Table Saw Accidents - <AUTHOR> http://www.sawaccidents.com/ <comment><USER2> I inherited a very grunty table saw from my father in law. The lights dim when its started, and it takes two men to move it.

It frankly terrifies me somewhat. I have always been very respectful of it, and had had no incidents in a couple of years of use.

However one day he watched me using it and said I needed to use a pusher stick to push the piece in, rather than the tips of my fingers as I was doing.

I switched to the pusher stick, and things felt...safer! I felt more casual I guess. And then, some months later, I contacted the blade with the pusher stick which disintegrated, with a piece flying past my face.

My learning was that sometimes having safety equipment can make one less careful, with a commensurate increase in the likelihood of an accident.

(A secondary learning was that table saws are just plain dangerous, and I wouldn't want a job that involved using one all day long - statistics would catch up with me one day).

<comment><USER3> Aside from using pusher sticks or blocks to keep your fingers away from the blade, the other critical element of table saw safety is understanding kickback. In the wrong circumstances, the saw blade can suddenly grip the workpiece and launch it back at you; the sudden change in force often causes the user to push their hand into the blade. Fortunately, kickback is a predictable and avoidable phenomenon if you understand the physics involved.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f8VWwtaudU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f8VWwtaudU)

<comment><USER4> Absolutely -- don't stand directly behind the piece when ripping, and use a featherboard in addition to push sticks.

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Somehow I've never come across a featherboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is one of my favorite kickback demonstrations. Since watching this, I have made sure to keep my push block/stick close to the blade & applying pressure toward the fence, instead of closer to the fence & applying pressure toward the blade.

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

</comment><comment><USER6> It amazes me how in America the cabinet style table saw is still favoured above the European Slider. I own a European slider, and it allows me to have my hands further away from the blade, it allows for easier support of the workpiece...

In my opinion it's just way safer, especially if you keep the safety guard in tact.

The other culture difference I've noticed with American furniture makers is that they use the table saw for many more operations than we europeans do. For making rabbets, we generally use a shaper. Shapers can be daunting machines, but used with the safety equipment they come with they can be a blessing to work with. Things like kickback if you try to create a rabbet are prevented.

It just feels strange to see that difference between these two continents, maybe OSHA is just way more lenient, or the idea of the importance of employee safety is something totally different..

<comment><USER4> Never even heard of a European slider before; it looks clever, but a bit large for a home shop.

Also, these tools last a long time, so even if something better comes along, it's going to take quite a few years to make inroads into existing shops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> No discussion about table saw accidents is complete without SawStop! - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3o0VGUh50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3o0VGUh50)

<comment><USER8> Nor is it complete without an opposing viewpoint...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18523073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18523073)

<comment><USER9> Those arguments are kind of weak. I've owned a sawstop for several years and never triggered it, nor have I met anyone that has. It's an event equivalent to losing a finger on a regular saw. Furthermore, Sawstop replaces the brake for free if it wasn't triggered by wet wood or metal. And regarding the patent issues, can you really blame them? That's the entire point of the patent system. Patent expires in a year or so anyway, and then the market will be flooded with knock-offs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I didn't realize the accidents were so common and while I'm not sure brakes should be required it appears some in Congress thought the CPSC should be stripped of that authority anyway. [https://www.npr.org/2017/08/10/542474093/despite-proven- tech...](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/10/542474093/despite-proven-technology- attempts-to-make-table-saws-safer-drag-on)

</comment><comment><USER11> I honestly can't tell whether the "MANSCAPED #1 IN BELOW-THE-WAIST GROOMING" banner ad is targeted terribly or perfectly.

[https://i.imgur.com/OrCwd0U.png](https://i.imgur.com/OrCwd0U.png)

</comment><comment><USER12> My right hand pinky is the result of a table saw accident. That one accident was enough for me.

<comment><USER13> I heard a story of a carpenter missing half of three fingers.

Someone said: Wow, that must have been quite an accident to lose three fingers!

Carpenter replies: Well I lost this one 3 years ago, this one a year ago, and this one 6 months ago...

Some people never learn.

\---

When I was a kid I met an old man with half a pinky finger. I asked him how he lost it. He said he was picking his nose one day and zoop, it was gone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would be nice if they distinguished between riving knives and blade guards somehow.</comment>


Product Design of the Stripe Dashboard for iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/exploring-the-product-design-of-the-stripe-dashboard-for-iphone-e54e14f3d87e <comment><USER2> Hey, thanks for writing this.

Your article talks a lot about the nuances of the app (prototyping animation, specifically) but I'm curious how you were able to distill the experience down to 2 primary use cases - did this come from research, data, customers saying this is what they intend to use the app for?

Did you test any of this with your existing customers? If so, how did you go about that process?

</comment><comment><USER3> If anyone from Medium is listening, here's some feedback about the page design itself. Every time I scroll, there's the 'share/follow tab' that pops in and out at the bottom of the screen. This adds undue stress to the process of scrolling when every action I do causes things to pop in and out. If a share sheet is absolutely necessary, fix it somewhere in the page, or bring it up when I come to the end of the page or something. Don't animate things as I'm scrolling the page.

<comment><USER4> For me, this only happens when I scroll up. That seems sensible to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Designing any product can feel overwhelming but by diluting it down to the essential user experience, you can make it approachable and doable._

How did you find out what the essential user experience was without talking to users?

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow that card interface, though beautiful, looks like a real waste of time to develop. A list of text links would be faster and more effective. But mobile!

<comment><USER7> _A list of text links would be faster and more effective._

What makes you say that? The card interface gives a sense of context--you can still see the stuff behind it. You can pull on the entire card to navigate instead of hitting a small text target. I haven't used the UI, but it looks like it works pretty well.

<comment><USER6> To access a previous card, you could have a small target for each. The front one can always have a large target.

The card metaphor has no value. No extra information is communicated, and yet it is expensive to program and display.

UIs always look like they work well when demoed by the creator. Show me a usability test with this, and then you'll see the reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would love to hear more about the UX process involved in creating this (and other Stripe products).

From what I read you guys jumped right in to the UI design?

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice! What did you guys use to build the visualizations?

<comment><USER10> Some of them are created using After Effects, HTML/CSS and iOS code. Was this your question?</comment></comment>


Elon Musk says Tesla's stock price is too high - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/1/21244136/elon-musk-tesla-stock-price-too-high-fall-tweet <comment><USER2> In any other world, this would be newsworthy. Even after Donald Trump, this would be newsworthy. But Elon Musk tweeted that we should open the country up in the middle of a pandemic. I've lost all my respect for him. He is, at the end of the day, another figure on Twitter, and one whose actions have very little if any actual effect on most people's lives - right now in particular it seems like the effect he would have on most of my friends and myself would only be negative.

Elon Musk isn't the new Nikola Tesla. He isn't a real-life Iron Man. Elon Musk is the new Jack Parsons[1] and I'm certain time will prove me right.

(( to be totally clear, i appreciate OP for sharing this. i just think it's very weird that the Verge of all agencies is even covering this when an article like this would be much better suited for a financial publication ))

[1] - Jack Parsons - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_\(rocket_engineer\))</comment>


Reefer tapes of Louis Armstrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.booyorkcity.com/secret-reefer-tapes-of-louis-armstrong/ <comment><USER2> For anyone looking for an insider view into the crazy, early days of Jazz, I highly Recommend Sidney Bechet's _Treat it Gentle_ and Mezz Mezzrow's _Really the Blues_ , which also include many fascinating stories about Armstrong - like the time he improvised the song Heebie Jeebies (about Grass)[0].

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmGt2U-xTE&pxtry=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmGt2U-xTE&pxtry=1)

<comment><USER3> Miles Davis' autobiography is also an amazing, vulgar, honest and incredible work as well. The audible audio book is especially good because the narrator nails his raspy but dogged voice. Highly NSFW and highly recommended.

<comment><USER4> great book. Quincy Jones autobiography is also fantastic

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Worth a read for the 30ies slang alone:

> Armstrong said: "This dick confidentially told me, he said 'When that cat > called us and stool-pigeoned on you, they sent me and my partner to come up > for the assignment…when we found out that you was the one that we must nab, > it broke our hearts. You must understand, we can get you six months for a > roach'.

<comment><USER6> Interesting also that the fact that it was Louis Armstrong made them contemplate this on a level that they would never have for a lesser god or an ordinary individual. So much for the justice is blind mantra. Following up on a competitor trying to harm Armstrong is already quite a nice show of solidarity between musicians and on top of that shows the police's willingness to have the law used in matters of economics where the party doing the reporting (or anybody else for that matter) suffered no harm at all from the alleged crime.

<comment><USER7> Did anybody ever believe justice was truly blind, particularly in the US? You've always had just as much justice as you can afford there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it anachronistic that I'm invited to make an appointment to listen to the tapes in New York.

Why wouldn't the museum simply publish them online ?

<comment><USER9> I imagine that digitizing the analogue tapes would have a lossy effect on the quality.

<comment><USER10> It is trivial today to sample audio in a rate and sensitivity which greatly surpass both the density of the pherromagnetic material in the tapes and the fidelity of the original recording equipment.

Even "analogue" sound depends on the resolution of the underlying technology, so no, there doesn't have to be any data loss.

And that's just on the philosophical level, about which our limited ears care very little :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _Music legend Louis Armstrong is recorded on secret tapes ... From December > 1950, until his death in 1971, Louis documented his life 'for posterity' on > to 750 tapes, totaling thousands of hours of recordings, now owned by Louis > Armstrong House Museum._

This isn't just weird but mad.

</comment><comment><USER12> At least his laxative habit was legal and above board.

More seriously, Armstrong getting Joe Glaser [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Glaser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Glaser) to fix his arrest problem for him is a sad reminder of how he and many other US musicians of the time (probably the whole jazz scene?) were deeply in bed with organised crime.

<comment><USER6> They didn't exactly have a legal option to get what they craved. As soon as you criminalize something you relegate all of the 'fringe' to dealing with organized crime.

<comment><USER12> What they were mainly after was employment as jazzmen, though: IIRC (I'm not an expert) the main connection was originally the shadiness of many nightclub venues, especially during Prohibition.

<comment><USER6> Prohibition is just another form of the same.

When the adult population of a country craves something that is (potentially) bad for it then that's an education issue and a medical issue, not a criminal issue.

As the son of an alcoholic I've seen up close what alcohol can do to an individual, even so making it an illegal substance would just have jacked up the budget _and_ risked run-ins with the law (more than there already were).

I don't smoke pot, don't drink alcohol, in general am a pretty boring person (especially when it comes to imbibing mind altering substances in company other than sweet tea) but I support those who do feel the need to do any or all of the above simply because society could not function if all these people were behind bars and every one of them has the reins of their lives firmly in their own hands. It's all about choices and mentality, making these things crimes is not helping anybody and simply drives the problems underground and creates a fertile ground for organized crime to flourish on.

<comment><USER13> What if it is the idea, to let criminals deal with criminals. It's a circular reasoning if then the organizdd crime is said to be bad because it supplies drugs, that are dangerous and should be controled. I mean, if crime was only about drugs, the user would support the drug supply, i.e. the support. To support the support doesn't sound very unethical. The matter that is supported is the problem.

Sure, there is worse crime that may use drugmoney, but it might and does use legally optained funds after laundry as well. You might argue that the drug problem itself wouldn't flourish any less, if it was legal. I agree with the educational and medical perspective mentioned, but the medical moral is to not self medicate and the educational that the law is always right.

<comment><USER6> I can't parse all that you're writing, but to answer those parts that I understand:

Organized crime steps in to supply a market simply because there is a lot of money to be made, that's all that it takes. Making a substance illegal drives up the price. If you made milk illegal tomorrow morning there would be illegal milk available at a substantial mark-up the day after and an underground distribution network would spring up overnight. It's simply economics.

Laundered criminal money is _still_ a problem.

The 'drug problem' would definitely be less if all drugs were legal because it would allow those that are in need of help to apply for that help on a medical basis rather than to have to deal with these issues either on their own or through the justice system if and when they get caught.

The 'law is always right' is a funny one, no, the law isn't always right, it simply defines what is legal and what is not, emphatically _NOT_ what is and isn't right, for that we have morals and ethics, not laws.

For example: slavery was never right, even though it was legal at some point.

<comment><USER14> This has happened, with 'Raw Milk';

[http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/consumers/ucm079516....](http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/consumers/ucm079516.htm)

[http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/08/the- latest...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/08/the-latest-raw- milk-raid-an-attack-on-food-freedom/243635/)

*I have no opinions on Raw Milk.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to design your startup culture, according to HubSpot - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/talk/design-startup-culture-hubspot <comment><USER2> This piece appears to be biased (and presumably was paid for by Hubspot). As a contrasting opinion, here is a personal perception of Hubspot (having worked with them as a client employee and a consumer of their output). As usual, this is opinion/perception from the writer only (not the opinion of an organization, and not making any claims).

"HubSpot's HEART values: humility, empathy, adaptability, remarkability, and transparency."

\- Hubspot arguably engage in (and recommend) dark UX patterns. Hubspot arguably encourages SPAM, misleading wording and coercion. This is in relation to current industry opinion on ethical UX, let alone future opinion.

\- Much of their blog content promotes manipulative marketing and sales, with little consideration of the consumer's actual needs (see [https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/emotions-in- advertising-e...](https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/emotions-in-advertising- examples) for an article on consumer emotions that ironically concentrates on conversion & manipulation of said emotion).

\- Hubspot arguably sells to anyone - The culture appears to be 'traditional aggressive salesmanship'. I.e. they do not consider whether the client can afford or gain value from the product, they just push through the sale. This opinion contrasts with their ethics code ([https://s2.q4cdn.com/235752014/files/doc_governance/Code- of-...](https://s2.q4cdn.com/235752014/files/doc_governance/Code-of-Use-Good- Judgment.pdf)).

\- While Hubspot arguably may not have a moral obligation to prevent it: They appear to be encouraging (or at least facilitating) low-quality content being churned out in the interests of clicks. The platform and mentality does not appear to be conducive to the creation of actual valuable content, nor the maturation of marketing/sales in an ethical direction.

\- Hubspot arguably uses the word 'ethics' as a marketing tool, and there is little to show that real ethical considerations have been regularly employed. This is analogous to greenwashing and could be seen as detrimental to real ethical-capitalism.

Personal opinion: Hubspot's existence is detrimental to society.

In the interests of fairness and general industry progression, Hubspot's opinion/response to this is extremely welcome, and further discussion involving them could be very beneficial to many stakeholders.

Here is another angle (which none of the above opinion was influenced by) - [http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan- lyo...](http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyons/)</comment>


Recurly.js library released for secure, customizable checkout forms - <AUTHOR> http://js.recurly.com

<comment><USER2> The <http://js.recurly.com/> site doesn't link to or mention recurly.com (or that it's a payment provider service) anywhere. As a result, I was pretty confused when the intro video started mentioning the "Recurly API" - I was also wondering how an open source JavaScript form library could possibly handle payments.

Suggestion: add the text "a JavaScript library for the Recurly payments API" (or equivalent) somewhere on the page!

</comment><comment><USER3> PCI compliance is about maintaining a secure network, transmitting information securely, logging access in case of a breach, and access controls. Recurly.js minimizes your compliance scope because the sensitive data does not pass thru your network.

You are still required to maintain a secure network so that malicious code does not end up on your site. This means protecting your site from cross-site scripting. If your site is running untrusted Javascript code, your users could end up being redirected to a phishing site regardless of how you implement your order form (including linking offsite to a hosted page). As long as your server is secure, Recurly.js is secure.

The one scenario that is being pointed out here is from a malicious merchant. We work to make it easier for a merchant to be PCI compliant. If they are malicious and want to defraud their own customers, there are easier ways to post the credit card numbers straight to your server without our software.

<comment><USER4> If you're going to advertise Recurly as a secured payment product, then you need to do everything you can to prevent third parties and the merchant from peeking at your credit card form.

On any given web page, it can easily bring in 10 or more external JS libraries. So the chance of one of them getting compromised can only go higher. You need to make sure that your product can survive a cross site scripting attack.

And you need to protect your product against your own merchant because those misbehaved merchants can give your business a bad name. Let them steal their users' credit card, but just don't let them steal it from Recurly's credit card form...

You could have solved these two security issues if you spend a little more effort and put the credit card form inside Recurly owned iframe. But I guess your engineering team took a short cut. :)

<comment><USER5> Yes in fact the iframe is the only way of doing it securely with the current web specs. ...and it can in fact be done almost completely seamless for the end user, with lil bit of hacking.

<comment><USER4> yup. it's a bitch getting the iframe to resize when the credit card form shrinks or grows.

<comment><USER2> It's not impossible though. One method of doing that is to use the trick where an iframe can communicate with its parent document by altering the #fragment URL, which can be read by both parties. It's dirty but it works. The new HTML5 postMessage API can be used as an alternative for browsers that support it.

<comment><USER6> I didn't even realize postMessage was a new API. It works in everything newer than IE7. <http://caniuse.com/#x-doc-messaging>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How is this PCI compliance?

You're exposing credit card number on the input field of the original publisher's HTML page. This means that the publisher can pick up the credit card number himself, or an included third party javascript library(like google analytics).

<comment><USER3> The Recurly.js library dramatically reduces PCI compliance scope because the sensitive cardholder data does not pass thru your servers. There's a lot of additional PCI compliance issues when the credit card numbers pass thru your server, even if it only resides in memory during the request. Instead, the data is sent directly from the web browser to Recurly, who is PCI Level 1 Compliant.

Obviously, you still have to maintain a secure web server regardless of how you collect payments. That means protecting your users from cross site scripting.

<comment><USER4> You're missing the point.

While the user is entering the credit card number, there's a chance that someone can intercept and steal the CC.

You can easily solve this problem by putting the credit card form inside your own iframe. :)

<comment><USER7> Madness. Are users expected to check the DOM tree before they type their credit card details in to make sure they're sending their info to the iframe they expect to?

The rule should be: if your app has a credit card form under its own banner, the whole thing is implicated for PCI assessments. But that's not the rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is nice, but I sort of wish it stated more bluntly that it requires jQuery.

I also wish it didn't depend on jQuery, but that's just personal preference.

<comment><USER9> I'm the author. I'll be sure to put a notice at the top of the readme that it requires jQuery. Also, I agree with you. The jQuery dependency will be removed eventually. It was a time saver in the short term as we do a lot of DOM manipulation.

<comment><USER10> FYI: There are error in the display of the blogpost announcing it at: <http://blog.recurly.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is very nicely done. I would like to see a long-form explanation from Recurly about the safety implications of this, however. Maybe it really is brilliantly bullet-proof, but please explain.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is this accessible for audio browsers? Screen readers navigating by form elements will be pretty lost without <label>s (and WAI-ARIA attributes for rich components, but one thing at a time).

Would hate to be the site that tried to simplify their billing but got an accessibility lawsuit[1] for their troubles.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Federation_of_the_Blin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Federation_of_the_Blind_v._Target_Corporation)

<comment><USER13> Wow, thanks for linking that lawsuit. I had no idea there was a risk of getting sued just for not setting your site up perfectly for primadonna blind persons. That's really terrifying.

<comment><USER14> > primadonna blind persons

What a hateful, insensitive thing to say. Obviously the National Federation of the Blind isn't going to go after just any website, they are going to go after the larger ones that should know better. Big companies should absolutely be forced to accommodate people with disabilities, I would even say that is part of what makes the United States such a great country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> PayPal should have been doing this years ago. Kudos to Recurly for bringing this to the public in front of Stripe which is still private.

<comment><USER16> CheddarGetter has had this feature for awhile.

<comment><USER15> I just looked and wasn't able to find it. For one, CheddarGetter looks to be a hosted provider whereas Recurly and Stripe support buyers remaining on the merchant's web pages. But the main feature I was referencing was a JavaScript library that handles credit card information so that the merchant never sees a credit card number and thus need not worry about PCI compliance. That historically has not been provided in a way that allows the payer to remain on the merchant's web page.

<comment><USER17> I think Braintree does it, kind of: "By using our Transparent Redirect (TR) and Vault, merchants can achieve PCI Compliance in days. TR and the Vault will eliminate the handling, processing or storing credit card data so you can qualify for the Self Assessment Questionnaire A, the shortest of the four SAQs."

<http://www.braintreepayments.com/services/pci-compliance>

edit: So, w/ Recurly I wonder if it's the same thing and I'd need to do the Self Assessment Questionnaire A when using recurly.js

<comment><USER3> With Recurly.js and our Transparent Post, merchants only need to fill out the Self Assessment Questionnaire A.

We launched our own Transparent Post back in March 2011. We created Recurly.js to simplify performing client-side validation, pricing calculations (w/ coupons, VAT, add-ons), and proper error handling when a transaction is declined. It's 10x easier to implement than Transparent Post, and has a much better user experience for the customer.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for spelling that out for me. As for being simple - I have begun teaching myself somewhat recently while looking for a good match w/ someone more technical. I can really only handle html & css at this point - sad I know. Anyways, this was very easy for me to setup. I've already got it going on my site w/ sandbox account.

But, going to hold off for now and just use hosted payment pages for a bit. Will likely use this in the near future though - thanks to the Recurly team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> ...this is awesome. Thanks Recurly, you just saved my new product a _ton_ of time!</comment>


Show HN: A set of handy tools to work with sequences and collections in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Suor/funcy/blob/master/README.rst

<comment><USER2> Nice. Thought I am glad I do my main work in C# where all of this can be easily achieved with LINQ without any need for additional libraries <http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/101-LINQ-Samples-3fb9811b>

<comment><USER3> All of this can be achieved in Python without additional libraries using list and generator comprehensions - this library just provides some extra syntactic sugar.

<comment><USER4> That extra syntactic sugar is what Parent was talking too. Much of c#3 and later were designed with LINQ and other facilities in mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> the interface to "where" could use a little rethinking. not all keys are constant string values that are legal identifiers. e.g.

        where([{1 : 'a', 2 : 'b'}, {1 : 'b'}], 1='a')
        SyntaxError: keyword can't be an expression

        where([{1 : 'a', 2 : 'b'}, {1 : 'b'}], **{1:'a'})
        TypeError: where() keywords must be strings

edit: this is based on my own naive "where" implementation, but these are limitations of the language

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, where() doesn't handle that case, but it makes its interface more smooth for more common case of string keys.

That was a deliberate choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6>
        some([0, '', -1, None, 2]) # -1

should be

        some(odd, [0, '', -1, None, 2]) # -1

<comment><AUTHOR> Predicate in some() is optional. A test for boolean truth is used in that case.

So, first example is the same as:

        some(bool, [0, '', -1, None, 2])

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nicely done. I would have killed for this on a recent project doing machine vision.

</comment><comment><USER8> There are many thing in here that are already in functools, itertools (!), or the standard builtins (!!). Please do not shadow builtin names, and consider removing things that are already in itertools, as they will be faster than pure-Python code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that decisions look dirty and dubious, but using funcy for several months, I've come to that practicality and convenience is worth it.

Some of itertools things are just reexports and builtins are extended purely - so that they behave the same given same arguments - with negligible performance overhead.

Anyway, if you are such a purist you still have at least two options: 1\. just `import funcy` and use it as `funcy.map(...)` or `funcy.keep(...)` 2\. Import only functions you use, avioding name clashes, use `from funcy import map as xmap` to import extended builtins.</comment></comment>


Life At A Startup (part 2) - <AUTHOR> http://abstractnonsense.com/life-at-a-startup-2/

<comment><USER2> The OP only mentions the below in passing, but I thought it was one of the more interesting parts:

"A former coworker offered me a job as CTO at a startup he'd left justin.tv to found. That seemed like just the kind of thing I was looking for, but after nearly a year it was clear it hadn't worked out."

I'd be curious to hear more about what happened. If somebody were to offer you a similar opportunity again today, what characteristics would you look for in that person (and company), and how would you test them?

</comment><comment><USER3> After watching hours of digital drawing and painting videos on Youtube, and watching notch code the other day on Twitch, I can definitely agree this is an interesting vertical to explore.

</comment><comment><USER4> Take some more time off for Lisp hacking!

<comment><USER5> Hah! As it happens, I had just started experimenting with designing a new Lisp dialect when I got Emmett's email! It was working out pretty well, and I was having a lot of fun, but I think the world needs livestreamed creativity more than it needs yet another Lisp :)</comment></comment>


So you want to write a Photoshop killer - <AUTHOR> http://www.randomnonsequitur.com/post/135

<comment><USER2> Photoshop to image editing is what Google to search engine is. There is No comparison (at least, as yet), period!</comment>


The Economics of the American Prison System - <AUTHOR> http://www.smartasset.com/blog/news/the-economics-of-the-american-prison-system/ <comment><USER2> This article has a lot of numbers but it doesn't seem to answer 2 questions which are far more important:

1) Are privately run prisons better for the good of society than publicly run prisons? What does the research say? How biased is the research? etc.

2) More importantly, regardless of whether they are private or public prisons, how do we get less people to be living in them? What are our other options?

Last time on HN I asked this and the answer was, "support NORML". I then went and tried to find other organizations looking to make sweeping changes. I was not successful.

The problem with NORML is their image. No serious person in business can support an organization that uses a POT leaf as their symbol and seems to be primarily an organization for hippies to sit around and talk about the government. I realize that their image may not be their reality, but I can't write a company matched check to them without people wondering "what I'm smoking".

So... The question I am asking is, what can I do about one of the largest human rights atrocities ever committed by the United States, my country? Its obvious that at the very least we can move a lot of people to different types of facilities. We can probably do a lot more than that, possibly reversing 45 years of discriminatory drug laws and possibly taking increased societal risks to reduce the amount of years the average American spends in prison.

I'm somewhat distraught that this problem exists but I haven't come up with a solution yet.

Anyone out there have any ideas on who I can support or what can be done?

[ADDED] The Norml image problem is probably bad on the west coast, but is a deal breaker on the east coast.

<comment><USER3> >1) Are privately run prisons better for the good of society than publicly run prisons? What does the research say? How biased is the research? etc.

IMO, Absolutely not.

>2) More importantly, regardless of whether they are private or public prisons, how do we get less people to be living in them? What are our other options?

Answer jury summonses. Learn about jury nullification. Pay attention to local elections.

> I then went and tried to find other organizations looking to make sweeping > changes. I was not successful.

The Innocence Project of Texas [http://www.ipoftexas.org/](http://www.ipoftexas.org/)

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition [http://www.leap.cc/](http://www.leap.cc/)

<comment><USER2> Hey, thanks for your comment about LEAP. I had heard of them in the past, but didn't consider them. That may be where I make a donation, but the issue again is that the organization is about prohibition. In an ideal world, the organization would be fighting for human rights and addressing prohibition as the lowest hanging, and first fruit to take off the tree.

The Innocence Project is amazing, but does not address the widespread solution we need. A noble organization, ABSOLUTELY!

As for your first comment:

 _> 1) Are privately run prisons better for the good of society than publicly run prisons? What does the research say? How biased is the research? etc. IMO, Absolutely not._

This is the general opinion of HN, but is it the truth? I'm sure someone has addressed this opinion with honest analysis, but I don't know where it exists. Stating that "they are making a profit" is not good enough because there is more to the question than that.

Thanks again for pointing to LEAP. That is definitely a better marketed organization than NORML.

<comment><USER3> I know you hate the "they are making a profit" argument, but please consider the economic forces at play. This is a cohort that has almost no voice with which to protest their treatment, so every effort is likely to be made to drive down costs. Private prison oversight is fraught with problems. It's also not great for staff. It's a bad place to have "market forces" Take some prison manager who needs to fill beds to get his income up, what can he do? Increase reporting of crime inside the prison (assaults, contraband, etc) or find some county/state with extra inmates. What if they don't have any? Get them to "find some" It happens. These folks cover some of it at least for Texas. [http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/](http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Alot of these articles miss an important part of the equation by just looking at the direct costs to taxpayers to run prison facilities. There are alot more costs to the incarceration mentality than just that.

There is the cost of the entire justice system - police, judges, attorneys, and so on.

Add to that the lost productivity of inmates who could be holding down jobs instead of just twiddling their thumbs.

Then you have costs borne by the inmates' families to visit them, make up for their absence etc.

I think the overall cost to American society from locking up so many people is staggering when you add it all up. Unfortunately people still vote for politicians who promise to be "tough(er) on crime" and the cycle continues...

<comment><USER5> But then you need to offset that against the damage that would be done if that person was not incarcerated. The $ amount of damage a car thief can do in one month is very high.

<comment><USER6> The article specifically mentions incarcerations skyrocketing as a result of the drug war. Throwing petty dealers in prison is not an effective use of taxpayer dollars.

<comment><USER5> Bear in mind that drug dealers are not known to be the most civic minded people and likely commit other offenses. Drug dealing is just what they got busted for.

I've known areas of my town get dramatically safer after some big drug busts. The drug trade has significant externalities.

<comment><USER7> If it wasn't illegal, there would be no illegal drug trade. Most drug related offenses are during nonviolent events. Drugs are popular in low income areas which is also where there's a lot of other crime. Decriminalizing drugs won't change this, but it will allow the system (legislators, police, & judges) to focus on the crimes that do harm society. Take that to it's logicial conclusion and it's not hard to arrive at the decision that the war on drugs is bad for society.

<comment><USER5> But what do these drug dealers turn their attentions to? Most of them don't have the education to make similar quantities of money in a 'straight' industry.

<comment><USER8> Statistically, and in my experience, drug dealing is not a violent crime. They're not going to start knocking over convenience stores. Some of them might scrape together enough capital to start a retail store. Prices and profits are going to take a long time to fall, so most of them will just keep doing what they're doing, except with a little less risk, and they'll be able to keep their cash in a bank, and theoretically pay taxes on it. If things reach the point where it's not really profitable any more, then those people will have to get a real job.

The idea that they will turn to some other criminal pursuit...yeesh. It's like you've never even met any dealers. Imagine that tomorrow, the government made your job illegal. Would you be like, "Well, that does it. I guess I'd better start brushing up on my raping, murdering, and insider trading," or would you maybe not go all-out breaking whatever laws you could? It may shock you to realize that _because_ the hypothetical dealer is breaking the law in one respect, he is best served by not breaking the law in any other respect, in order to not draw attention to himself.

Lastly, we don't have to speculate what will happen, there are countries which have decriminalized drug use -- US states too. Marijuana has been decriminalized in Alaska for almost 40 years, although no one seems to know this. The sky has stubbornly refused to fall.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps there is the odd hippie selling homegrown ganja out of his greenhouse who has never been in a fight in his life, but drug gangs control a massive amount of the trade from production to distribution and are certainly happy to use violence if required.

Violence may not be required however in cases where everyone is already scared witless of them. Drug crime and other crime go hand in hand.

If you legalize drugs completely , then serious businesses run by people with MBAs , Venture capital, marketing teams, legal departments etc come into the game. Rather than street level violence, battles are not fought in patent courts and with government lobbying.

Those who are currently dealing drugs don't know how to play this game and will lose.

They can't go and get a straight job because they have no provable work history, probably a criminal record and few contacts outside of the "underworld". They also have become accustomed to a lifestyle of nice cars and (possibly multiple) high maintenance girlfriends, so McDonalds isn't going to cut it.

So they will look for other lucrative opportunities where the MBAs don't want to compete with them (because it is illegal).

<comment><USER8> "Perhaps there is the odd hippie selling homegrown ganja out of his greenhouse who has never been in a fight in his life..." You don't know what you're talking about.

"Drug crime and other crime go hand in hand." [Citation Needed]

"Those who are currently dealing drugs don't know how to play this game and will lose." And then get a real job.

"They can't go and get a straight job because they have no provable work history, probably a criminal record and few contacts outside of the "underworld". They also have become accustomed to a lifestyle of nice cars and (possibly multiple) high maintenance girlfriends, so McDonalds isn't going to cut it." You have no idea what you're talking about. The margins are not that high.

Your image of drug dealers applies to an extremely small minority. You must only know what these people are like from TV.

<comment><USER5> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War)

<comment><USER8> Are you joking, racist, or just stupid? Do you imagine we have jails all over the country brimming with Mexican cartel lords? Are drug-dealing latinos installed on every corner like street lights, all through the US? What does the word "minority" mean to you? I will give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that you're not intentionally being racist, and by assuming that you actually live in some area that has some sort of a problem with organized crime. This is far from true for most of the US.

<comment><USER5> I don't see where I claimed any of those things, especially how my claims are racist?

You claimed that drug dealing is a non violent activity. I showed an example of where that is demonstrably not the case. Roughly 65% of the coke in the US comes through mexico where it is causing serious violence.

In my home country (UK) we also have problems with violence and intimidation from drug gangs in many deprived areas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I remember when I first saw the movie Robocop, and I thought: Privatized police force? Come on, not even in the USA the "markets will fix everything" ideology could go so far.

Well, this isn't very far from that.

By the way, spending less on rehabilitation doesn't just save money now, it also brings higher recidivism and so makes for a healthier future market for these corporations...

<comment><USER10> _" I remember when I first saw the movie Robocop, and I thought: Privatized police force? Come on, not even in the USA the "markets will fix everything" ideology could go so far."_

The CCA logo (as seen on the flag) even looks vaguely OCP-ish, like something out of the particularly '80s vision of the corporate future as envisioned in the original Robocop.

 _" spending less on rehabilitation doesn't just save money now, it also brings higher recidivism and so makes for a healthier future market for these corporations..."_

Exactly. And let's not forget that these same corporations who run prisons also lobby for harsher sentencing, mandatory minimums, looser prison labor laws, and so forth.

It's a sticky subject because nobody -- politician, man on the street, mother of children, or law-abiding citizen -- wants to come right out and say that he or she is advocating for prisoner's rights. Nobody's ever won an election being "soft" on crime (at least not to my knowledge). So the prison-industrial complex has it pretty easy, as far as built-in political incentives are concerned. Ultimately their agenda is self-fulfilling, and the social externalities are highly negative. Costs may be cut in the short run, but as you suggest, recidivism means nobody in the system is ever really going to escape it -- hence, we're shortchanging the future to save pennies in the present.

<comment><USER11> > _" It's a sticky subject because nobody -- politician, man on the street, > mother of children, or law-abiding citizen -- wants to come right out and > say that he or she is advocating for prisoner's rights."_

True, but part of the problem is framing. Since most people won't make political decisions based on careful reflection, you have to have an emotional pull of some sort. Language like "tough on crime" and "keeping communities safe" frames the debate as those who value enforcing the law and safety versus their opponents, who presumably don't.

Instead of playing that game, what aspiring policians will have to do is frame these kinds of things in terms of human rights, not prisoner's rights. Simply accepting the phrase "prisoner's rights" implies that rights can be doled out by government based on how it chooses to classify citizens. This kind of framing can work:

 _Political challenger, to incumbent:_ "Do you support human rights?"

 _Incumbent:_ "Of course."

 _Challenger:_ "Do you consider prisoners to be human beings?"

 _Incumbent (worried look):_ "Well...yes, though I would add that..."

 _Challenger:_ "Then why do you support things such as prolonged solitary confinement of prisoners--which is widely agreed to be a form of torture--and the outsourcing of our justice system to race-to-the-bottom private corporations that are held to lower standards and have far less oversight?"

The really sad part is that this is just as disingenous as the narrative supplied by the supporters of the prison industrial complex. But if you want to change things from within the political system you just have to convince voters the other guy is the bad guy.

<comment><USER12> How would you change the language to support sending fewer people to prison?

<comment><USER13> Go after specific laws. Specifically with drug laws, a strong case can be made about the nanny-state; it seems like a lot of the core republican (especially the libertarian wing's) message would make our current war on drugs a prime example of our big-government nanny-state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The prison industrial complex comes up once in awhile on HN. Its hard to think of a startup topic. Mostly because prisons (including private ones) have been around so long.

Maybe a startup designed solely to imprison IP violators, or solely to hold patent violators or people who break private website terms of service or something like that.

Maybe a robot guard (or guard tower) to be teleoperated from cheap labor in India, or not operated at all, just pattern match and shoot people who look like they are violating the rules.

Something like the MOOC "movement" but dedicated to selling to private prison administrators for their prisoners?

Implementing something like "a scanner darkly" is going to happen anyway, startup or not.

Maybe a more advanced higher tech house arrest ankle bracelet system?

<comment><USER15> :-) True! (interesting fact about ankle bracelets for house arrests: they were inspired by Spider-Man comics)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Some states, like Indiana have managed to keep prices low at around $14,000 > per inmate. While states like New York pay around $60,000 to keep its > citizens behind bars.

OK, but what's the benefit? What is the damage to society and economy an average criminal causes over the course of a year? How much in property, lost trust, mental and physical injuries, increased spending on security, etc. does it cost to have the guy on the loose?

How much of that benefit are prisons eating? I'd love to see an analysis but my guess would be that housing an inmate for ~30k is a bargain.

<comment><USER17> > What is the damage to society and economy an average criminal causes over > the course of a year?

Those incarcerated for drug use could potentially be making the government a profit. The only negative effects on society are associated with the supply line, not the individual's behaviour. If some drugs were legalised the net benefit to society would be positive, increased income via taxation and improved relations between the police and the public(a large portion of which are drugs users).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was a prison guard in Texas for a few years (TDCJ, not private). AMA

<comment><USER18> What can you tell us about the quality of life for prisoners in TDCJ?

Where is the line between giving prisoners something to do vs giving them to much?

Are we working on ways to keep prisons from being "Criminal University"?

<comment><USER3> >What can you tell us about the quality of life for prisoners in TDCJ?

Awful, No air conditioning, terrible food, not enough to do, terrible medical care, exactly what you would expect in Texas, only worse.

>Where is the line between giving prisoners something to do vs giving them to much?

Idle hands and so forth. Prison officials have very little with which to manage inmates' behavior. Anything that can stave off the intense boredom of incarceration would probably help in the management of prisons. Unfortunately for everyone, the Wyndham School System program (education for inmates) was recently cancelled in Texas to cut expenses. I expect that will just make it even more difficult for future ex-convicts to succeed in any meaningful way after release, increasing recidivism.

>Are we working on ways to keep prisons from being "Criminal University"?

I'm not sure what you mean, but we sure do seem to produce a lot of inmates in this country.

<comment><USER19> By "Criminal University" I assume they are referring to the phenomenon of a person going to prison for something minor, e.g. like stealing a bike, and coming out with intimate knowledge of how to commit more serious crimes.

<comment><USER3> In that case, yes, it's a real phenomena. People go in for minor things. They make contacts (network). After release many have no (real) alternative but to participate in criminal activity since they cannot find a job due to their background check.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't care how interesting the article is. I do not want to deal with the spammy popups.

<comment><USER21> Sorry about that. We've disabled that right now...

<comment><USER22> I just got the popup twice...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would like to see data on whether these private prisons are unionized. It seems like the prison unions are out to keep their services needed.

[http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/06/the-role-of- the-p...](http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/06/the-role-of-the-prison- guards-union-in-californias-troubled-prison-system/)

[http://www.policymic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the- snake-h...](http://www.policymic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the-snake-how- california-s-prison-guards-subvert-democracy)

</comment><comment><USER24> The author mentions private prison scandals, but neglects to mention that scandals occur in public prisons like [1] this one as well.

[1] [http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2013/04/23/25-correctional- off...](http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2013/04/23/25-correctional-officers- inmates-indicted-for-gang-activity-in-baltimore-jails/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Meanwhile, the DEA is teaming up with the CCA.

<comment><USER3> Not too far from the truth. Here a couple of judges busted taking bribes for filling private prisons.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us- canada-10747919](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10747919)

[http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/luzerne-s-other- disgraced-j...](http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/luzerne-s-other-disgraced- judge-a-study-in-contrasts-1.1205381)

Also this: [http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/](http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There are lots of places besides HN to talk about stuff like this. Every time we try to talk about it here, the level of civility on HN degrades. Sometimes just a little, sometimes by a lot. I assume that's one of the reasons that articles like this are discouraged by the site guidelines.

I flagged this post.

<comment><USER27> True, and I admit to getting hot under the collar.

But I would argue that in a way that articles like this should get viewed and discussed by the HN crowd in the context of hacking civilization.

This particular subject absolutely defines the world in which we live in, and a it's not a pretty picture. It happens because we let it, and we let it because we collectively don't care. We collectively don't care because we remain (intentionally) ignorant of the situation.

It's turtles of despair all the way down....

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Primarily a side effect of the war on drugs.</comment>


A Portrait of Dorian Grey - <AUTHOR> https://kirstenhacker.wordpress.com/2019/07/14/a-portrait-of-dorian-grey-2/ <comment><USER2> Is the author's use of "Portrait of Dorian Grey" instead of "Picture of Dorian Gray" deliberate?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really, but now that you mention it, I like how 'portrait' sounds like 'poor trait'. The conscious self might not see such a thing, but I bet that the unconscious mind see it.</comment></comment>


What Happens to You When You Are Totally Honest - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/10/7-things-happen-to-you-when-you-are-completely-honest/

<comment><USER2> I love the comparison between personal branding and corporate branding. I've been told that to "succeed" in life you have to work on branding yourself. But I think you point out the flaw in branding oneself is that you end up boxing yourself into your brand. And what happens when you can't live up to your brand or you slip up? You get mad depressed and upset. Better to be honest and open.</comment>


Angular 2.1.0 Now Available - <AUTHOR> http://angularjs.blogspot.com/2016/10/angular-210-now-available.html <comment><USER2> Been using angular 2.0 for a short while and it's been pretty great. Had to get used to the () [] and [()] syntax but it's so far been the best "all included" experience building web apps I had (from table layout and asp in the last decade through jquery, backbone and angular 1.0). Used it with systemjs initially then moved to angular-cli and webpack. It just works. ng new, ng build, ng serve. No need for gulp/grunt/bower/browserify/yeoman. Built in support for scss. Built in support for typescript. For an occasional web app builder like me who can't keep up with the latest trends all the time this has been the best one stop shop experience so far. The fact that typescript @types are all in npm as well and I can simply do import 'lodash' and just use it is what I always dreamed about front end web development. Simply do ng new and you got a working front end web app with tons of opinionated best practices/tooling and no additional libraries to learn. I'm sure there is a downside to just taking the easy route here but for just an occasional internal web app this is by far the easiest experience I had with any front end framework. Kudos to the angular team.

</comment><comment><USER3> Did a big project with Angular 1.0 and after it clicked it was alright. I really enjoyed it, everything made sense. I thought Angular would be my best friend.

Tried Angular 2.0 and it's a completely different beast it seems. A simple project cookie cutter has 6 different files, it is ridiculous.

I had to edit the /etc/sysctl.conf just to go through the tutorial using Papa John's configuration and fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 524288 else it would crash.

All this transpiling and whatnot just to get a javascript app to run is way too much. 6 files of boilerplate is just nonsense.

Lost all interest in Angular 2.x.

going to either stick with angular 1.x or try react/vue, which is a shame.

<comment><USER4> Using webpack shoots the boilerplate up to 16 files

[https://angular.io/docs/ts/latest/guide/webpack.html](https://angular.io/docs/ts/latest/guide/webpack.html)

The production build weighs in at a meg, for a simple hello world.

<comment><USER5> I said that once about the hello world tutorial (which had a larger footprint than you stated) and was deluged with "did you set it to production?" comments. It was clear I was referring to the tutorial and the immediate defensiveness really told me a lot about it all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now isn't it going too fast? 2.0 release was just few days ago.

<comment><USER7> [https://github.com/angular/angular/releases](https://github.com/angular/angular/releases)

2.0 was released 28 days ago

<comment><USER8> It is still impressive to see 2.1 released already!

<comment><USER9> "impressive" is a word for it... there are others...

<comment><USER8> You are implying...?

<comment><USER6> Bad engineering decisions? A long time to release 2.0, 2.1 in less than a month is definitely not a good pace.

Edit: maybe just some PR.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps it is just [http://semver.org/](http://semver.org/) nothing wrong with semver.

<comment><USER11> FYI: Oct. 8 release by the Angular team on their adoption of semantic versioning and handling of rc. and beta releases. Looks like they are going for a major release every roughly 9 months:

[http://angularjs.blogspot.com/2016/10/versioning-and- releasi...](http://angularjs.blogspot.com/2016/10/versioning-and-releasing- angular.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Comment on my 10^100 submission: Reddit on cellphones for geotagging interesting news  - <AUTHOR>

Community voting (a la reddit) using cellphones to promote (and subsequently view) interesting news/stories within a vicinity
The news to be voted on are tied to a specific location and time.  You are allowed to upvote/downvote a news with your cellphone only when you are present in that location. The score of the news degrade with time, so news that have not been upvoted for some time fall below a threshold and disappear. Using your cellphone you can view the news in your vicinity, upvote/downvote/comment on the news, or submit a new piece of news [with picture]. The system uses karma to reduce the spam.
This idea allows local community news of interest to be disseminated quickly and efficiently. Students on campus can use this to promote club meetings, events, pickup soccer games. Customers can use this to rate vendors at bazaars, festivals, shopping malls. Tourists/hikers can use this to share hints with fellow tourists/hikers. Community organizers can use this to organize events. Craigslist functionality may also be implemented with this system.
A web service needs to be implemented to serve the news to each affixed locality. Cellphones need to implement localization preferably via GPS or based on celltower connectivity. Reddit like karma system and community voting should be implemented by the web service to reduce spamming effectively. To avoid privacy issues initially this system may need to be restricted to exclude residential areas; privacy and misuse issues need to be considered carefully.
Please evaluate. Also comment on other possible applications for this system. <comment><USER2> Sounds like it has a much better chance of success in the Knight News Challenge

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That looks very interesting.</comment></comment>


In which, alas, I must rattle a tin cup - <AUTHOR> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7348 <comment><USER2> "That's the real problem. Call it arrogant if you like, but I think the world needs my creativity where it's going now, even if that need doesn't readily translate into a flow of cash in my direction."

Your right, that is just arrogant. We are all thankful for the work you have done but I promise the internet will still be here tomorrow if you stop. Get a job or figure out how to setup a foundation to fund your work (i.e., like Mozilla, OpenBSD, et.al.). As the foundation is something you should have put together years ago I would suggest that you should go the job route.

When the bubble burst in 2001 I went from being on the top of the network stack to struggling to find work. I took every contract I was offered no matter how much is was below my skill set. I worked doing help desk contract work, etc. In the years before I designed and built a freaking backbone and did a HW company. I am back and successful now but I worked my ass off to get here and I never forget it. I am a better person for it.

Before my last startup hit my family and I lived in a 2 bedroom place in Menlo/PA area. The rent was expensive but the schools were the most important thing. We had a neighbor, an Mexican family. They also lived in a 2 bedroom with 4 kids. I would hear the fathers car leave the garage at 5AM and here him come back at midnight. He worked 3 jobs to pay for that apartment in such an expensive area. I asked him why. "It is my job to provide for my family. The schools are the best here and I want my kids to have a good future, thats why."

Get a job.

<comment><USER3> The foundation already exists [https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/](https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/) but it's not clear why they stopped funding ESR.

<comment><USER4> Page 13 of the CII annual statement clearly places NTPSEC in the short term category. Who knows esr was under the same impression.

[https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/sites/cii/files/cii_annua...](https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/sites/cii/files/cii_annualreport_2016_fnl_digital.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Thus, even with the Patreon, we're fast approaching the point where if > someone were to offer me a day job, I'd have to take it._

Yes, that's the method that most of us implement in order to acquire money.

> _And that would be unfortunate for the long term; the infrastructure work > I'm doing and expect to do in the future is tremendously important._

Wow, that comes off as extremely arrogant and egotistical (to me).

> _Somebody's going to need to design and field NTPv5 to fully cover the IPv6 > transition, and it looks increasingly like that somebody needs to be me._

Are we taking a vote on this?

\---

Let me be blunt: get a fucking job.

To anyone who might be considering a donation in order to support NTP, allow me to recommend directing your donation at the NTP Foundation [0] instead.

[0]: [http://www.networktimefoundation.org/](http://www.networktimefoundation.org/)

<comment><USER6> Does NTP Foundation compete against the ICEI that Raymond mentions?

<comment><USER7> ESR commented: _ICEI is indeed rebooted. The reason for the long hiatus was that CII spun up just as the first version of the org was about to go public. That sucked all the oxygen out of the room for a while._

So CII definitely competes! In addition the CII report linked upthread has an NTPD section in which the director of the NT Foundation is quoted praising Harlan Stenn, right after the NTPSec section. So not only does CII compete with ICEI, but NTF competes w/ NTPSec _within_ CII.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I generally wouldn't criticize someone's situation, but he decided to make this a political argument.

He bemoans the government deciding that 11 million people not having health insurance was more important than his right to not have a job. You don't have a moral right to work on open source projects all day, people do arguably have a moral right to healthcare. The government did exactly what it was supposed to, move money from people who were existing extravagantly to people who desperately needed it.

All due credit to his wife, but generally if the marginal cost of insurance was what was keeping you employed, how much value were you delivering?

<comment><USER7> Making this "a political argument" might be his best possible strategy (although not necessarily a _good_ one) for encouraging donations? ESR is a fairly divisive persona anyway, so it might be best to embrace that and really appeal to some potential donors even if that repels others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem of being unable to delegate, to let go of a task which you think that you are able to do better than anyone else can, is a problem with you, not the task, and not other people.

I know because I can get that way. I'm one of those people who ends up knowing how everything works because I'm wired that way. And it's really hard to hand jobs off to colleagues who you perceive as less competent. That's perfectionism. It's a great way to not get things done that need doing. Because you don't have the time to do everything that needs doing.

There isn't enough time available for you personally to do everything you feel you need to do, to the standard you feel it needs to be done, that you think no one else can achieve. Certainly not if you also need to feed your family and the things you need to do are not bringing in enough income.

The solution, as annoying as it is, is to drop your standards, to realise some of those needs are actually wants. Having a cool, fulfilling job that pushes all your buttons and pays really well is a luxury many people don't get. Having random strangers pay for your living costs so you can do cool stuff is a massive, massive luxury only a few people get.

What's really important to you: NTPsec or food & shelter? Sounds like you're choosing the former.

Making these choices is hard. I've moved to a small town and as a one man band cannot get the sort of technically sophisticated work that I really enjoy doing. But hey, living here is cheap and people are friendly and laid back. We have a lovely house. Trees the kids can climb. I can cycle from suburbia to my office in 7 minutes.

To get this, I had to give up my dreams of having top notch IT work.

I don't have a Patreon. I could work on some cool infrastructure work, too, if I had one and people donated enough to keep my family afloat. But I don't. I have a job that is sometimes boring and sometimes not. And I have a roof over my head, food on the table, access to good medical care, running water, electricity, broadband ... I'm doing better than most of the world's population. I can't complain.

</comment><comment><USER10> _> ...we're fast approaching the point where if someone were to offer me a day job, I'd have to take it. And that would be unfortunate for the long term; the infrastructure work I'm doing and expect to do in the future is tremendously important. Somebody's going to need to design and field NTPv5 to fully cover the IPv6 transition, and it looks increasingly like that somebody needs to be me._

Eric, get a job. And let some air out of that ego.

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately, ESR's personality is the absolute antithesis of somebody you would want to hire.

And, in terms of software output, he's just not that productive.

<comment><USER12> Those two can be quantified, so, there would be a price where ESR would be hireable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > and Cathy – who grew up poor and thus finds a state of no income viscerally > terrifying in a way I do not

I had to laugh - somewhat grimly - at that. My wife is the same. She came from an unusually tough background and it has a profound impact on the way she feels about being short of cash. I'd say Mr Raymond's going to find himself in a job whether he likes it or not - unless he really pulls off a coup.

</comment><comment><USER14> Get a job, Eric. That is, if anyone will hire you after your long history of sub-par software, racism, and just generally being an asshole.

</comment><comment><USER15> A little off topic, but this is the first time I've heard of this particular set of grievances with the ACA (that it's "job destroying").

If anything I would have thought that it left too many jobs in place by fully institutionalizing the role of the very expensive middle man insurance companies, and thus ensuring that it'll always be fundamentally more costly than a more pure universal healthcare system.

<comment><USER16> The ACA mandated that anyone employing someone more than 30 hours per week must provide them with health insurance (small businesses excepted). This led to businesses cutting hours and eliminating jobs.

<comment><USER17> Triangleman, triangleman, please support your posts with data, if you can.

<comment><USER16> I found this: [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/yes-some-companies- are-...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/yes-some-companies-are-cutting- hours-in-response-to-obamacare/)

At the very least, the ACA does mandate what I said it does. I am not saying it necessarily leads to job losses, nor am I saying that the costs outweigh the benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In which an outspoken libertarian asks for support from society.

<comment><USER19> Correction: in which an outspoken libertarian asks for the freely-given support of his fellow free citizens, which is _exactly_ in accordance with his principles.

Libertarians don't object to charity: we object to robbing Peter to pay Paul and then congratulating oneself on one's charitable activities.

<comment><USER18> Strictly speaking, libertarians wouldn't want to make this illegal, I agree, but that doesn't necessarily make it in accordance with libertarian principles. Much of the debate about libertarianism comes down to questions about how much we value work that benefits all of society but which doesn't directly create wealth for the people doing it. Many libertarians, for example, don't care too much about finding a way to pay women for doing the work of raising children, work that has a very positive impact on the economy overall. The work that Eric is doing is that kind of work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> ahem: [http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/1999121000105NWLF](http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/1999121000105NWLF)

<comment><USER3> Ah, VA Linux. Their main achievement that I can remember was hiring the developers of Enlightenment. Good times.

IIRC the stock dropped before ESR sold and he did not become absurdly rich in real money.

<comment><USER21> From [0]:

> By the time Raymond could legally sell his VA Linux shares in June 2000, > they had plunged $31 million in value to a still-impressive $5.5 million.

> Thanks to the dot-com bust -- fed in large part by big-hype, no-hope > companies like VA Linux, the worth of Raymond's shares had dropped to > $195,000, a loss of more than $5 million.

From [1]:

> Back at IPO time I wrote an essay called "Surprised By Wealth" in which I > tried to deal with how weird it felt to have a theoretical net worth of $41 > million. Am I upset that all that "wealth" is gone, at least until the stock > bounces back? Well...yes and no. As a member of VA's Board, it's my job to > worry about our stock price, on behalf of all of our stockholders. So I care > about that.

> But personally? Nah. I wasn't in this for the bucks then, and I'm not now.

[0] [http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3149/eric-s-raymond- baza...](http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3149/eric-s-raymond-bazaar- financial-advisor)

[1] [http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2001022100120OPBZCY](http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2001022100120OPBZCY)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Though I'm a techie, I'm in a situation similar to a fine artist because the market has not figured out how to value and reward the work I feel called to do."

Keep jackin' it to the market, dude. "The meddling of the ACA destroyed my life! By the way, no one will pay me for my labor."

</comment><comment><USER23> Aww, diddums.

Get a job.</comment>


The "Double-Checked Locking Is Broken" Declaration - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.umd.edu/~pugh/java/memoryModel/DoubleCheckedLocking.html <comment><USER2> An easy fix in JDK5 and beyond is listed at the bottom of the article. Pretty much a non-issue these days.</comment>


Ask YC: Which company's marketing do you admire - <AUTHOR> Apple, for their slickness, and the cult they can cultivate.<p>Let us talk about marketing/branding angle only, and not the product. <comment><USER4> Are we talking about marketing or advertising? There is a big difference.

If we're talking about advertising then I think Apple will always be up near the top of the list - especially on sites like Hacker News.

I think 37signals does a great job of marketing their products, but they spend very little (any?) on advertising. Their well designed products and self promotion lead to a pretty large group of 37signals evangelists, so they don't NEED to spend money on advertising.

I think the best self promoter out there right now is Barack Obama - <USER2> system his campaign has setup to get donations, get the word out about "attacks," etc. is unmatched. I think we can learn a lot by dissecting how his campaign went from the underdog to the frontrunner.

</comment><comment><USER5> At the risk of my HN karma... Microsoft.

Think about it... For decades they have been able to create and leverage their monopolistic position in such a way as to get people to continue paying large margins for almost uniformly mediocre offerings.

ObAntiMS: I think history is validating my contention at the time that the Windows 95 era was the peak of MS's power. Alas, like any dinosaur, they take a long time to die.

<comment><USER6> I've modded you down simply because I honestly don't think Windows is as mediocre as it's made out to be, and this is coming from a current Linux user, and I can't help but feel that Visual Studio or .NET is far from mediocre no matter which way you look at it, and I even think Office is a market leader largely on merit.

I also don't think the cost of Windows represents a "large margin" - <USER3> the cost of 2 new videogames for an extremely complex piece of software that is supported for 7+ years seems pretty good value from where I'm coming from, even if the alternatives are better value.

I honestly think it's a shame that they've felt the need to flex their monopolistic muscle unnecessarily and have given themselves such a bad reputation when they could have had just as much success in a more positive way.

<comment><USER5> Gee, thanks. :-)

Have you thought about their responsibility for the tremendous amount of time and energy that people _lose_ because they've had to use MS software? For example, how many billions of dollars of time are lost/wasted because MS puts out such buggy software that's used by so many people but MS literally doesn't care to actually fix anything unless it will help them make more sales?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Starbucks. Certainly one of the most amazing recent examples of pure marketing genius. They've had a little backlash, but they've weathered it very well.

<comment><USER8> If by "marketing" you mean throwing a Starbucks at every possible location possible than I'll agree, but I can't recall the last time I saw an advertisement (billboard, TV, magazine)... Though, maybe that's the point.

<comment><USER9> How about the fact that they sell coffee for $5?

Only marketing achieves that.

<comment><USER10> I believe you've got that slightly wrong.

They sell coffee for $5. Marketing doesn't achieve that. Selling coffee for $5 is marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, nobody has mentioned Apple? Maybe it's too obvious... dropping the price of the iPhone and then "making up for it" with with $100 store credit just blew my mind.

<comment><USER4> >>If we're talking about advertising then I think Apple will always be up near the top of the list - especially on sites like Hacker News.

Apple was mentioned ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Coca-Cola. Who else would be able to make billions of dollars off an indestructible franchise on _sugar water_? (Or, in Dasani's case, tap water.)

</comment><comment><USER13> Discovery Channel is my current favorite. You could write a book on how right their "The world is just awesome" campaign is. You can see it here: <http://youtube.com/watch?v=e5Q0CLlFFm0>

</comment><comment><USER14> Harvard University (and to a slightly lesser extent, other Ivy League schools).

Their product is nothing if not world-class, and over the last century or so, it has become nearly synonymous with success, privilege, and prestige.

It can be disputed whether or not there was a significant conscious effort to manage its image through marketing or branding, but one cannot deny the effect it has in many places of the world that you are associated with that institution.

</comment><comment><USER15> I kind of like the concept of having the product and the network do the marketing. Craigslist did not spend any money marketing but yet they were able to grow entirely based on their product/service. Any competitor could have stepped in and actually had a marketing campaign to steal the show but nothing happened. Similar to facebook I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER16> Chipotle. Their market cap has increased 3x in the past 2 years, and it's largely through word of mouth.

But as an industry, the best marketing/branding job in history has got to be the diamond industry. There was a time when diamonds had nothing to do with marriage. They created a new market, consisting of almost every Western male.

</comment><comment><USER5> For an example of an organization that fits both the "excellent, first-rate" and "inspiring approval, reverence, or affection" definitions and has integrity...

craigslist

They live their marketing. Ala what PG was talking about in his talk yesterday w.r.t. Benevolence.

</comment><comment><USER9> 37signals. Damn bastards have built a cult around doing everything their way (i.e just like every other company).

They're consistently on message, are great at promoting themselves and undersand exactly who their customers are. Brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am surprised that Google has not been mentioned.

Marketing is more than advertising. And Google has marketed itself brilliantly since it's conception.

</comment><comment><USER17> assuming you have a good product/service, a good logo and catchy easy to remember name is the foundation of the free word of mouth advertising.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ikea. It's sometimes frustrating how effective it is.

</comment><comment><USER19> Nationwide, esp downtown Columbus, OH.

</comment><comment><USER20> Recently, App!e. Earlier, Micro$oft.

</comment><comment><USER21> any company that is successful probably has decent marketing behind it

</comment><comment><USER22> Would Apple be too easy?

</comment><comment><USER23> Geico</comment>


PostgreSQL 9.1.2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/release-9-1-2.html

<comment><USER2> Does anybody know whether PostgreSQL is going to implement UPSERT or MERGE support any time soon? I hate having to lock tables to emulate this.

<comment><USER3> It is not actually certain whether a standards-compliant implementation of MERGE would actually solve the UPSERT case (there have been some interesting mailing list discussions related to this, as that seemed to be an incorrect yet long-standing assumption of some people defining the roadmap).

Regardless, you don't need a table lock to do it in any case. Doing so without such a lock is actually an example from the documentation:

[http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/plpgsql- contro...](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/plpgsql-control- structures.html#PLPGSQL-UPSERT-EXAMPLE)

In essence, you just do the UPDATE, and if you ge back no affected rows, you perform an INSERT. If the INSERT fails because the row already exists, you do the UPDATE again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Postgres is wonderful and important, but consider before upvoting: What would HN look like if every x.y.z release of every wonderful and important piece of software landed on the front page?

<comment><USER5> I actually like it. Threads for new version releases like that are good for discussing new features, there's often someone who is very familiar with the product and the problem domain who explains the relevant issues for the rest of us, sometimes there are interesting debates about the general problems and the future of the particular product and its competitors. These threads are often very interesting and informative and in my opinion they are much more valuable and educating than another thread denouncing patents and copyright as the ultimate evil or accusing something or someone of censorship or something like that.

<comment><USER6> Agreed, although I'd hate HN to become a stream of minor version updates. Postgres is a bit different in that every 'minor' release actually contains a bunch of important changes.

Anyway, off to see if I can find the newest and greatest version for Ubuntu.</comment></comment></comment>


AI is now so complex its creators can't trust why it makes decisions - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1146753/ai-is-now-so-complex-its-creators-cant-trust-why-it-makes-decisions/ <comment><USER2> Artificial neural networks are considerably less complex than the real thing we carry around in our heads. We have very little clue why we make decisions either, and various bits of psychological research show that it's much less rational that we'd like to believe.

So how to make progress?

I think often we make decisions intuitively, then seek rationalisations. Sometimes we're self-deluded about how good those rationalisations are, because it is difficult to change a decision we have committed to. But if we avoid that, it strikes me as a good enough model: we can concentrate on at how rigorous the justification is, and worry less about the question of genesis.

And so I think the same thing should go for AI. We've lost the battle on AI that we can understand. We should focus more on a science of justification, or decision testing.

And if we can develop and be publicly committed to that kind of science, we can apply it to human decision-making too.</comment>


The Most Militarized Universities in America - <AUTHOR> https://news.vice.com/article/the-most-militarized-universities-in-america-a-vice-news-investigation <comment><USER2> " _Four categories of institutions of higher education dominate the VICE News list of the 100 most militarized universities in America:_

1\. " _schools whose students attain their degrees predominantly online;_ "

This is very unsurprising. Online education is very attractive for people in, for example, the military. Plus, many government service jobs just require a degree, not that it be from a recognizable school; in general, as is often mentioned here on HN, experience beats education and experience in this case usually means the military or prior government jobs.

2\. " _schools that are heavily involved in research and development for defense, intelligence, and security clients;_ "

I'm sensing that this is actually a relative minority on the list (although most of the recognizable names fall into it). There is considerable overlap between this category and the next two.

3\. " _schools in the Washington, DC area;_ "

Yes, obviously, plus schools close to large military bases (Cochise College, Fort Huachuaca; Central Texas College, Fort Hood).

4\. " _and schools that are newly focused on homeland security._ "

And I'm not entirely sure what the heck that's supposed to mean. There's money in "homeland security" much like there was money in nuclear weapon design at one time.

I suspect this article is an attempt to work up heat about a "education/intelligence community" doohicky to replace the venerable ol' military/industrial complex. And I think it's a failure, since what I think they've discovered is akin to "Google hires a lot of Stanford grads".

</comment><comment><USER3> I once hung out in the campus of Texas A&M University (no. 14 on the list) for the PyTexas conference. It was so different from other university campuses in that it felt almost like I was in a military base, or like in West Point or something (which I've never been to). A good portion of the students I saw were in uniform (ROTC), and the main student center, housing the bookstore and the cafeteria, was a war memorial. Signs at the entrance asked you to be quiet and remove your hats in honor of fallen soldiers.

While I understand that this article uses concrete data, like the research money trail and other direct measurable links to the military, Texas A&M certainly _feels_ incredibly "militarized", almost like a military academy. There's a palpable air of austerity and discipline there that makes it so different from most other campuses I've been to, which have much more of the traditional church-y university look while seeming to be full of rowdy young kids.

<comment><USER4> Texas A&M is a "senior military college," meaning it is one of the six primary ROTC campuses in the USA. The Citadel is another one. One of the requirements for this designation is that able-bodied students must undergo military training. So yeah, it's militarized. This is not a coincidence: it's policy.

It's hilarious that Texas A&M is this far down the list -- and it does not make the list look well constructed. Their definition of "militarized" seems to mean "people who went to this school work for the government now" and then they act surprised by how many schools close to the seat of government feed into government IT. Some of these schools, like the University of Phoenix and Grantham University, are distance-learning institutions catering to people who already have jobs; these people almost certainly worked for the government _before_ enrolling. Grantham University in particular bends over backwards to attract military veteran students.

I'm not sure what the value of this article is.

<comment><USER3> Ah, I didn't know about "senior military colleges." That certainly explains a lot!

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The military is a great source of funding, it is pretty much that straight forward. I knew a number of students that did work for the military because they would pay scholarships. If someone thinks this is a bad relationship, then move that funding to the NSF or NASA or NOAA instead and authorize them to fund out-there ambitious projects just like DARPA and the military.

<comment><USER6> DARPA is one of the only government science sponsors that doesn't come under fire from Republican lawmakers for wasting taxpayer dollars. Money spent on science is considered a waste, unless/until you slap the name "defense" on.

Look at the nonsense Lamar Smith is currently putting NOAA through. [http://www.wired.com/2015/11/congress-chief-climate- denier-a...](http://www.wired.com/2015/11/congress-chief-climate-denier-and- noaa-are-at-war/)

Having Smith as the chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee of the House (which oversees research funding for NASA, NOAA, EPA, NSF, etc.) is a travesty, and he individually deserves blame, but the whole GOP leadership is on board with his basic goals and tactics.

<comment><USER7> And please no one forget that "Department of Defense" used to be called "Department of War".

A funny change given how most of the USA's fighting happens away from its soil.

<comment><USER8> I've always found it amusing that Captain America's gimmick is his shield. A shield is normally a wholly defensive item, but Captain America routinely uses it by throwing it at people...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I went to a school with both a large international program and what seemed like a large ROTC program. Every Thursday ROTC students were required to be in uniform. I always wondered how the international students felt being surrounded by, what must've seemed to them as, soldiers.

I was especially curious about how the Middle Eastern students felt. Then again most were from Saudi Arabia, who has something like the ~3rd largest military expenditure per capita.

We really are a hyper-militarized country if you think about it.

<comment><USER10> In many countries everyone, or every male, has to do military service or training. Linus Torvalds, for instance, had to take a year off from college to serve.

I remember a Chinese programmer in Silicon Valley complaining that he toted an AK47-like rifle but only got to fire three cartridges during his military service - a cost saving measure.

<comment><USER11> Mandatory conscription was developed by revolutionary France, and after being smashed by the French, the Prussians (whose military was arguably the highest quality in Europe) adapted the system into the form generally known today (every adult male has to provide N (usually 1-3) years of mandatory military service). The US never had anything like this system: there was mandatory conscription during the civil war, and the draft (a lottery-based system rather than universally compulsory) was enacted in peacetime in 1940.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Damn shame when my old school cannot make the list with an active drone program [http://aviation.und.edu/prospective- students/Undergraduate/u...](http://aviation.und.edu/prospective- students/Undergraduate/uas-operations.aspx)

<comment><USER12> looks like your hell banned hockeybias - truth of the world on the name though

<comment><USER2> For a moment there I thought you were all talking about UA Huntsville, which ought to be on that list (but I guess gets folded into UA).

<comment><USER12> No, its a big frick up that makes me hate the NCAA when they expressly go against the people's vote of a local tribe and now we will have a name made fun of for generations.

UND is know for its pilot program and have now moved full scale into drones which helps with keeping the local air force base. Ah, the games we play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Speaking as a UMCP student, this isn't surprising. The NSA even takes out interest ads in our newspaper. However, Vice seems to be mixing statistics for UMUC (a commuter campus with a big online program) with UMCP (the state flagship school). Same state system, very different schools.

</comment><comment><USER14> I see a blue dot for University of Washington, but I see no star for Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the Bremerton Naval shipyards (one of the last two functioning belonging to the US), and of course Naval Base Kitsap.

But Vice did not see fit to include a military hub star for the Salish Sea.

</comment><comment><USER15> the common theme for half of the top 10 seems to be physical proximity to the pentagon, fort meade, or both. UMD, GW, George Mason, Georgetown and Hopkins are all in driving distance.

<comment><USER2> ...or to a large military base.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm really confused as to why University of Phoenix is in the top ten.

That's a degree mill university, online university with horrible reputation.

</comment><comment><USER17> I said to myself, if it's not UMD, I'd be worried what was No. 1. Memories of riot-police assembling like storm-troopers in fraternity row before a football game...

<comment><USER3> I once hung out in the campus of Texas A&M University (no. 14 on the list) for the PyTexas conference. It was so different from other university campuses in that it felt almost like I was in a military base, or like in West Point or something (which I've never been to). A good portion of the students I saw were in uniform (ROTC), and the main student center, housing the bookstore and the cafeteria, was a war memorial. Signs at the entrance asked you to be quiet and remove your hats in honor of fallen soldiers.

While I understand that this article uses concrete data, like the research money trail and other direct measurable links to the military, Texas A&M certainly _feels_ incredibly "militarized", almost like a military academy. There's a palpable air of austerity and discipline there that makes it so different from most other campuses I've been to, which have much more of the traditional church-y university look while seeming to be full of rowdy young kids.</comment></comment>


A tutorial on de-anonymizing data published by Lending Club - <AUTHOR> http://33bits.org/2008/11/12/57/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is from a few months ago, but in the light of the news about Mint considering selling anonymized customer data, I thought it might be useful as a cautionary tale.</comment>