Show HN: JSMin fork (allows Bootstrap's idiom) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shawnpresser/JSMin/commit/d2d03488ef93f769498d9cc0c2a4feea0b04e04f?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey all,

Mr. Crockford has recently refused to fix JSMin (<https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/issues/3057>).

Thus, I've fixed it. You can get the updated code from <https://github.com/shawnpresser/JSMin/blob/master/jsmin.c>

The fix was simple. It simply scans for "newline, optional whitespace, exclamation point" and replaces the newline with a semicolon.

I've given special attention to safety. This code works exactly as JSMin did, except it implements the aforementioned semicolon substitution, thus supporting the Javascript idiom:

      a()
      !b && c()

I hope this proves useful to someone (possibly the authors of Bootstrap). It was a fun project.

<comment><USER2> I like the doing instead of all the talking. Kudos for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Well that discussion is pretty crazy and very polarized.

JSMin guy thinks fixing it is stupid, and the bootstrap guy says that since it works in browsers it should work in JSMin.

So they've reached an impasse. Unfortunately emotions and strong words were used right away which polarizes the conversation.

Being completely pragmatic about it, it seems that bootstrap should probably change, instead of JSMin. But I don't think either will so both sides lose, and potentially make their tools available to a smaller audience.

</comment><comment><USER4> Please send a pull request to Crockford :)</comment>


Ask HN: I thought of an idea but I think Microsoft has it patented. What to do? - <AUTHOR>

I was thinking about writing a payment gateway abstraction layer to allow for developers to be able to change their payment gateway (Auth.net to Stripe, for example) without having to change their implementation code. Basically do for payments what PHP's PDO or Ruby's DBI does for databases.
A simple Google search to find if one existed discovered this patent by Microsoft: http://www.google.com/patents/US20080086417
What should I do now? The patent seems to be exactly what I thought of but as far as I far as I've looked, nothing was ever written. Can I still write one? Could I be sued for infringement? What if it was open source, does that change anything? <comment><USER2> XAuthorize.net sold a similar product for a number of years. I'd think that (not having done more than skim the patent) it would count as prior art in the event MSFT wanted to protect that IP -- assuming that it could pass the non- obviousness test.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you referring to something similar to: [http://spreedly.com](http://spreedly.com)

<comment><USER4> That uses, as far as I can tell, ActiveMerchant anyway. ActiveMerchant was built by Shopify if I remember correctly

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm on a mobile device, so I cannot research as much as I'd like, but this is just a patent application, not an issued patent, and more encouragingly, a quick glance at USPTO pair shows that is was abandoned in 2010. It was abandoned following a non-final rejection by the examiner.

Now it doesn't mean that it's dead for good, since abandoned applications can often be revived, but given that it's Microsoft, who has enough resources to pursue even trivial patents, and that it has been 3 years since it was abandoned, I'd be cautiously optimistic.

On the other hand, it has been referenced by a bunch of other patents, indicating they cover similar subject matter, so you should look into them too.

PS being open source won't save you from infringement.</comment>


Mixpanel (YCS09) - How Real-Time Data is Changing Business Optimization - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/07/14/real-time-business-optimization/

<comment><USER2> fta: "One area where we are seeing real-time analytics improve content companies is in article headlines. For most of us, an article headline is all we use to decide whether or not to read on, so having a good one is definitely important. The Huffington Post is ahead of the game here. They use analytics to run A/B split tests on their important articles – in real-time. The Huffington Post initially shows 2 headlines for the same story, after 5 minutes of testing they discard the less popular one."

How common is this kind of behavior on the web? Are many news outlets doing this kind of split testing?

Can anyone recommend a 'getting started' with A/B testing guide (for blogging)?

<comment><USER3> 5 minutes seems sort of arbitrary. How do they know they have a representative set that describes the whole population? What if in the next 5 minutes they get a rush of users who prefer the other headline? On the other hand, if they are getting second by second updates and they are looking at the standard deviation of the entire minute, then maybe it would be easier to tell which dataset was more statistically significant...no?

<comment><USER4> It all depends on the amt of traffic they get. I'm sure they've experimented enough to realize that 5 minutes is enough time to get a representative sample of their general audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is only natural because the Internet age has and continues to significantly shorten users' attention span. What's considered new gets shorter life spans as information travels at a faster rate. It would only make sense for businesses to take full advantage of real-time analytics (for ad dollars) before whatever data gets stale fast.</comment>


Show HN: My first startup - full-site automated frontend web testing service - <AUTHOR> http://simplytestable.com/

<comment><USER2> Tested it, aborted test after more than 1 minute waiting, with the status queued. Should maybe tell me, how many tests are in line before me and how long (estimated) I would have to wait.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's a very good point.

It should be the case that individual test tasks are selected to be assigned to workers from every site-wide test that has not yet finished regardless of when the test was started - think equal priority packet switching for an analog.

Clearly this is not working as well as it should!

I have some refinements planned, I'll look to getting them in place as soon as I can.</comment></comment>


They Said You Could Leave Scooters Anywhere, Then the Repo Men Struck Back - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/24/20696405/dockless-scooters-share-repo-men-repossessor-lawsuit-tow-yard-lime-bird-lyft-uber-razor <comment><USER2> _"Their app specifically says you can ride it 'anywhere' and leave it 'anywhere,'" Borelli says as he pushes a Bird scooter through the Pacific Beach neighborhood. If he sounds slightly bitter, it's only because he owns a bike shop nearby and believes that dockless scooter companies are trying to steal his customers._

 _But to Borelli, it seemed that the scooter industry was really trying to replace bicycles. He threw the offending scooters in the dumpster, but they were quickly replaced by more scooters_

So a bike shop owner didn't like the competition, and decided to start stealing scooters and throwing them in dumpsters? I have sympathy for people who don't like the scooters on the sidewalk (I'm one of those people), but don't act like you are taking some kind of honest businessman just trying to help the public. This whole thing is just a way to justify eliminating competition for this guys bike shop. Started out throwing them in dumpsters, and moved to "impounding" them and issuing them tickets (not sure why he thinks he has the authority to do that) to try and justify it.

<comment><USER3> I live in San Diego, and have followed this with great interest. From my understanding, they are only doing this for scooters that are parked illegally: e.g. on the shop owners property, blocking vehicle access, etc.

It's very interesting, because the riders don't have an incentive to park appropriately (and that is sometimes a guessing game -- street signs don't exist for where you can park scooters legally). However, I'd warrant that it's the sheer carelessness of riders who cause this issue.

Without people like these repo folks, there would be no disincentive for either the riders or the scooter companies. The riders don't care (and making them care would hurt the companies' growth/user retention -- part of the appeal is that "drop anywhere" thing).

In short, I see no problem with this. We allow tow truck companies to do the same, with private citizens as the victims. This only forces the scooter companies to solve the problem they created.

<comment><USER2> I think the incentive should be to call the police and have them impound it in a legal way, or just move it off of their property, not have a private party come and steal the scooters. Just because something is on your property, does not mean you can legally take it - if you park in my driveway, I can't just steal your car.

<comment><USER4> Replace "steal" with "call a registered tow company" and you can do exactly that - have someone remove an improperly-placed item from your property. Cities solved the problem of improperly-parked cars by creating the entire "towing" concept.

Police aren't a service for junk removal, they are for holding guns. You hire a moving company to remove junk and you get the police to come hold guns if the junk-leaver threatens to do you harm because of same.

<comment><USER5> Impounding isn't the same thing as throwing them into a dumpster.

Likewise, unless it is registered as a vehicle (and I doubt these scooters are), impounding probably wouldn't happen, and there is no law against tossing abandoned "garbage" that appears on your property.

Interesting. Precedence will eventually be set and then we'll know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So the Scooter companies business model is built on a gap in local regulations allowing them to leave there products anywhere without recourse and they are now upset with another business model that found a gap in their gap? Get me some popcorn.

<comment><USER7> Not that I am a Bird defender, but people dump things all of the time.

Go to the store, buy a bike, get a flat eventually, "screw it im chucking it in the field over there"

Now definitely the rate of people dumping rented bird scooters is higher than everything else, but the real issue is the behavior of riders for not at least trying to be tidy in storing the scooter.

<comment><USER6> Sure, but that's a person deciding to litter instead of using the trash for a product they no longer want to use. In this case littering is part of the normal use of the product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Couldn't the scooter companies negotiate with businesses and get permission? Maybe pay businesses to install docking stations. The scooters get advertising when people see the station. The restaurant or hotel gets advertisment on the scooter app as a designated docking station. And the business can tow unwelcome scooters not in the dock. Just like they are allowed to tow cars.

Seems like the scooter startups think they're special and permits and regulations don't apply to them.

<comment><USER4> They can't because their business is fundamentally built on the "leave anywhere" promise to their customers, who are the ones that actually leave the scooters illegally.

There's just no customer-acceptable way of disincentivizing their bad behavior and unlike parked cars, the scooters can be trivially moved from "legal" to "illegal" parking by a single person, which means that the customer may not even be at fault.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Their first client was Borelli's frustrated landlord. From there, more business followed._

 _"We did not seek anybody out, those property owners came to us," Heinkel says._

I looked at one of the pictures and counted 19 scooters. It's hard for me not to think that this is an externality that the scooter company should have thought of and planned for, to preserve goodwill.

<comment><USER10> Based on their (lack of) interactions with local governments, goodwill does not seem to be one of their chief concerns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems like everyone here is in the wrong? A service that moves scooters to proper locations is necessary but these two are clearly in it for the money. It would be easier, cheaper and better for everyone involved if they just moved the scooters to the sidewalk. Holding them ransom behind razorwire is just an attempt to get money while hiding behind a thin veil of public service.

Lime/Bird meanwhile trying to get their property back while minimizing potential PR nightmares that spotlight the harm they cause.

Standard case of humans being humans and trying to get money while maintaining the moral high ground.

<comment><USER12> So how is them 'being in it for the money' any different from any other type of repossessor? I'm not aware of any tow truck operators that do the work as a charity or public service. If the scooter companies had any sort of plan to reburse people for moving the scooters to appropriate parking places, then I would feel differently, but AFAIK none of the scooter companies operates such a program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I side with the scooter companies. I think these guys are exploiting a gray area in the law and shaking down the companies, and should be stopped. GPS should be able to show it a scooter was in a legit place or not. If it was, then their argument goes out the window. It just smells too much like theft.

<comment><USER14> GPS may not be accurate enough, especially in urban areas. And the current geofence isn't detailed enough. For example: it doesn't account for things like a wheelchair ramp from a private property intersecting with a public walkway.

In San Francisco, scooters were picked up by the city and impounded. I don't see why it's unfair for private property owners to do the same.

<comment><USER4> Anyone who's parked a car often in dense areas knows the distance between legal and illegal parking is as small as the width of the bumper you stuck into the fire lane.

GPS just can't help with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The end of the article sums up the repossessors' argument quite nicely:

"If you take all the BS that they've thrown out, and you take our BS, and you take it down, it's a very simple concept," Heinkel says. "They have taken their stuff and placed it on someone else's property without permission."

"Now that's them, and here's us. We're two guys who went to the property owners and got permission with that property owner to remove that stuff off their property. That's all it is."

</comment><comment><USER16> So in america, if something is on my private property, it becomes mine?

It sounds like the only reason they can hold the scooters "ransom" is because they were found on private property.

<comment><USER2> Even if it is on private property, that doesn't mean you can take it. If you park on someone else's driveway, they don't get to take your car.

<comment><USER17> But they do get to have it towed from their property, and you pay the fees for that right?

<comment><USER2> If the police tow it, I'm sure the owner of the car would have to pay the fees. If the property owner tows it, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't (although it may vary by state). At least in Toronto, you are allowed to tow a car from your property, but not charge the owner for the tow [1].

[1] [https://www.toronto.ca/311/knowledgebase/kb/docs/articles/mu...](https://www.toronto.ca/311/knowledgebase/kb/docs/articles/municipal- licensing-and-standards/business-licensing-and-regulatory-services/licensing- services/vehicles-towed-from-private-property-towing-fees.html)

<comment><USER18> ...unless the property owner has posted signs with the law.

<comment><USER2> It says if they have posted signs with the law, they can contact the police to issue a ticket (and tow, presumably). The formatting is a bit messed up, but you are required to both have the signs, and contact the police, you can't just tow it without calling the police, and require the owner to pay for the tow.

<comment><USER19> typically, the requirement is that you register the tow with the police (after the fact), not that you ask their permission before you tow</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Suneung: The day silence falls over South Korea - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46181240 <comment><USER2> Things like these should make any nation ashamed of itself. This kind of pressure on a growing child can only destroy him or her, and it's no wonder why kids are killing themselves. It's like planting a ticking bomb in their heads and hoping it wouldn't explode if something goes wrong.

As a highly educated person myself, I can't deny that studying, learning and improving yourselves are fundamental parts of the process of growing up and becoming a useful member of society, but it can't be done at the expense of someone's sanity, because it totally nullifies its value. Stuffing a kid of knowledge like a pâté goose stops him or her from really enjoying probably it's most critical years to the fullest, and I just can't really see this as a positive thing.

<comment><USER3> How do you think S. Korea transformed from THE poorest nation on the planet after 1953 end of Korean War to top 10 - 15 nation in a 65 year period? Imagine, there are still people alive who were born in the poorest nation on the planet, and now living in a nation that is ranked 15th in GDP. South Korean passport is ranked 3rd most accepted, tied with Germany and France.

It wasn't because of natural resources or oil.

It wasn't any modern industry that just had to recover after the war such as Germany or Japan did. South Korea had NO modern industry of any kind, higher education institution, a modern workforce, effective government agencies, etc. S. Korea was literally a hell hole of a nation in 1953.

After the WTF period Koreans went through from 1910 to 1953 (after having had a 500 years long kingdom, the Chosun dynasty), South Korea just had to do what was necessary to survive.

And only way they saw how was producing a workforce to be productive. And no, Montessori method was not a viable option.

You don't have to be a highly educated non-Korean to see the education system is not quite right or wrong. Many highly educated and even not so highly educated people IN S. Korea know the question is valid to ask. Some want a change. Many who immigrated out of S. Korea to US and other nations list 2 reasons for leaving the nation, 1) conscription army and 2) the college entrance exam, the Suneung. But it was a system created at a time when there was no time to debate, but to act quickly to produce a workforce, just to survive as a nation. And it has delivered so far.

Yes the suicides are tragic. But consider this. Far more S. Koreans have died (including newborn, young, old) from lack of basic medical care in South Korea when only select few had access to modern medical care up until 1970's, 80's. The nation and citizens couldn't pay for it, for lack of wealth, from due to lack of skills needed by a modern workforce. But now that they can afford it, a nation wide medical care system is in place. Without educating the workforce (and yes the Suneung), they wouldn't have that luxury.

Easy for you to say they should be ashamed of that. I quite disagree.

<comment><USER4> South Korea transformed from the poorest nation to the richest not because of the trope that education was largely responsible and I don't discount that but it's far fetched to suggest that as a single cause.

After all, without Park Chung Hee's military dictatorship, without essentially enslaving 1/2 of the population as a glorified slave with the threat of violence, without handing over the destiny of millions of Koreans to the hands of the dozen family run corporate dynasties (aka chaebols), without the massacre and denial of reparations and the censure, capture, torture and killing of dissidents,

South Korea would not be as successful as it is.

Life in South Korea during the military dictatorship which lasted 2.5 generations, was just as hard if not oppressive like the North. If you read about the Gwangju Massacre (Korea's Tianmen Square), it's pretty clear that South Korea was virtually no different than North Korea in terms of political freedom.

This is the miracle of the Asian tigers - when you don't have natural commodity, the _people become that commodity_ , expendable, something to be taken advantage of by people with capital.

<comment><USER5> May I polititely suggest that your assertion of equivalence between South Korea and North Korea in terms of political freedom during the Park and Chun years is overwrought nonsense. Just ask any South Korean who lived through this period or any American peace corps volunteer like me who lived in the countryside (near Gwangju in fact) in the 1970s under the Park regime and who studied in graduate school in Seoul under the Chun regime in the 1980s. The issues are complex and require long, nuanced elaboration, but in crude terms Park was all but a fascist in name during his dictatorship and Chun was largely a loutish thug. Park is remembered surprisingly fondly by his generation, while Chun is reviled. And it is true that political dissidents were brutally treated by both Park and Chun and that the 1980 Gwangju Massacre was a horrible incident for which Chun later went to prison. However, North Korea was much worse in its control, e.g. over all religious groups and intellectuals. If you had a bad class background ("seongbun") you had nil chance for any higher education or social advancement. And with the growing cult of personality of Kim Il Sung from the mid-1960s, virtually no one could hope to express openly any thoughts critical of Kim or the Worker's Party official party line. In sum, life in the south under Park was by turns comic and tiring (the whole nation was forced to arise at 6 am every day!) and under Chun disspiriting and at the margin dangerous, but in the north under Kim, little or no freedom of personal expression existed even between spouses. Just check out the personal accounts of those who lived through it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "That's why we spend 12 years preparing for this one day. I know people who've taken this exam up to five times."

OK, so it's not really "one day" then.

I don't understand why.

"Instead of pitying us, I wish foreigners would think how awesome we are."

Passing exams is a pointless activity. I'm more interested in results. Those results can be measured in many ways - in power, in lives saved in surgery, in money, in kindness, in criminals caught, in lines of code, in numbers of citations in academic papers, in how many followers you have on Instagram. Korea is a fairly successful country, but it's not leaps and bounds above other countries that don't have this level of stress. It's not something I want my country to aspire to.

<comment><USER7> > I don't understand why.

It's because you don't live in a highly competitive society. People try everything they can to squeeze extra points out of these exams. It's the only way to get into good universities. Why do you have to go to good universities? When thousands of people applying for one job, the company will try to find the fastest way to filter out applicants, and your degree is the easiest way for you to stand out. In an ultra competitive society, you do everything you could to stand out, otherwise you won't stand a chance.

<comment><USER8> And the results are somewhat good with formerly Japan and now South Korea being one of the leaders in innovation. Albeit much less competitive China, USA, France and Germany are still close enough.

The problem with Japanese and Korean style of achievement is that it can get you to rest on your laurels and additionally it is anti-creative, strongly promoting patterns, knowledge and effort over novel approaches.

All in all, few types, perhaps even none, of standardized tests allow novel solutions.

<comment><USER9> > Albeit much less competitive China

I'm not sure about this. From what I've read, Chinese society is more competitive, not less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Below is problem 33 of this year's English exam. For the English section of the exam, there are a total of 45 questions; 17 listening comprehension (around 25 minutes) and 28 reading comprehension questions (around 45 minutes). Imagine yourself (if you're non-Korean) trying to comprehend something like this in a completely foreign language.

33\. Heritage is concerned with the ways in which very selective material artefacts, mythologies, memories and traditions become resources for the present. The contents, interpretations and representations of the resource are selected according to the demands of the present; an imagined past provides resources for a heritage that is to be passed onto an imagined future. It follows too that the meanings and functions of memory and tradition are defined in the present. Further, heritage is more concerned with meanings than material artefacts. It is the former that give value, either cultural or financial, to the latter and explain why they have been selected from the near infinity of the past. In turn, they may later be discarded as the demands of present societies change, or even, as is presently occurring in the former Eastern Europe, when pasts have to be reinvented to reflect new presents. Thus heritage is __________________. [3 points]

① about preserving universal cultural values

② a mirror reflecting the artefacts of the past

③ neither concerned with the present nor the future

④ as much about forgetting as remembering the past

⑤ a collection of memories and traditions of a society

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h > trying to comprehend something like this in a completely foreign language

Forget that; I'm a native English speaker, with a college degree, and I have no clue what they're looking for. Maybe 5? But that's only a guess.

<comment><USER11> It is 4.

<comment><USER9> I guessed 4 as well. My take away from the passage was that despite what people think, what is often represented as heritage can be selective in nature. The clue was in the phrase "why they have been selected from the near infinity of the past".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That sucks. And it makes me feel like maybe SATs aren't so bad. I feel like scoring well on the SAT doesn't actually require preparation, just high literacy and a willingness to think the questions through.

<comment><USER9> Getting a high/near-perfect score on the SAT does require preparation due to time pressure. SAT candidates need to be able to arrive at the correct answer almost instinctively (mostly via pattern-matching and some reasoning). This entails practice.

The material tested in the US SATs is relatively unsophisticated compared to the curricula of many East Asian countries. My understanding is that SATs test for quickness of reasoning more than anything else. (SAT subject tests go into more depth, but are still have nowhere near the coverage of East Asian exams)

<comment><USER12> > Getting a high/near-perfect score on the SAT does require preparation due to > time pressure.

Sure, but it is completely possible to get a very high score with virtually no practice. Time constraints are an issue, but not too huge of one, so long as you are willing to trust your gut so to speak.

> The material tested in the US SATs is relatively unsophisticated compared to > the curricula of many East Asian countries.

That is exactly why I think the SAT is superior.

<comment><USER9> > Sure, but it is completely possible to get a very high score with virtually > no practice

Only if you are naturally highly intelligent. Folks of above average intelligence (but not in the upper percentiles) tend to need to work at it (many do and succeed).

> That is exactly why I think the SAT is superior.

Only if you are interested in "g" intelligence alone as a pure metric, in which case psychometric instruments like the Advanced Raven Progressive Matrices should also be admissible.

The SATs give you one metric of preparedness for college, arguably an important one. But the East Asian exams give you another: grit. It's much harder for a smart person to succeed at them without any effort. That said, I'm not condoning them since I believe the East Asian focus on exams often does go overboard and devolves into mismeasurement (i.e. how good you are at taking tests).

But intelligence, measured in isolation, is not a good metric for college- readiness especially in technical fields, where you need a certain measure of grit to do well in the material. I've known stars in high school who struggled when they had to apply themselves.... when you're used to things coming easily to you all your life, it can be demoralizing to have to work at things.

<comment><USER13> Maybe your fallen stars were secretly using grit before. Working harder than necessary ahead of when it's needed seems questionable. yagni .

<comment><USER9> Not sure about that. The high school stars in my example were the effortlessly smart sort (high IQ, crammed before exams).

But to your other point about working hard only when it's needed, there is a class of skills (so called "bicycle skills" [1]) that have to be learned in advance, and cannot be picked up on the fly. Mastering those skills early in life can lead to compound interest payoffs later on. So I don't agree with YAGNI as a general rule.

Furthermore, even if the material you learn isn't going to be useful, it doesn't mean that the process of learning them is necessarily wasted. On the contrary, the process of acquiring mastery itself can pay dividends in the form of meta-skills. Take learning to play the piano for instance. The blogger "Ask a Korean" has this to say: [2]

 _" The point of learning the piano is NOT about acquiring the skill of playing the piano so that the student can earn a living as a pianist. It is about building the character of the person. Here is the thing about character -- you can't build it by explicitly setting out to build it. Character is not a skill like tying your shoelaces. If it must be put in terms of "skill", character is a "meta-skill" \-- a foundational human skill that is necessary to perfect any number of mechanical skills. And the only way to develop this meta-skill is to develop at least one highly sophisticated mechanical skill, such that the student may acquire the meta-skill in the course of building the mechanical skill."_

[1] [https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/08/01/bicycle- skills/](https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/08/01/bicycle-skills/)

[2] [http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2011/05/confucianism-and- kore...](http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2011/05/confucianism-and-korea-part-v- what-can.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's an example of the type of questions that kids in the "Free Korea" faces: [https://external- preview.redd.it/xL79rBC8VK4gI5lej7gFbU1priH...](https://external- preview.redd.it/xL79rBC8VK4gI5lej7gFbU1priHRR9Vo2JNI_xHE83g.jpg?auto=webp&s=1ff5a38c025cb72429c40d3ebdb34b412c15cae2)

This is only the tip of the iceberg. It appears that in order to force everybody on a normal distribution map, they've gone well past the original purpose of the government exams, which was originally a neo-Confucian artifact to promote egalitarianism-the idea that even peasants who pass the government exams are able to improve their social standing after a long period of caste society based on lineage.

This means students aren't tested even on rote memorization or any of the necessary skills in the real world. Instead, they've become victim to the billion dollar industry of extra-cirricular cram schools. Public schools have become completely dependent on a widely unregulated cram schools because it's become impossible to come out on top when everybody is getting specialized help. You can't fault these parents either, these exams are insane and it makes sense that there is demand for extra tutoring.

The biggest tragedy of this is that it's no longer egalitarian like in it's tradition, it's about who has the money and can pay for their child's education. Low middle class Korean families can't support the cost of raising a child in this hyper education focused culture with very little prouductivity other than elevating the truly gifted exam takers running the country with no experience other than from books.

A big reason why in South Korea, you can commit horrible crimes and almost get a slap on the wrist because of incompetent, unexperienced judges and prosecutors who have mastered the art of climbing the Korean ladder, a giant bureaucracy that permeates through every part of Korean culture. Neo- confucianism is facing significant stress and young Koreans are undergoing social change.

<comment><USER14> I'm not exactly used to answering these questions, but 5 seems the obvious choice here - the others being clearly unrelated. Is this really an example of the difficulty of this exam?

If my answer is wrong that would indeed be ironic... I'd love to be corrected.</comment></comment>


How to know when your startup is failing - <AUTHOR> https://www.kapwing.com/blog/how-to-know-when-your-startup-is-failing/ <comment><USER2> I worked for 1 week at a startup. The founder tried twice to convince me that he is the original Satoshi. He also told me similar fantastic stories every day, such as how he got blown straight through by scud missile shrapnel when he was in military special ops in one of 3 wars he fought in, yet somehow came out without scars or any ongoing physical medical issues related to it. He's also really scrawny - not something I'd expect from even a retired soldier after so much deployment. He constantly felt people were playing tricks on him (like the cleaner moving his network cables around just to annoy him, someone deleting all his monitoring video footage despite the fact that it is kept in his home, the military suddenly claiming they've never heard of him... it goes on and on even though the time was so short... I swear he hired me just to have an audience), and he shooed constructive and strategic people out of his life over stories of bizarre situations and especially confrontations that most surely weren't triggered by happenings in the real world. He talked a lot about PTSD, but other than overwhelming paranoia, the symptoms he showed were far from that.

It takes a certain level of creativity to be successful in a startup. But his type of creativity made it pretty clear to me that I could expect his startup to fail spectacularly. Recently he suggested that his VC people are starting to push him away. Everyone has ideas, but not everyone has the clarity of mind to turn them into something tangible.

This guy doesn't need VC. He needs a psychiatric evaluation. It's extremely hard to tell if his startup idea was one of his many delusions or not, and there is a VC company holding the can for him even now. I'm absolutely surprised they've stuck with him this long. He must hide it well around them.

So that's one way to tell if a startup can survive - is the founder capable of seeing it through without going completely mad? I hope it's not what you're dealing with.</comment>


Ask HN: Who's got good Javascript? - <AUTHOR>

As part of my continuing eduction, I like to poke around sites and see how they are using JS.  To help me optimize this process, does anyone have any opinions about which sites have "good" Javascript?  By good, I'm primarily looking for getting the most functionality out of the smallest number of lines of still comprehensible code.  Thanks! <comment><USER2> This is the place to go, Douglas Crockford really knows javascript and passes on valuable experience. <http://javascript.crockford.com/>

This is a valuable resource <http://javascript.crockford.com/code.html>

Here are some really good presentations: [http://www.metafilter.com/61049/Douglas-Crockford-Teaches- Ja...](http://www.metafilter.com/61049/Douglas-Crockford-Teaches-JavaScript)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure what qualifies as "good" JS, but there's a halfway decent photo gallery in JS at <http://davidmckayphotography.com/>

The code hasn't been obfuscated or compressed, and most of it is fairly straightforward and readable, except for the parts where the deadline started creeping up on the project. There the code gets a little ugly/hacky. AFAIK, IE 6, Safari, Firefox 2/3, etc. etc. all like it fine.

I wrote it, and I'm not particularly proud of it, but I've received enough (local) requests for it that a version 1 is in the works.

</comment><comment><USER4> Look at the things John Resig has been doing. In addition to founding jQuery, he has written a lot of other good JavaScript code. Also, his blog, ejohn.org, discusses other JavaScript code he admires.

</comment><comment><USER5> Google, but they compress everything, so good luck understanding their code.

I'd actually check out the source to some of the major JS libraries: JQuery, Prototype, OpenLayers, etc. Most sites build off them, but the sites that know what they're doing will be packing/minifying their JavaScript, making it a bit hard to read.

<comment><USER6> They also obfuscate it. Understandably so.

<comment><USER5> It's actually not obfuscated by design - the main goal is to reduce latency and bandwidth usage. It just so happens that this means single character variable names and no whitespace, which is also fairly hard to read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> i suggest that you go to chatrooms. #jquery #javascript in freenode are good places. i'm sure that there are guys out there who can help realtime</comment>


Reykjavik Center Map - <AUTHOR> http://www.reykjavikcentermap.com/

<comment><USER2> Hey guys! I´m the cartographer that designed this map, here are a few other examples of our work if anyone´s interested: [http://www.borgarmynd.com](http://www.borgarmynd.com)

A friend let me know about the post and I just wanted to say thanks for posting and feedback, much appreciated :) I got a few of my architect and graphic designer friends to work on this map with me while we were still in school, 7 years ago, and the website with the zoom feature is done by Brian Suda [http://www.suda.co.uk](http://www.suda.co.uk) A total of 5 people (4 architects & 1 graphic designer) took part in making the map and 3 more of our graphic designer friends helped in one way or another on layout, web design etc.

The map is actually a collage of 186 a3 watercolor sheets that took 2 years (2300 hrs)to 3d model, draw and paint. The watercolor sheets were all based on 3d models we made first of each house, using city planning groundplans and sections, so the accuracy (even though it might look all cute and cuddly) is very high (Every tree, flagpole etc. is based on actual objects) We update the map every year, draw in new buildings, paint in new colors of houses etc.

For those interested, the map is an axonometric projection of my home town Reykjavík, Iceland. We used this kind of projection in order to maintain scale within the map.

ps: I´m on the map, good luck finding me!

<comment><USER3> Wonderful work!

> _We update the map every year, draw in new buildings, paint in new colors of > houses etc._

It would be cool to have a time slider control to see how the city has changed over time. Similar to what Google Earth does for selecting aerial photos from different dates.

> _I´m on the map, good luck finding me!_

I'll take a shot at it... I only see a handful of people depicted and they're on the little boats. Are you one of them? Do these possibly represent each of the project collaborators?

<comment><USER2> Well, you wouldn´t see much difference. A large area of what´s depicted has a preservation status. But great idea, I´ll check the difference in a few years :)

And no, I get seasick, I´m sunbathing on a roof somewhere ;) We were all on the map, I´m noticing some got lost during last update, I´ll add them back in soon!

<comment><USER4> Maybe you can have an option to highlight the difference from previous year. Shouldn't be a lot of work, seeing as changes are infrequent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We built something similar to this a few years ago for our campus (we are a school). Hired an illustrator to do a watercolor of the campus on large tiles (maybe 8" by 11") and then scanned them in at high resolution and created a large image that we ran through OpenLayers [1] and built a searchable campus map. Neat project. Unfortunately, maintaining the watercolor (even with the tiles) as we changed the campus (e.g. construction, new roadways, new names for old POIs) was difficult, and we had to move back to just a PDF.

[1] [http://openlayers.org/](http://openlayers.org/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I've no idea what this is doing on HN, but it's very nice, and I wish I'd seen it before I was there a few weeks ago. Beautiful city, far bigger and far more modern than I'd imagined, and full of lovely people.

<comment><USER2> It´s a shame you missed our map danellis, pm me your address and I´ll gladly send you a hard copy if you want.

<comment><USER7> Wow, that's a really beautiful map. If possible, I'd love to purchase a hard copy as well! Not sure it's possible to PM on here, but if you email me at email@example.com I can send my address.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We hired the wonderful crew who made this map to design a map of San Francisco for us, they did an unbelievable job: [http://theopencompany.net/products/san- francisco-map](http://theopencompany.net/products/san-francisco-map)

</comment><comment><USER9> Funny, I've had this bookmarked for two years since I visited Iceland in 2013...still look at it from time to time. What an incredible experience, I fell in love with everything except the food. I think Anthony Bourdain said the only place in the world where he's absolutely hated the food was Reykjavik...I can't say the man is wrong. But everything else is wonderful.

<comment><USER10> I really liked: The bakery culture for breakfasts, good and fresh seafood (if you're okay with eating whale, there's that too), a bit of variety in the diners and fast food places. We hit up a Chipotle-esque place called Serrano that wasn't bad, for instance.

Additionally, in the last few years though there's been a bit of foodie revolution; Kex hostel has some pretty solid dining at their in-house restaurant, and there are a number of 'American New' places sprouting up, both diner- and pub-style.

Anyway, I agree, Iceland was magical. The people were so, so great, the country was gorgeous and full of history, and (for my money) the food wasn't half bad.

<comment><USER11> > Kex hostel has some pretty solid dining at their in-house restaurant, and > there are a number of 'American New' places sprouting up, both diner- and > pub-style.

That's the restaurant where my friend worked...though he has moved on.

Second the recommendation here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you like this, I suggest you check edushi.com which does it at the scale of China. Example for Shanghai: [http://sh.edushi.com/](http://sh.edushi.com/)

<comment><USER13> Shanghai also has a museum whose centerpiece is a tennis-court-sized 1:500 scale model of the city's downtown.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's the most memorable tourist map I received in 6 months in Europe. It's hanging on my wall right now. Iceland does a really great job with their tourism industry.

<comment><USER2> except the "tourism industry" hardly helped us at all funding or promoting this map, just a group of friends that love making beautiful maps ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you like that, don't miss the link to [http://www.icelandillustrated.com/](http://www.icelandillustrated.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> This reminds me of my favorite guidebook for the city of Prague which includes annotated illustrations of landmarks with details about features such as the identities of the statues on building facades or the contents of stained glass windows. Really helpful information for the history and architecture buff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds cool. Do you have a title or ISBN?

<comment><USER16> Yeah, just went searching in my library for it as I couldn't remember the title, though unfortunately there isn't much online for it:

Prague: Detailed Picture Guide

On Amazon: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer- listing/8086893502/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/8086893502/)

Here is a listing on an auction site for it that has a few photos of the page detail: [http://page13.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/r128671359](http://page13.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/r128671359)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Lovely map. It could do with clearer borders though. At first, I thought that parts of the map just weren't loading, when in fact I had reached the edge of the drawing.

<comment><USER2> The cartographer of the map here....... Very good point, I´ll look into a good solution for that, thanks for the feedback, every design can only get better with well grounded criticism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found Nonni's!

Food coma time. _drool_

Explanation: [http://www.nonnabiti.is/](http://www.nonnabiti.is/) Ultimate drunk food.

<comment><USER18> The Shrimp Boat has a weird, mystical allure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nice. This reminds me of the o.cn isometric maps of cities in China. [http://sz.o.cn/](http://sz.o.cn/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Really beautiful, but I wish you could go back easily - i.e. not having to click back through every location you visited.

<comment><USER2> hmmm....you shouldn´t have to do that. Thanks for the heads up. What kind of browser etc?

<comment><USER20> Chrome on Mac.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It would've been supercool if it looked hand drawn and 3D at the same time. I don't know how to implement this, but I suppose should be possible with the right tools and a graphic designer who'd grasp the idea.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is beautiful and fun to explore. I'm curious, with all the time involved is this a viable business venture (through advertising from retailers, sales of prints, etc.) or primarily a labor of love?

<comment><USER2> primarily a whole lot of labor and a whole lot of love

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> So apparently they really did close Sirkus[1], but they didn't tear down the house and build anything in its place?

[1] :´(

</comment><comment><USER24> Great idea! I visited it two times only, but could definitely recognise some areas.

</comment><comment><USER25> Nice map, needs a lot more points, can users update it by them selves ?</comment>


Google Engineers Mutate AI to Make Systems Evolve Faster Than We Can Code Them - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencealert.com/coders-mutate-ai-systems-to-make-them-evolve-faster-than-we-can-program-them <comment><USER2> > The system starts off with a selection of 100 algorithms made by randomly > combining simple mathematical operations. A sophisticated trial-and-error > process then identifies the best performers, which are retained - with some > tweaks - for another round of trials. In other words, the neural network is > mutating as it goes.

This approach sounds quite similar to this neuroevolution paper [0] but perhaps that this sort of works if you have a system that has a large amount of memory that can handle simultaneously evolving these neural networks. Thus, the hardware requirements would unsurprisingly be demanding; at least for Google they'd just use their own infrastructure and training it on their TPU hardware.

This is the only use-case that makes sense to apply neuroevolution to search for the optimal network, unless you're Google or on their GCP infrastructure that is.

[0] [http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/stanley.ec02.pdf](http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/stanley.ec02.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for sharing above paper, which references modifications to the topology, which I think is just another dimension that could mutate.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is a paper they referenced in the article:

2003) AutoML-Zero: Evolving Machine Learning Algorithms From Scratch - [https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03384](https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03384).

Although I could not finish reading all of it yet, I think here algorithms mutating is another dimension which can mutate, which then effects of course new topologies, weights, and other factors.</comment>