit.ly/9J1wdc>

More videos - <http://vimeo.com/user1881676/videos>

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm a fan of the complete ingenuity of this entire concept. We've all seen and played the timeless smash and grab player-controlled games that have dominated our obsessions since Pong. However, in this day and age with video games becoming more and more complex, I love this simple idea. Instead of letting the player with the best reflexes, or an ability to seek out glitches in game play become the best, this concept attacks it from a completely different means. A game where creativity, humor, engineering, and street smarts all combine into one to form a brand new niche for gamers.

I've read all of the comments thus far and I have to say that I agree with many points on both sides. However, I would have to definitively say that if you want to control your player, this concept isn't for you. This is of course through the basic player moves that so many people are used to. Click A for jump, B for attack, different combo moves etc. Yes this appeals to many for great gaming, but I would argue that it is a gaming genre that may be at it's absolute peak. Even with today's most complicated games, there is a certain amount of creativity, street smarts and ingenuity in how you play the game.

What I love most about these arguments is that the creator (argued most notably for by dave_chenell) is telling you that you in fact DO have control over your character and the fight. It's just a higher level of control than one is used to. Basically, the 'player' gets to play 'god' in creating characters. By changing the slightest drawing, weapon accessory, and proportions (as is my understanding of this algorithm), one has complete control in how one should act in an all out brawl. If you want your gorilla to have great grappling moves, provide him with powerful arms, etc. I would argue that this feature gives complete control to the gamer.

This game type wouldn't be for anyone, that is certain. However, look at the massive amount of popularity games like Armadillo Run (<http://www.armadillorun.com/>) have received. You don't have any control over the armadillo in this either. One must use their knowledge of physics, materials, and common sense in order to build a device to complete the objective, like a puzzle. This graFighters idea seems very similar; spend some time playing to learn how the game works, and it'll be just as addicting.

I understand that this concept isn't for everyone and it'll be tough to spread word to gamers who are willing to give it a shot based just on concept alone. But let me ask these gamers something. How many times have you been bored maybe in class or talking on the phone, and you doodle some complex robot. Maybe you give him a lightsaber for good measure. Wouldn't it be nice to put him to some use instead of tossing him away with your class notes?

</comment><comment><USER7> There was an old game "kind of" like this. It had EVERY character imaginable; like a Waffle, DBZ, Street Fighters, Pirates, Ninjas, EVERYTHING. I'll find the name and post it if anyone is interested.

I think it would be more appealing if you let the people control their characters. The problem with this is it will require more CPU work on your part- expensive for a start up. You could have them scan the characters in and use a "wire-frame", like the use in art, to lay out the different body parts. You could even use some OCR to see it the character had legs or if it is on some kind of "tracks".

Awesome art, awesome idea, can't wait to see a working version.

P.S. RazaBlaza is too powerful

Edit: About the wire framing and OCR. Instead, to make your life easier, you could have your own custom character creator. Kind of defeats the purpose of bringing your drawings to life, but hell of a lot easier.

<comment><USER3> Thanks alot for the input. Is the game your thinking of MUGEN? it was an old school open source fighting game <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.G.E.N>

<comment><USER7> That is it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks really awesome. I mean, I really like this. I can't wait to see how my little guy will develop and behave.

EDIT: The $5000 pledge on your Kickstarter page says that you get to design a character that defies the visual rules other players are held to. But I didn't see any visual rules on the site, and the "Send us a sketch" button just opens an email. I'm afraid my character may violate some rules. Just let me know. /EDIT

It's a late night in the office, so I sent you a whiteboard sketch of my company's robot mascot, Jango Webbot: <http://cdn2.alfajango.com/images/jango_web.jpg?1279741285>

I would love to see him battle our other mascot, Alfa Automabot: <http://cdn1.alfajango.com/images/alfa_web.jpg?1279741285>

Funny story, my co-founder and I designed these guys to be sort of an odd couple, so this seems like the perfect outlet for them! I had actually forgotten all about these little mascot guys until just now.

<comment><USER3> Right now we aren't limiting drawings with rules because we are gathering data for all the different types of drawings that can be thrown at it. On Kickstarter the reward means you get a character that can pretty much do anything you can imagine, because we can program specific moves for it that are not in the move pool.

<comment><USER9> To clarify, the "drawing rules" are exactly that - the rules right now are that you upload a drawing and it becomes a graFighter.

A graFighter that "defies the rules" would be one with animation, with multiple forms, with unique behaviors - things you can't convey in a sketch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In my opinion, if your algorithm is that solid and unique, that's your real selling point.

This whole "you can't control the player" is a bad idea, it doesn't drive the usual gamer and you're going to find that maybe it's exciting for people to watch their creature fight the first time but there's no repeat value in that (watching the same moves over and over and over again just isn't exciting).

The perfect blend of your idea and the wishes of the masses is to have your 'Cornelius' algorithm analyze the drawing then return a skill set. So it gives the player 6 movies + 10 combo moves based on their drawings attributes. You get a combination of the "my ninja vs. your ninja" as well as the ability to actually influence the outcome and promote replay value.

</comment><comment><USER11> I really like the idea. I have a very similar idea on my to-do stack, but with one major difference: the characters would be controlled with neural networks. Then the game becomes about not just drawing your character, but also designing sparring arenas that they can train on, etc. It's more of a you- draw-it real-time pokemon'ish game.

> it is not cheap, so we are looking to raise 20,000

Why not just submit to YC then? You'll get $20K and much better publicity and VC connections.

<comment><USER3> We are part of a new incubator in Syracuse at the moment (<http://www.syracusestudentsandbox.com>). The older VC crowds we have pitched to really cant understand what we are doing and why it could be huge. We opted to experiment with crowdsourcing from people who "get it". We will let you know how it goes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think the idea of not having control over your fighter is great. The doubts about people returning because their fighter will get his ass kicked is fallacious, I think. It'll just incentivize you to come up with a better character, which means that as long as sequential incentives to keep returning back the ability to do so, the non-control acts as a positive game dynamic/mechanic.

</comment><comment><USER13> Donations for a startup? Are you serious? You should be offering equity if you are going to profit from this.

<comment><USER3> Why is that so ridiculous? The idea behind Kickstarter is to have people pay for something they want before its built. Actual customers funding you is much more powerful that some VC's who think people will one someday buy what you build.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow, this looks very awesome. You guys are doing something very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a very fun idea. I really hope to see this come to fruition.

</comment><comment><USER16> Mmmmm, smells like MediaMolecule.</comment>