Unsolicited Redesigns - <AUTHOR> http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2011/05/15/unsolicited_redesigns/

<comment><USER2> Unsolicited redesigns also imply that it's possible to improve on a design without knowing any of the inside variables mentioned in the article (branding requirements, for example), and that any good designer can design-by-wire without being intimately aware of a company's culture, mindset, and so on.

I believe that's part of the same trend that's devaluing creative work such as design and writing.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are two types of redesigns.

There is the "I am improving their business by improving their design" kind of attitude which is manifested by the Dustin Curtis kind of approach. This is basically claiming that certain aesthetics are better than others and thus means better business.

Then there is the "I am improving the way the information on the page is structured to improve "legibility"" attitude, which is more about taking what already exist and structure it better.

The former is driven by ego the latter by interest. And personally I find the latter more interesting, although it's less frequent.

<comment><USER4> [http://www.ryanholiday.net/this-is-what-real-analysis- looks-...](http://www.ryanholiday.net/this-is-what-real-analysis-looks-like/)

This echoes your (and Lukas's) sentiments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think unsolicited redesigns are generally a positive thing. They usually get a discussion going, and that discussion is based on comparing two concrete solutions to the same problem. That in itself is very valuable because it teaches you a lot more than simply comparing two different sites.

And even if a 2-hour redesign will never fix all the problems of an existing site, it can still point out specific flaws and suggest a solution.</comment>


Ask HN: Indie Markets other than iPhone App store - <AUTHOR>

I know this is a very old school question to ask but I am new so just humor me please. I started looking into actual development of as an indie developer sometime when the app store was launched and from then on it seems its the only platform for the indie developers.<p>But I know there must have been other markets before the app store, where people can put there apps up for a small fee. I searched a lot but there was no convincing result found. (I think this is the kind of search where you just get lucky if you think of the correct keywords). So I as you people : "What are small markets, for indie developers where one can actually make money?" <comment><USER2> It's called "the web". It's pretty awesome. There are no fees to be a developer on "the web". There is no application process. You don't have to get approval before selling your application on "the web", and no one can remove your application from "the web" if it competes with existing functionality. You can develop for any platform you like, and sell your app on "the web".

OK, so this is my somewhat smartass way of saying, "Why not stake out your own plot of land, instead of sharecropping?" The bad old days when small software developers had to go through distributors in order to reach the market are gone; don't wish for those bad old days to come back. When you build your own website, and your own community, those customers are _yours_. When you build on top of an "app store", those customers belong to Apple, or Google, or Facebook, whoever. If I'm putting in all the effort to build a loyal customer base, I want that customer base to be mine.

<comment><USER3> The second half is well said.

I'm also thinking of producing something for mobile users. Does it make sense to just stick with a web app or a mobile app is the way to go? (In my case I need the gps of the phone)

<comment><USER2> I didn't mean that "the web" is only for distributing web applications. You can sell _anything_ from your own website. Mobile apps, web apps, installable desktop or server apps, etc. I'm saying you shouldn't go looking for ways to give your customers to someone else, if you can avoid it.

If you want to reach iPhone users, you pretty much have to go through the Apple store...I question the economic value of iPhone users as a market, but if that's the application you want to build, and you need access to the whole phone, I guess that's the way you have to get there. But, I don't see any reason to go looking for more "app markets" that impose those same limitations, and separate you from your users in those ways. App markets are not good for developers, and they aren't good for consumers, so why go looking for more of them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well as far as phone apps go, there is also the Google Android app store. Smaller market, but fairly large and growing rapidly, and less crowded as far as app-selling competitors go (so far). Also, developing for it is free and doesn't require Apple approving your app.

For games in particular, there are a number of other indie-distribution channels, like XBox Live Arcade. For other kinds of software, there's the traditional "sell shareware over the internet" approach, which is declining for the most part but still relatively robust on OS X. There are also web apps, which can be supported either by ads or by selling premium add-ons, among other possibilities.</comment>


China's Kazakhstan embassy warns citizens of pneumonia deadlier than Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL4N2EH0L8 <comment><USER2> Could be the new H1N1 strain which is the most dangerous flu strain for centuries, recently coming out of China. Commonly called swine flu. But no test results yet? That's interesting. H1N1 and simular influenza virii are trivial to detect.

</comment><comment><USER3> oh boy here comes the conspiracy theories.</comment>


Show HN: validate.js - lightweight JavaScript form validation library - <AUTHOR> http://rickharrison.github.com/validate.js/

<comment><USER2> While client-side validation provides a possibly snappier user experience, developers should constantly be reminded that the client _cannot_ be trusted. Data integrity checks and conformance validation that matters must take place at the other end of the transaction.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree. I will probably add a note in the docs to remind people that you should always still perform server side checks.

<comment><USER3> It would also be cool if there was some documentation on how you might use validate.js in concert with server-side validations.

<comment><USER4> There isn't really any way to dovetail client-side validation with server-side validation.

Client-side validation should always be assumed to be disabled completely - view it as merely a convenience for your users. Help them switch dates into a correct format, make sure their userids aren't taken before they finish filling out their forms, that sort of thing.

<comment><USER5> >There isn't really any way to dovetail client-side validation with server- side validation

I think the parent of your comment was talking about using SSJS to re-use validation on both ends of the pipe.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will be adding server-side js support, so this will be a definite use case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How does this compare to jQuery validate¹? I use that a lot and it works great. Did you write this because you didn't wart the dependency with jQuery?

¹[http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin- validatio...](http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/)

</comment><comment><USER7> While we're on the topic of lightweight JS validation libraries, I released my own and have used it for well over a year on a number of production sites. It's quite feature rich and also very low on LOC. It already includes much of the support you guys mentioned here, including live validation and support for passing params. It's garnered towards those already utilizing jQuery sitewide who like things short and sweet. You can override and customize everything, but it also provides you with decent defaults.

Salid - The Simple jQuery Form Validator

[http://www.jqueryin.com/projects/salid-the-simple-jquery- for...](http://www.jqueryin.com/projects/salid-the-simple-jquery-form- validator/)

The version I use now is tweaked with improvements. I'll gladly share it; I've just been busy and not posting much to the site. If you see problems with the validation methods, they've been fixed over the year in the new version.

</comment><comment><USER8> I feel that the individual fields that have errors should be highlighted. While it's useful to say "The password field is required." at the top, it's more obvious to the user when the password field itself is highlighted in some way. A quick visual scan of the fields then lets you know where action needs to be taken.

<comment><USER9> It gets a +1 for being a non-jquery solution (jquery's fine for abstracting the DOM for animation and UX niceties, but you don't need to include what adds up to 2000 lines of code uncompressed just to find the contents of a text field and compare it), but this is the clincher.

The actual field that doesn't validate needs to be highlighted, because otherwise the disconnect between the error and the source makes it difficult to actually identify the source. The only other thing it needs is to position the error message adjacent to the invalid field.

When HTML5 is implemented better these things could be used more effectively. But HTML5 validation as it is now isn't useful until you can style the browser's errors.

It might be a better idea to hold off on the HTML5 stuff and work on polishing up the output :) Unless there's more control over the fancy new features now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've seen several projects named "validate.js". May I suggest coming up with a different name to let devs know which of the several libraries by that name they're working with? ("valid8.js" is already used too)

</comment><comment><USER11> I really like seeing simple utility libraries like this be posted on github. It makes everyone's sites better when a lot of people contribute to a good library. Nice job, and kudos for working with everyone on pull requests.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :) I look forward to more pull requests coming in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Have you thought about adding support for boolean operators in the rule declarations? For example, "empty||valid_email" => "empty or a valid email", or "valid_email&&matches[email]" => "valid email and matches the 'email' field"? Basically, support for !, && (easy since this is the default behavior), and ||. To be honest, the use cases for this functionality is pretty limited but I think it'd be a nice feature to add just for the sake of practice. It would make handling error messages a little more complex though.

I tried to add something like this to a small validation library I wrote about a year ago. I think that part worked pretty well but otherwise it wasn't very well designed. Another problem I ran into was the lack of support for rules that depended on asynchronous operations.

</comment><comment><USER13> Have you thought about supporting JSON Schema? (<http://json-schema.org/>)

</comment><comment><USER14> I think you should have params to the validators, specifically for the regex case, in which the callback_ approach, with registration and such, is quite onerous.

      {
          rules: 'regex',
          params: {
              regex: [/abc/]
          }
      }

or,

      {
          rules: 'regex:^foo'
      }

<comment><AUTHOR> I like this idea a lot. I chose to start out with the callback_ approach due to trying to mimic the CodeIgniter API. However, this would be much easier especially for just a regex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You may consider adding more sophisticated validation routines.

Check my ruby snippet for possible inspiration:

<https://gist.github.com/571093> (IBAN, ISBN, ISSN, VATIN and some other numbers used in Poland)

</comment><comment><USER16> No support for HTML5? (by that I mean support for "required", "pattern", "min", "max" attributes).

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet. This is just a first version that I wanted to get out to see what people thought. From here, I can start working on features like HTML5.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is also the validationEngine ! not that i'm a developer on it <https://github.com/posabsolute/jQuery-Validation-Engine>

</comment><comment><USER18> Interesting... is inline validation an option on this?

<comment><USER19> Inline, instant validation would make this very useful as a compliment to full server-side validation. I agree that client-side validation can significantly improve the ux for forms.

<comment><USER20> I like LiveValidation <http://livevalidation.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> seems like the right place to shamelessly plug VRS, which is something I really need to pick up again

<http://vrs.tomelders.com/index.php?title=Main_Page>

The hope is that one day, browsers could have a native VRS implementation, and until that day Javascript and serverside scripting could pick up the slack.

</comment><comment><USER22> This looks great. Though I think the validators list should probably be an actual array of validators instead of a pipe-delimited string.

<comment><AUTHOR> I debated this for a while. In the end, I ended up going with the CodeIgniter style of piping. I may just add support for both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> A quibble: it's validator, not validater. Pull request sent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for letting me know. I just pushed up 1.0.1 with this renamed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't this this is much use because it's pretty much made to be a stand alone library. I think what we all want int 2011 is a ways to lift validation rules from the server to the UI automatically. Otherwise we still obviously need to do all the work on the server. Maintain two parallel sources that need to match their behavior is PITA.</comment>


John Resig - Testing, Performance Analysis, and jQuery 1.4 - <AUTHOR> http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/video.php?v=resig-testing

<comment><USER2> Here's the jQuery branch he talks about with the new jQuery.require() asynchronous code loading function:

<http://github.com/jquery/jquery/tree/omgrequire/src/>

And here's a direct link to the function itself:

[http://github.com/jquery/jquery/blob/998cb005fc378188b3bae31...](http://github.com/jquery/jquery/blob/998cb005fc378188b3bae319e391d1b7881b7ad2/src/core.js#L435)

<comment><USER3> I really like JavascriptMVC's "include" function, which can be used in two modes. In development mode it works much like "require" and loads an external script. But there's also a production mode where all "includes" are processed ahead of time and used to compile the whole application into a single file.

Obviously you need to restrict the use somewhat for this to work (no conditional includes, for example).</comment></comment>


Egyptian Cyber Attack on Ethiopia - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/africa/1874343/egypt-cyber-attack-on-ethiopia-is-strike-over-the-grand-dam/ <comment><USER2> (edited, wrong post).

The title of this post emphasize just the hacking of a page: it's the second time that I see that this website is a bit superficial in its writing</comment>


CouchDB 1.6 is out - <AUTHOR> http://www.apache.org/dist/couchdb/notes/1.6.0/apache-couchdb-1.6.0.html

<comment><USER2> Good stuff.

* More work on the new web GUI

* Erlang 17.0 support. Presumably comes with better performance and concurrency handling (just from knowing what went into that release).

* Better performance for replication, especially handling large documents.

* Don't need write access to source db to replicate.

This is great. Really like working and developing with CouchDB. Well defined semantics and protocol of master to master replications really make this database unique. It might be a small thing for many but having a web GUI is another benefit. Can't tell you how many times I ended up looking in there to see what exactly has my code inserted into the DB.

Also looking forward for BigCouch merge in the near future.</comment>


45% of Black and Latino small business owners anticipate closing within 6 months - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/05/19/the-lasting-damage-to-black-and-latino-communities-489269 <comment><USER2> Well, how about businesses owned by East Asian, Israeli, and Iranian immigrants?

<comment><USER3> How about small businesses owned by anyone?

Lots of estimates are circulating that 50% of all independent restaurants will close. No matter who owns them.

<comment><USER4> If hamburger restaurants are more likely to close than sandwich restaurants, that's interesting and useful information. If restaurants owned by asian/black/brown/white are more likely to close than the average that is useful information as well, and can tell us about different people's access to capital. Including data on race provides more information on which businesses are closing. If race is a statistically significant variable in which businesses are closing, why willfully ignore that variable?

<comment><USER3> If you read the article you'd see that it was a _survey_ of only black and Latino business owners with no stats on businesses that actually closed down and no comparisons to other ethnicities (white, south and east Asian, etc...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Large corporations trying to make supplies to fight the virus are being slowed down by the collapse of the economy and the supply chain.

Turns out you need the economy to fight the virus.

</comment><comment><USER6> Commercial rents will kill off many small businesses.

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't there lasting damage to all businesses that aren't big corporations (who can better weather the storm, navigate stimulus help, etc.)? Why would the impact be any different for different races? It seems odd to run a headline like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can actually read the article instead of just scratching your head, it goes through the numbers on how they are not being approved for assistance loans at nearly the same rates as white-owned small businesses.

<comment><USER3> > You can actually read the article instead of just scratching your head, it > goes through the numbers on how they are not being approved for assistance > loans at nearly the same rates as white-owned small businesses.

It doesn't (it actually doesn't provide any stats on white-owned business nor even survey results). It merely implies it based on results from a survey of black and Latino business owners.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok I think you're just being obtuse for the sake of being obtuse for some other mysterious reason, can't help you there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Best Place to Start a Small Tech Business - <AUTHOR>

With the passing of health care reform arguably, the landscape for starting a small biz has changed US-wide. (worldwide?) Given that many nations already have such policies where do you feel is the best place to start a small tech biz and why? This is a microscopic question, possibly down to neighborhoods. If we are to have niche business we'll need to find the best niches to eek out our existance. <comment><USER2> The best place to start is where you are.

Unlike other businesses, tech businesses are rarely tied to a particular place. They have no plant or buildings, except usually for servers, and their customers usually come from all over the world. This means they're very easy to move.

So start where you are. And if you need to move later on, it's no great hassle.

</comment><comment><USER3> A copout answer, but "it depends". For some tech startups, especially those hoping for funding, Silicon Valley with its strong networking/community/etc. is probably ideal. But for others, especially self-funded ones, somewhere with much cheaper living expenses might be a better tradeoff.

Depends on personal style also. Do you find it useful/necessary to get inspiration and support from regular meatspace meetups with people with similar interests, e.g. hanging out at a place like the Hacker Dojo? Or are you more the sort of person who gets that sort of interaction from irc, mailing lists, IM, forums, and so on, and doesn't much care about irl meetings?

</comment><comment><USER4> Honest question: how does the passing of health care reform in the US relate to the question about where to start a small tech business?

</comment><comment><USER5> Ignoring the bit about health care reform(I don't know anything about that).

1) Start with genius, this is a phrase used by Meredith Belbin in his advise about selecting a team. So, I am basically saying go where you will find the talent necessary to implement your start up.

2) Start in a place with lots of early adopters. That is, start where the people are known to try new stuff and be seen as cool if they are at the cutting edge with technology.

Just a few places: Boston, Silicon Valley, London... There will be other places around the world with these characteristics.

</comment><comment><USER6> You need the following:

\- proximity to universities - increases the probability to find talents and people willing to spend money in IT services

\- proximity with airport and train hubs - increases the probability of having customers (+ transport => \+ businesses)

\- high bandwidth Internet availability

I don't know what you are referring to regarding health care, but basically if taxes and insurances spending break your profitability, you didn't have a real business to start with.

Your number one spending will be salaries by a huge factor.

</comment><comment><USER7> The title is a bit of a troll. I guess the idea is that now its too expensive to start a new business in the US because of healthcare.

</comment><comment><USER8> To quote Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, "The best place to be is here, the best time is now" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHBwryfycvk></comment>


Future-Proofing Your Android App - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/06/future-proofing-your-app.html

<comment><USER2> What is this Android? I have never heard of it.</comment>


Reddit censored Trump's AMA by removing it from r/all - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4uxttk/trumps_ama_with_12000_points_46000_votes_and_63/ <comment><USER2> If the argument is really that bad, it should lose on its own merit. Censoring ideas is the antithesis of the american way. America was conceived out of treasonous ideas after all.</comment>


My Stolen Mac (tracked using Hidden) - <AUTHOR> http://mystolenmac.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> When i see things like this i sometimes wonder if (in america at least) this could be illegal under wiretapping laws. Obviously it seems justified because the laptop was stolen, but i've heard about stranger things. For instance one of my CS profs (Sam King, UIUC) told us in class about a honey pot experiment he was running once. The whole idea was just to monitor what intruders would typically do on an unprotected system by recording shell sessions. When they were getting the experiment approved by network admins it came up that this might count as wire tapping (Illinois has weirdly strict 'all parties consent' laws for wire tapping). So to protect themselves they had to add a disclaimer to the login prompt saying that user activities may be recorded. (nevermind the fact that these attackers would most likely not ever see the login prompt).

So it raises the question, could this software pose a liability for the owner?

<comment><USER3> On a slightly related note, I often wonder if posting these images on the public internet will in some way render them useless (inadmissible?) in court, or otherwise put the poster in hot water for pinning the blame on people who have not yet been proven guilty...?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FYI, this is not _my_ mac, I came across this story on Twitter. Similar to the one that happened in Oakland a couple months ago.</comment>


Ask HN: Salaries in 3rd old countries, how justified? - <AUTHOR> I'm from a third world country, a good enough web developer and get paid around 10K USD a year after nearly 3 years of experience at a full-time job.
This thread of "salary spreadsheet [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11331223]" makes me wonder how is it that the companies justify paying so less in countries like mine (say India) vs countries in US/Europe/Elsewhere.
Although I understand the "basic cost of living" is less in these 3rd world countries; if you really think about it, the cost of living the same lifestyle in US/Europe vs in India might come off to be same (if not more) when:
You live in similarly sophisticated, safe, serviced house/apartment/area
Drive similar car
Go to same restaurants/hotels order the same menu items
Take similar vacations
Get similar insurance/retirement plans
Drink similar wine
In other words, for similar lifestyle
In some cases, things are even more expensive in countries like India where the taxes are high in imported goods or abroad vacations compared to the income we generate or services we get for the same/more amount of money we pay (for eg. Internet bandwidth).
From the 10K/year that I make, I can never afford a decent car here at my place, will never be able to go to Paris with my wife, will never be able to buy a house in the area where I would like to settle - not at least in the foreseeable future!
Granted that we can survive by for a lot less (go to cheap restaurants, don't go abroad vacation, don't have insurance, don't have decent apartment and such). But if we are doing the same jobs (for eg. Microsoft) that produces same result on similar effort, shouldn't we be earning the same amount of money and living similar lifestyle, regardless of where we live? <comment><USER2> That question is akin to asking why there even is a 'third world'. Companies capitalize on the fact that you and enough of your countrymen are willing to take less pay because you are charging based on your costs-of-living rather than based on the value that you create. And because _everybody does it_ if you refuse someone else will step into your shoes to do it. The thing to remember is that if it wasn't cheaper then the outsourcing would have never happened in the first place. So until your economy as a whole has been lifted up to the point where the wages between the two countries are at parity this situation will likely persist.

The best way to tackle the problem then is to become a founder that will pay 'first world' wages to employees in the third world. But I'll bet that when given the option the management of that company will wonder why they are throwing money away and will instead pay the same that everybody else does because they don't perceive any gain.

The only thing then that will really solve this is (hopefully) the eventual rise of the standard of living globally. But for that to happen societies would need to change in a dramatic fashion. Less corruption, more equality between men and women, less nepotism and more meritocracy, fewer dictatorships (in fact or in name) and so on.

For the foreseeable future this situation will persist, with slow improvements over time and a lot of potential for set-backs.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're good you can charge roughly U.S. rates as a freelancer. Keep getting projects, testimonial and after every project where your clients were ecstatic, hike your rates by 30% or 50% or more, until client's are "merely" happy.[1]

The lower salary only means one thing - you can get by being a less experienced developer in India than in the U.S. People aren't willing to pay even $40k for a Joomla programmer who has done nothing but gone through the tutorial, but they might be willing to pay $5k for one, and there's only so many places in the world where one can get by for that little.

This incidentally also mislead hiring managers in India thinking everyone will accept salaries that low, so they set their salary cap that low, and only people who are inexperienced or those unwilling to work for themselves on the internet will accept that low of a salary.

Having heard various stories and my own experience, there's definitely difference between outsourcing to an Indian consulting firm than to an Australian (or even Russian/Ukrainian) one.

[1] Two examples: [https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~014440ca451f6d05fd...](https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~014440ca451f6d05fd/) He looks like he's charging $45 on a short term basis and $25 for full time, long term work, which equates to $50k. [https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~01ec0a80c3dfdb1477...](https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~01ec0a80c3dfdb1477/) At $40 per hour, that's only 250 hours of work per year to reach $10k.</comment>


Seed Repo: Angular, Coffee-Script, Grunt, Karma, Stylus + more - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ideahaven.co/post/56446899047/seed-repo-angular-bootstrap-coffee-script-d3

<comment><USER2> This is great and helps getting started with Angular, one thing I would change is a easy way to replace "myApp" with your app name if needed but I guess a `sed` replace would work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that is a great idea, I am also working on making some basic improvements to spec files and maybe a tutorial about it. There seems to be a lot of tutorials (including Angular's Phonecat) that use global variables for the controllers, but not many that that don't. I have found the testing of the scope variables harder to find examples for</comment></comment>


Show HN: Posix shell abuse – Reassemble arguments AKA Transforming $* into $ - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/przemoc/168ecd5a263e1e498ee6d2ee4278e4ae <comment><AUTHOR> Somehow title lost @ at the end. Is it some kind of forbidden character?

</comment><comment><USER2> While the final and most portable solution is a bit convoluted, see [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12162010/posix-sh- equival...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12162010/posix-sh-equivalent- for-bash-s-printf-q) for other related ideas.</comment>


ISS HD Earth Viewing Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iss-hdev-payload <comment><USER2> Why does every space camera/high altitude camera seem to have a massive fisheye effect? Is it deliberate deception to make you think "woo look at the curvature of the Earth" \- when it isn't?

<comment><USER3> If the camera had a fisheye lens, it would distort the parts of the craft that are in its field of view, but those appear without fisheye distortion.

Unless I'm missing something else, the curvature you see is likely due to the spherical nature of planets.

<comment><USER3> They just switched cameras, and this one doesn't show parts of the craft, so my comment above won't make much sense, but the curvature I see with this camera is similar to the one I saw with the other camera which shows parts of the craft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you enjoy this, I recommend [http://www.radioiss.com](http://www.radioiss.com). It adds a human dimension to the image.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for sharing. This site is good too [http://spacedashboard.com/](http://spacedashboard.com/)</comment></comment>


A Review of Language Learning Tactics - <AUTHOR> https://knowledgeartist.org/article/language-learning-tips <comment><USER2> Language learning is kind of like raising a child. As my sibling say, it is all theoretical until you actually do it.

So if you really want to learn a language, just start vomiting out words with a teacher one-on-one. Just like with child rearing, vomit and messiness is always involved.

There is no magic technique. If there is a magic technique, it is like this article alludes, to use many techniques. Some may work, some may not. It is up to you to find those techniques that work for you. You are the only one who can do that.

Don't take SHIT classes. I took a Spanish class once where the teacher spent 15 minutes of a 45 minute class by having _each one_ of the students go through their homework answers.

Don't confuse activity with productivity. There are many things that you might think are productive, and they are not. Sometimes it depends on where you are in your language learning process. For example, listening or watching to a TV show in your target language with _subtitles_ in the target language can be counter productive if you barely understand the sounds, let alone the meanings and grammar. Also, subtitles are not 1 to 1 to the audio.

In my experience, if it is painful to you, you won't continue doing it. Most of language learning can be a pain. One of the best ways to get around the pain is to find a teacher (iTalki is a great site for that) who you find fits your needs and _meet regularly_ with them. At the minimum, twice a week. You'll probably find that, over time, you'll develop a friend-type relationship more than a teacher-student relationship. How else are you going to talk for an hour? And if you are paying someone for their time and not relying on your friend who speaks that language it is a clear-cut transactional relationship. Patience can be bought. By paying a teacher, you are paying for their patience and your accountability to them.

It is like going to the gym. If you go to the gym once a week, don't expect a lot. However, if you go to the gym 3 times a week, you can definitely expect some improvement. You can expect even more improvement if you work with a personal trainer who gently pushes you, as you get better.

EDIT: Updated and refined my argument about taking classes

<comment><USER3> > Don't take classes. I took a Spanish class once...

I _STRONGLY_ categorically disagree with your "don't take classes" statement.

I would rephrase your statement "don't take shit classes".

Don't waste your time on "My name is Bob" classes looking at cartoons in textbooks.

But good classes. With proper structured tuition. Given by a true native teacher. Not an opportunity to be sniffed at.

Why do I say this ? Because I've done it. It was bloody hard work at the time and I hated every minute of it. But the outcome in terms of my fluency, including finer details like pronunciation etc without needing to think about it ? Unmatched. As far as I'm concerned there's no substitute for supervised learning.

If you want to learn a language properly, you need someone not afraid to tell you you're wrong (rather than just being nice and saying "that's good" all the time, or turning a blind eye to your abysmal pronunciation). You also need someone to push you and challenge you, especially with technical aspects which again is not something you'll find with friends.

<comment><USER4> Classes that don't focus on the painful, difficult conversations the parent mentions are worthless, so the point still stands. These classes can be detrimental because they are learning theater. They give the mere appearance of language comprehension.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> After learning Korean to a fluent level (and working there for 3 years), here's some things that come to mind:

\- Be persistent. Studying languages is often boring, annoying and takes years. Nobody likes memorizing vocabulary. Embrace it. Study every day, even if that means only reviewing 5 words on some days.

\- Don't try to analyze and understand everything. Communication isn't a science, treating it as such is unproductive and frustrating to the learner. There will be many things that at first sight make little sense, and that's okay; just move on. Language can be very nuanced, but with persistence you'll eventually "feel" the subtleties.

\- Passive learning is super helpful. Change the phone language, watch movies (whether in the target language with subtitles, or your native language with target language subtitles), listen to music, etc. Doesn't matter if you don't understand.

\- It can be depressing and you'll want to stop. Even after months of studying hard, go to a party with only natives and see how much you'll understand. Likely very little. Know it's normal, and only temporary.

\- The hardest part is reaching a level of fluency where your brain no longer actively translates the language.

\- Study from multiple sources. Most textbooks explain the nuances in natural language badly.

\- Nearly all dialogue in textbooks is unnatural and robotic. Don't imitate textbooks or you'll sound like one.

\- Observe and imitate natives. Often, the forced imitations eventually become a natural part of your speech.

\- Stop caring so much. Don't try to be perfect. Speak a lot and allow yourself to make many mistakes, because you will.

<comment><USER6> \- join Peace Corps and work entirely in Korean in a rural health center for two years with minimal English. Or that's how one used to do it. Stressful but effective.

\- as with all foreign language speakers, the rules are subtly different for outsiders. Just copying native speakers can result in unpleasantness. In Korean, non-Koreans who "misuse" "panmal" (the blunt, informal speech level) by closely imitating friends can come across unintentionally as thuggish. There as elsewhere foreigners are held to higher standards.

<comment><USER7> Can't comment on Korean, but Japanese beginners worry _far too much_ about politeness. It doesn't help that the textbooks all start with a relatively stiff level of grammar, but Japanese students often become neurotic about it.

If you're a beginner, no reasonable human being is going to think _anything_ nuanced about your choice of words. When was the last time you judged a non- native speaker of your own language for this level of subtlety?

My advice is to do whatever it takes to _be understood_. You're going to sound like a rude idiot. Make peace with it.

<comment><USER8> You are totally right. This is why I don't even bother using polite form expect when I really need it: my interlocutor is glad I'm speaking more Japanese than he could speak English or my native language anyway.

I would also add that speaking a Japanese that is too good can backfire, as native have then more expectations that go further than language (behavior), especially for East-Asian people. Keeping illusion of semi-(in)competence can be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I tried several times in various ways to learn languages, the only one that worked (I became and still am fluent in russian) for me was a combination of academic instruction and living in the target country. In my case this was eastern Ukraine.

The academic instruction was crucial for me. No matter how much I listened, I was never going to really understand the difference between unidirectional and multidirectional verbs of motion until it was explained in a way I could really grok.

On the other hand there is quite simply no replacement for hearing and speaking with native speakers of the target language. I taught quite a few English classes and there were often Ukrainian teachers who spoke English flawlessly, but for whatever reason students who only learned from non-native English speakers were at a clear disadvantage compared to those who also had native teachers, and everyone was at a disadvantage to those who had practiced in an English speaking country.

I worked with tons of people who lived in eastern Ukraine for years and never learned Russian or Ukrainian beyond a few phrases, I really do think it takes dedicated instruction combined with tons of practice with native speakers to really make fluency happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for sharing! agreed that an ensemble approach of trying a bunch of approaches and doubling down on what works is the most effective. Russian/Ukranian is certainly tricky to learn without formal instruction. Though as a counter example, I once met a guy who learned to converse fluently just by playing the guitar at bars and chatting up strangers. But that's just an anecdote

<comment><USER10> We call that "piva-translate" at my local watering hole ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One suggestion I was given, and am putting into practice: develop a large vocabulary, something like 1000 words, in your target language. You can do this without knowing grammar or verb tenses, or anything and it will give you a leg up on any conversations, lessons, etc.

How to learn 1000 words? I'm using the Leittner method, aka Spaced Repetition, as implemented in the Anki flash card app [1] , and beautifully explained in [2].

[1] [https://apps.ankiweb.net/](https://apps.ankiweb.net/)

[2] [https://ncase.me/remember/](https://ncase.me/remember/)

<comment><USER12> The most effective way at getting through the pain period for me was to Anki about 2000 sentences (both reading and listening cards for each sentence) and have that cover all the way up to upper intermediate level grammar. Doing so gives you a base of about 1500 ~ 2000 vocab at the same time.

After that progress takes off if you acquire vocab as fast as possible while speaking to natives as much as possible.

That initial bootstrapping phase can be done in 4 months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I opened the article and as soon as the beginning we are greeted with total bullshit: "When it comes to learning a language, immersion is key".

No, immersion is not key. I know a bunch of people immersed for years in a foreign country that can't introduce themselves in the local language. Happened to me too. Immersion only works if one as enough prior knowledge so that some input will be comprehensible, and then build on that. For bootstraping this, traditional methods (books, videos, classes) are required.

Also claiming having learn 9 languages without even listening them nor the level attained is cringy as hell. I'm so fed up of the mainstream blog posts about language; opening my own website/company about language learning is on my todo list once I graduate from PhD (related to language education).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I recently started blogging about my own experience and hoped it could help others. it's a continuous learning process for me to both explore what to write about and improve my form.

Sorry it didn't live up to your standard / wasn't written in a style you would appreciate

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I realize that duolingo is a business, but the relatively recent give a "hearts" limit (unless you pay!) is really unfortunate.

You can use the app but as soon as you struggle, you're likely to be kicked out for some time. That's when you need practice the most, and they're discouraging you. It's disastrous for free users and indicates they gave too much for free and/or their monetization strategy is failing.

<comment><USER14> I think you're misunderstanding the feature (or maybe I am?).

The way I understand it losing hearts prevents you from progressing too quickly. You can refill hearts by practicing content you've covered already and hence strengthen your basics.

<comment><USER13> That's a generous way of looking at it, imo. If you're working through stuff, you absolutely will get things wrong. That's true in languages, in programming, in learning anything.

Stopping when you make 5 mistakes is a very bad thing when you're trying to learn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I also find the following useful:

\- reading some specially printed books with your native language and the target language side by side (eg left page English, right page Czech for me)

\- writing regularly can be great practice. Doesn't have to be about anything profound, just "what I did on the weekend" is fine, even if it was boring and unspectacular. It helps if you have friends willing to read and correct you, but just forcing yourself to produce the right words in a low-pressure situation can be really useful

<comment><USER16> Thanks for mentioning literacy. Most of the other suggestions, both in the original post and in other threads, focus on speaking and listening skills. While those are important, they're only part of what you need if you want to use a language at a high level.

A Russian teacher I had in college more than forty years ago told us about her experience. As a teenager, before World War II, she had moved with her family to Austria. When they arrived, she understood no German whatsoever. The way she learned it, she said, was just to read book after book in German. While she didn't understand what she read at all when she started, within a few months she was, she said, fluent, thanks mainly to the extensive reading. Systematic study in school and social immersion no doubt helped her as well.

I had been studying Russian for several years at that point and had reached a plateau, frustrated at being unable to read literature without looking up most words in a dictionary, so I tried what she suggested. Over the next couple of years, I read my way through dozens of novels and nonfiction books without using a dictionary. While I understood very little at first, the repeated exposure to vocabulary and grammatical patterns in meaningful contexts kickstarted my acquisition of the language, and soon I was enjoying Tolstoy, Chekhov, and the like in the original. In my case as well, continuing to study vocabulary and grammar systematically, both in class and on my own, also helped.

I applied the same technique when I moved to Japan in 1983. After having learned hiragana, katakana, and a few hundred kanji, I started reading real- world texts—newspapers, magazines, novels—straight through. I understood very little at first, but I made steady progress and after a couple of years I was able to start working as a Japanese-to-English translator. Once again, the effect of the extensive reading was boosted significantly by continuing to take language classes and to memorize vocabulary. The immersion in Japanese society also helped, of course.

I'm really glad I made that effort when I was young to learn not only to speak Japanese but to read and write it as well. That has made all the difference in my life since.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think I agree with Steve Kaufmann (a well known polyglot -- you can google him) that techniques aside, you really need 3 basic elements to learn a language

(1) attitude -- being willing to make mistakes (it's actually part of the brain rewiring process -- we remember better when there's an emotional connection). Also being willing to take the language as it is, and not imposing your own values on it from the get-go (e.g. why are there so many unnecessary cases/conjugations? it's stupid! -- people who are super- contrarian and judgy probably struggle more... they try to analyze everything but end up not learning anything. It's a common attitudinal problem among many otherwise smart people.)

(2) constant contact -- you need to spend time with the language in small chunks (e.g. 1/2 hour a day) over a long period of time rather than spend a week studying then stopping for several months.

(3) ability to notice things/distinctions -- this is important because if you cannot differentiate sounds or details, it can be hard to get to a certain level. I believe this ability is at least partly innate; folks who have this ability in spades seem to be able to progress faster. (but I also believe folks who have a growth mindset and put in the work eventually get there)

With these elements, one can assemble a combination of techniques tailored to oneself (everybody learns differently). For me, watching YouTube creators explain local culture is what interests me. Podcasts work for some people, but interesting content doesn't always exist in my target language, so I'm perfectly happy to reject that as technique for acquiring certain languages. Taking classroom lessons actually works really well for me because I like structure, so I do it weekly. Some people like music for learning languages -- it doesn't really work for me because I don't get to learn intonation (music obscures intonation and vowel lengths).

Learning techniques have to necessarily be bespoke because we come at languages with different backgrounds and interests. But I believe the 3 elements above have to exist.

In my opinion -- this is only my opinion -- immersion by living in a country is overrated as a technique. It helps for sure, but it really isn't necessary. The elements above are what are needed -- without these, even immersion is ineffective. I've met Irish guys living in Barcelona who couldn't speak any of the local languages. I've first hand experience living in several places where I never learned the local language because there was always a way around it.

<comment><USER18> > In my opinion -- this is only my opinion -- immersion by living in a country > is overrated as a technique. It helps for sure, but it really isn't > necessary. The elements above are what are needed -- without these, even > immersion is ineffective. I've met Irish guys living in Barcelona who > couldn't speak any of the local languages. I've first hand experience living > in several places where I never learned the local language because there was > always a way around it.

Immersion works when there's no other way around it. In particular for native english speakers, you'd have to be in a situation where either most people you interact with don't know enough english for communication to be effective, or (and this is very rare in my limited experience) you would have to make an effort to stop using your native language altogether, even when locals address you in it. It also helps when there aren't any family/friends/compatriots around so you can't really "cheat" and you won't be able to function on a daily basis unless you learn and practice the local language.

<comment><USER17> I agree -- physical immersion can work (the power of a physical-social environment is quite palpable) but I merely wonder if it's sufficient or necessary.

Being immersed with no alternatives does force one to learn simple phrases to get by but it seems quite possible that you'll never have non-trivial conversations with locals until you have enough vocabulary -- and locals won't have non-trivial conversations with you unless you have enough vocabulary. Also native speakers are often loathe to correct you when you make mistakes, so the feedback loops is often broken. To get out of this chicken and egg situation, it seems to me that some amount of focused study is required, and whether that is done in the country or outside doesn't seem to matter (especially with sites like iTalki or others).

As an example: I have friends who taught English in Korea for years (where English isn't widely spoken). They were able to function for years with a few choice phrases and never needed to go beyond that.

Sometimes even at significant levels of immersion, it's possible to not be able to speak the language beyond the basics. I have friends who attended German universities, in German, but have trouble speaking German. Likewise in the US there are many international students attending college in English, do fairly well in school, but struggle greatly to converse in the language.

I think immersion is merely a tool: the underlying driving force really is "intention". With intention, it's possible to go much farther even if immersion was not a tool at one's disposal.

<comment><USER19> The positive thing about physical immersion is that it provides lots of practice opportunities as a simple consequence of daily life. It's not as helpful if you create a comfortable bubble and refuse to venture out. Sometimes it means rejecting invitations from classmates and seeking local experiences instead.

Another nice thing about immersion is that you can engage with cultural events that may not be present in your own country, and gain a deeper understanding of the natives themselves, which ties straight back into the language.

Depending on the country or your living situation it can be really hard to branch out... learning while living in a student dormitory was great because I was forced to express myself, even if I was sick, felt less motivated, missed home, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Given the author mentions the "subtitles on Netflix" route as an option. The only thing I've got to say to that is subtitles on Netflix are shit. I'm sorry, there's no other word for it. Other streaming services not that much better, but Netflix seems to be particularly bad.

COVID has given me a reason to watch more content. I've found myself watching some fabulous output from Korea, Japan and elsewhere on Netflix.

But the subtitling on Netflix is just abysmal. I mean seriously, we're talking about schoolboy fundamentals here. White text on white/bright background ? Yup, Netflix does it, not just occasionally but _A LOT_. Subtitles bouncing around the screen during the course of the same film/episode (i.e. jumping between top and bottom of screen). Yup, Netflix does it, again not just occasionally but _A LOT_.

Honestly, makes me feel sad for those hearing impaired people who actually rely on subtitles.

<comment><USER20> Far worse than the presentation is that they often don't even match. And it's not that they are leaving out words (which is already horrible for language learning), but the subtitles are phrased entirely different than the spoken words.

I've tried to improve my French via Netflix and it's useless. Netflix subtitles are often just the English subtitles independently translated. Even for original French content you are not guaranteed to get correct subtitles.

<comment><USER21> This bothers me to no end. It makes the vast majority of content on Netflix nearly useless in terms of trying to pick up new words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Since nobody has mentioned it, my favorite method is listening to songs and learning the lyrics. It's the same suggestion made in the article of memorizing entire phrases of the language, only with song lyrics it's made easier by the cues given by rhyme and metric. And if you like the songs, it's a pleasure, and repetition (i.e. singing by yourself) is easy. And a memorized text works as a reference for both lexicon and grammar.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I had a fun time looping songs and memorizing them too. Songs by Sido and Cro were very helpful when I was learning German.

For some reason this didn't come to mind when I was outlining for the article, would've included it haha

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This list is focused on speaking and understanding spoken living languages. Does anyone have any tips for learning to read dead languages?

<comment><USER11> For Latin, the go to resource to start learning is the book Lingua Latina [1] which has an easy conversational style. You can understand a good percentage of the book without any a priori (see what i did there? :) ) knowledge of any kind. Concurrently with that, you might listen to the Latin language videos by Scorpio Martianus [2] who also does some videos in Greek.

[1] [https://books.google.com/books/about/Familia_Romana.html?id=...](https://books.google.com/books/about/Familia_Romana.html?id=MFowBQAAQBAJ)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRllohBcHec7YUgW6HfltLA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRllohBcHec7YUgW6HfltLA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I guess this question fits well enough this thread:

I've always wanted to learn Spanish, and have tried lots of apps and various techniques and can listen ok, read well, and barely speak. I have an 18 month son, and a Hispanic nanny who basically pure Spanish to him.

Something I've been doing lately, is translating each phrase I say to him on my phone ("Do you need help with your legos?" Kind of thing) and storing the translations in a spreadsheet.

Surprisingly, there's no app that I can find where you can link a spreadsheet to it and then generate Spaced Repetition Flash Cards from the rows in it. I know there's a ton of apps where I can make cards straight in the app, but I was surprised there's nothing that can work straight off of a Google Sheet.

So I've started tinkering with React Native just to learn something new and potentially hack together something for this.

So, my question: Is anyone else interested in the idea of having an app where they can load up a spreadsheet and turn it into smart flash cards really easily?

<comment><USER25> Export to csv and load into Anki?

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah this seems to be the easiest</comment></comment></comment>


Rural Cities Overtake NYC in per Capita Covid-19 Cases - <AUTHOR> https://www.cybercoastal.com/rural-cities-pass-nyc-in-per-capita-cases/ <comment><USER2> This post is from a NYTimes story from about a month ago:

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/upshot/five-w...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/upshot/five- ways-to-monitor-coronavirus-outbreak-us.html)

Those very few limited rural cities that were ahead of NYC at the time had things like prisons and meat packing plants.

The NY Times has a bunch of stats here they keep updated, including current Per Capita numbers:

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus- us-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us- cases.html)

<comment><USER3> Yep, that's true where I'm from. The county has a total of maybe a dozen or so cases. But we have two correctional facilities that have almost an order of magnitude more. The next city over has hundreds of cases, but they also have a meat packing plant where most of these are (in addition to their own correctional facilities and one or more federal ones).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The implication of the title, that rural cities in general have overtaken NYC isn't necessarily backed up by the data, unless it can be shown to be a pattern in a huge number of rural cities, such the the combined population of those reaches a level of statistical significance. The data in the NYT article also shows more rural cities that have lower case rates than NYC.

The more likely scenario is that these rural cities with higher case rates than NYC represent their own individual outbreaks of the pandemic. That might become more of a pattern, especially as shelter-in-place restrictions are increasingly lifted, but it's too early to make that prediction.

<comment><USER5> The observation actually perfectly fits a statistical principle that you're just going to see more extremes (lower and larger per capital cases) in smaller populations because probability.

<comment><USER4> I'd cast just as much doubt on stats showing low cases/1000 in small cities and towns and subsequent predictions that small towns won't be affected.

I don't think we have enough data in those places to know the patterns either way, especially since the situation is changed daily. The dynamics of this disease aren't well understood enough. Earlier it was thought that the heat of the southern hemisphere was protecting it, but now Latin America is seeing a large rise in cases.

EDIT: removed my comment about low sample size and high variance, since the case rate is just a about cases/100 people, not based on a sampling procedure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> j-c-hewitt Shouldn't the headline say "Three Small Cities..." because it implies that "rural cities" as a category have overtaken New York City in per capita Covid-19 cases, which is false.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure this is meaningful. Marion Ohio, for example, has 36,837 people (66,000 people in the county). The whole county has had 23 deaths. That works out to 35-62 deaths per 100,000 (depending on how many were in the city versus the rest of the county). NYC is at 205 deaths per 100,000.

<comment><USER7> It maybe due to NY's policy at the start of the outbreak, which put recovering Covid patients in nursing homes. It probably spiked their death count without causing a corresponding spike in cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Direct anchor link to the NYT source data table: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/upshot/five-w...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/upshot/five- ways-to-monitor-coronavirus-outbreak-us.html#cumulative)

<comment><USER9> >Our essential coronavirus coverage is free. Create an account or log in to keep reading. No subscription required.

Then why can't I close the dialog box asking me to sign up and view the reported data?

<comment><USER10> You don't have to subscribe but you do have to sign up. It doesn't cost any money to make an account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rural Cities is an oxymoron. If it's a city, by definition, it's not rural.

You could say 'smaller cities' or any number of other things.

</comment><comment><USER12> TLDR: _Three_ rural cities.

Given some basic assumptions about the distribution of case rates, it's not at all surprising that a few cities from that fairly large set happen to exceed NYC.

Nothing to see here.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. How can a media outlet can extrapolate this into the title is incredible to me.

Probably why the label that gets thrown around of "fake media" is so sticky

<comment><USER14> Here's another beauty: [https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1265636238255669252?s...](https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1265636238255669252?s=20)

<comment><USER12> Good grief. I bet the number of murders in NYC dropped more than in Paducah during all this as well. Let's hear it for New York! :-P

Particularly shameful coming from Pew, who I think of as one of the last fairly neutral sources.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sony Is Said to Cut PS5 Target by 4M Due to Chip Woes - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-15/sony-is-said-to-cut-ps5-forecast-by-4-million-due-to-chip-woes <comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious whether the chip woes also applied for Xbox Series X that uses basically same APU technology.</comment>


The US Government Is Not A Person - <AUTHOR> http://zachweinberg.tumblr.com/post/16076298468/the-us-government-is-not-a-person-and-why-government <comment><USER2> Quoting from the OP:

 _The US government only has to make sure that the US debt growth rate doesn't exceed the growth rate of our tax revenue._

At what rate is the government debt currently climbing? Hint: _hugely_ faster than our tax revenue.

Also, this ignores the fact that tax revenue is effectively limited by government spending, because when the government takes over something, it effectively crowds out the private sector.

 _World War II. Prior to the war, the US economy was in the absolute shitter. When the US decided to go to war, it borrowed money. LOTS of money. ... But the economy didn't collapse due to our debt burden. In fact, the economy grew. A lot. US citizens experienced the biggest rise in income and living standard's in our nation's history._

There are a couple of problems here. First, as _The Road to Serfdom_ tells us, this is easy to do when the entire country's priorities are aligned, as in an existential war. Such an incidence doesn't serve as an instructive example for more normal times.

But more importantly, the OP has the timeline wrong. In fact, at the end of the war, the Keynesians wailed that when the government _stopped_ spending, the economy would wither. But in fact, when the government stopped its wartime borrowing, _that_ is when our economy really soared. It was the end of the war and the end of the war financing blitz that brought the huge prosperity, because private industry was freed from the need to focus on materiel, and to build the products that people wanted instead.

</comment><comment><USER3> Honestly this is pretty straight forward wishful thinking. It certainly isn't Keynes (who believed in paying debts down during upswings). Here is the article's point in his own words...

"The US government only has to make sure that the US debt growth rate doesn't exceed the growth rate of our tax revenue. As long as we take in money faster than we borrow, we can always meet interest obligations and grow faster than we owe money."

Interest is, by definition, paying money for nothing. You received money in the past and are now paying for the privilege of having enjoyed whatever that money bought you back then. But in the present tense Interest is money for nothing.

The author foresees a world where we are constantly paying more and more money and getting nothing in return (because the previous generation enjoyed whatever that money bought them). While our debt continues to rise because we're putting nothing towards the principle and in all likelihood still spending more than we take in.

That doesn't sound like a good future to me.</comment>


Sam Altman on 2017: Merge - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/wordsthatmatter/merge-now-430c6d89d1fe <comment><USER2> To me the most important thing is that we equalize the relationship. Right now as Altman correctly describes we are taking a subservient relationship to attention hacking bots. This is being driven by the ad industry (and governments, etc.) desire to use these bots to control us on behalf of other humans, but it's setting up a situation where soon the AIs can take the place of the advertisers. That's what an "AI takeover" looks like.

We desperately need to educate people about the addictive nature of social media and how it manipulates them. As we've seen with cigarettes and other addictive drugs, people can resist once they understand what's happening. People need to understand that these systems are not harmless. They steal your attention, fragment your mind, and distract you from actually being effective in the real world. They are an attack against your consciousness in much the same way that addictive drugs can be. They can even have real adverse health effects due to the ill health effects of social alienation, elevated cortisol, sleep deprivation, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Best marketing strategy for freelance web designer? - <AUTHOR>

Hi. I am a freelance web designer. My portfolio is at www.madebyargon.com
Currently I offer web design and user interface design services, my hourly rate comes to about $50. Most of my clients are web developers or web-dev agencies.
I am developing a marketing strategy that reimagines my service's four P's(product, price, promotions, place), and I could use some insight.
What kind of design service do you need the most? website design? ui design? iphone app design?
What is most important? aesthetics? usability? speed?
What kind of pricing do you prefer? hourly rate or per project? What is a good price point?
What kind of services would you value the most? unlimited revisions? 24-hour support? fast delivery?
Please let me know how I can improve my services to better serve my customers' needs. Thank you. <comment><USER2> Making 2 threads in under 4 hours on HN about your website/portfolio seems like a pretty good marketing strategy to me.

/s

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a great start. Asking people how they respond to marketing and what you can do better is a huge step in the right direction.

Be slightly cautious with the answers you receive here though. The HackerNews crowd is largely different than the type of people you may be targeting. Many of us would prefer to hack out our own solution than pay a premium to another designer.

To answer your specific questions:

\- quality UX and UI design commands higher rates, but there is likely more volume in logo/web-design and identity creation

\- usability = win

\- i personally prefer per-project pricing, because what i may be able to do in an hour may take someone else five hours, or 15 minutes. it's hard to gauge what an hour of someone else's time and ability is worth

\- revisions, knowing i'll be happy with the end product. communication is key here. i hired someone and hardly heard from them, it was very frustrating</comment>


Project: 10 Ideas A Day, For 6 Months - <AUTHOR> http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2012/09/project-10-ideas-day-for-6-months.html

<comment><USER2> This is an interesting experiment, and please report back in 6 months with what you learned.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I'm really curious to see, is whether or not I can keep generating new ideas after a day or two. I have this sneaky feeling that I have a certain well of potential ideas, inspired by things I've seen, read, learned, done, etc. in my life up to this point, and that that well will be exhausted fairly quickly. And after that, I am guessing it will be painful to come up with new ideas...

But, I'm _hoping_ it turns out that "ideas seed other ideas" and that I'll actually find that doing this leads to an exponential growth of ideas, as ideas mat with other ideas, and new variations and cross-combinations spawn and form and emerge. Anyway, time will tell...

<comment><USER2> Interesting...

Have you thought about what kind of ideas you'll be generating?</comment></comment></comment>


What does the "delay" option on my user page do? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> It lets you delay the visibility of comments for x minutes, so you can edit/reconsider.</comment>


Stratfor Is a Joke and So Is Wikileaks for Taking It Seriously - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/stratfor-is-a-joke-and-so-is-wikileaks-for-taking-it-seriously/253681/ <comment><USER3> What is the difference between Stratfor and the WSJ or Economist? They all are relatively expensive publications that provide information only to subscribers and not the general public. The author seems to be upset that Stratfor was making a lot of money.

Startfor is not the only private intelligence group. _IHS Inc._ [0] owns _Jane's Information Group_ (defense/strategic intelligence) [1] and _iSuppli_ (industrial intelligence). In my opinion Jane's publications and subscriptions are way overpriced.

The book _Jane's All the World's Aircraft (2012)_ costs well over $1300 on _Amazon_ [2]. I doubt there is anything in there that you can't find on Wikipedia (or, if not, a quick Google search). That does not stop every mil/intel office worldwide buying a copy of the latest edition each year. Their customers seem to like having all the latest information in a big heavy book. There is no point in hating on Jane's for providing a product that is demanded by the public.

So Stratfor does marketing to enhance their image and increase their subscriber base, what businesses don't?

I am not interested in subscribing to Stratfor, but I don't hate on them for meeting consumer demand.

[0] <http://www.ihs.com/>

[1] <http://www.janes.com/products/janes/index.aspx>

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Janes-All-Worlds- Aircraft-2011-2012/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Janes-All-Worlds- Aircraft-2011-2012/dp/0710629559/)

 _Edit: Added Links. Clarified thought._

<comment><USER4> This article - besides what was already rightly said that it lacks substance and is full of lame comparisons - is downplaying Stratfor's role and influence on many decision makers in governments and industry.

This seems to be in line with Stratfor's own defense strategy against the Wikileak email publications - make yourself small, discredit your opponent (next step / previously happened already by others), downplay the importance of the information revealed and doubt the accuracy / genuineness of the material - claim that it might have been altered (what nobody but insiders can proof right or wrong).

In general reduce exposure and get it out of the spotlight asap (see Stratfor's press release at: [http://www.prnewswire.com/news- releases/stratfor-statement-o...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news- releases/stratfor-statement-on-wikileaks-140524033.html) )

You can say what you want about "The Atlantic" - but the quality of their journalistic work has always been kept to an high standard at least in previous years. I would be (very) surprised if they don't have a subscription/copy of Stratfor's information services themselves given their interest and coverage of geo-political topics.

If "Stratfor is a joke" so why have they so happily quoted from their analysis material in the past?

<comment><USER5> While Andrew Sullivan was writing his blog under The Atlantic's masthead, he regularly quoted Stratfor. Andrew Sullivan is a tool, was a tool long before he wrote for The Atlantic, and no longer writes for the Atlantic.

Apart from Andrew Sullivan's blog, I found exactly one other instance of Stratfor on The Atlantic (except articles either talking about Stratfor being hacked or articles talking about Stratfor being a joke): in James Fallows' blog, once.

My conclusion is that The Atlantic does not happily quote from Stratfor's "analysis material".

<comment><USER6> A quick Google search confirms your claim, at least for his new blog on The Daily Beast: [https://www.google.com/search?q=stratfor+site:andrewsullivan...](https://www.google.com/search?q=stratfor+site:andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can see why this would seem over-hyped and stupid to someone with experience and contempt for STRATFOR already.

And so far I haven't heard anything worth the "BIG NEWS COMING" hype from wikileaks.

It's still too dismissive of the benefits of the leak. As some commenters point out: maybe the people with no access to anyone, who are the targets of amateurs like STRATFOR would like to know what's going on.

Whatever they are, they are exposed now. Seems irrationally condescending to be so dismissive, it's not in line with the evidence presented. Contempt from a "real reporter" towards Wikileaks? It weakens his argument.

</comment><comment><USER8> Stratfor subscriptions do are _not_ $40k a year. The article was being very misleading on that point, saying that this was what the price was in 2001. Perhaps that was because the subscrition page on Startfor was still down, but when I subscribed, it was something like $200 or so a year --- it was less than the cost of WSJ.

What I get out of Stratfor, and why I read it, is not "secret intelligence information", but _analysis_. It may not be as good as what the CIA has, but that's because it truly doesn't have access to "secret intelligence information". But at least they are trying to make sense of facts! Unlike the New York Times, which acts as a stenographer for the White House (the White House has leaked information from the CIA saying their analysts are sure Iraq had weapons of mass distruction, therefore it must be true) or for politicians (where Arthur Brisbane was caught wondering whether it was OK to label statements form political candidates that were false as not being true in newspaper articles, or whether newspapers should just run the quote), or the Television Evening News, which trot out "retired generals" who are still on the consulting payroll of the Pentagon without disclosing that fact. If I want the party line from the politicos, I know where to get it.

Not that I take Stratfor's conclusions as gospel --- I don't take the Times, the Economist, or other sources as gospel either. But hopefully by reading all of that, I can have a more informed view of the world. Other than satisfying my own curiosity, I have the naive and old fashioned view that being well informed is the responsibility of each and every citizen of a democracy --- and that means getting information and analysis from multiple sources, and then coming to my own conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER9> This article seems a bit heavy on derision and low on content/evidence.

<comment><USER10> The media is about having "angles" these days. Having extreme opinions in order make things interesting. Content is secondary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sorry, but Stratfor are routinely much, much better than everything the standard media delivers as "investigative research" these days, of which there isn't much to begin with. I go to newspaper sites when I want to read a rewritten version of some newswire release.

Also, people are complaining that Stratfor has a paid network of informants? Every serious newspaper should. Instead they have "anonymous government officials" denouncing people as terrorist per government propaganda. See for example <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4492>

<comment><USER5> Well, "anonymous government officials" and people like Anthony Shadid and and Marie Colvin. How many Stratfor people died getting the story out of Syria?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't see it as if Wikileaks were fooled, they have debunked Stratfor, the "money-making scheme". They sell nothing for a fortune, I hope their subscribers will leave them.

<comment><USER13> _I don't see it as if Wikileaks were fooled_

I do - Assange branded this leak as far more momentous and STRATFOR as much more insidious than it is. The "secret cash bribes" are his wording, after all.

I was a corporate subscriber of STRATFOR's. _The Atlantic_ is a bit harsh here, but it's harsh on STRATFOR promoting its brand as a "shadow CIA". That specific complaint is fair.

We never commissioned investigation from them, but I was quite happy with analysis we had them write up for us on how the US was likely to react to various situations. For example, they were the first source to bring it to my attention that for all the wailing about Putin messing with the Russian elections, the "true" winners were the right nationalist parties. CIA intel? No. But potentially worth knowing to judge the region's investment climate stability? Probably.

For deep digging I'd go to Kroll, IGI, Dilligence, etc. If Anonymous and pals could get into _their_ servers I'd be legitimately impressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The very first leaked Stratfor email I looked at just now (see below) seems to have the same level of detail and passionate debate that we Hackernews types get into when we're discussing crypto policy or the design of network protocols.

I've never before read anything from Stratfor, and I was willing to accept the OP's assertion that they slap together public data, but seeing this one email makes me already doubt the OP. Do editors at The Atlantic and The Economist have intricate discussions about Medvedev vs Timoshenko to figure out Putin's actions?

      From: "Marc Lanthemann"
      To: "Alpha List"
      Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 1:48:33 PM
      Subject: [alpha] INSIGHT - UKRAINE - Moscow-Kiev Spat - <USER2>

      CODE: UA111
      PUBLICATION: yes
      ATTRIBUTION: STRATFOR sources in Kiev
      SOURCE DESCRIPTION: A senior pro-western diplomat in Kiev
      SOURCE RELIABILITY: B
      ITEM CREDIBILITY: B
      DISTRIBUTION: Alpha
      HANDLER: Lauren

      Yes, yes, the spat between Kiev and Moscow has been really fun to watch.
      But Yanukovich may be overstepping his bounds with the Kremlin if he keeps
      this up. He has already really ticked off Putina**who didna**t like him to
      begin with.

      You already pretty much know this storya**Putin never wanted Yanukovich in
      power without a counter-balance to keep him in check. Putin knew
      Yanukovich could win on his own, but wanted a super-majority in order to
      solidify the Kremlina**s meddling in Kiev. He wanted that to be
      Timoshenko, not because she is pro-Russian, but that she was the most
      easily bought out of all the top politicians. Of course, this is what got
      her in trouble and arrested.

      But Medvedev has never liked Timoshenko, mainly because she gave him no
      respect in any meeting and would only deal with Putin personally. Medvedev
      made the decision that Timoshenko cana**t be put into power, so he made a
      deal with Putin. Medvedev swore that he would keep Yanukovich in line if
      Putin dropped his support of Timoshenko. Putin agreed in return for being
      the one to draw up the list of new Ukrainians going into power in the SBU,
      military, ministries, etc. Also that Russia would get the base extension
      it had been pushing for.

      So when Timoshenko and Yanukovich showed up in Moscow at the end of 2009,
      the tandem broke the news to Yanukovich privately that they were willing
      to drop support for Timoshenko if he would agree to Putina**s list of
      demands. Yanukovich jumped all over it, naturally.

      Now that Yanukovich is acting out, Putin has snapped the leash on Medvedev
      to fix this. It is kind of a test for Medvedev. This is why the railing
      against Ukraine has come from Medvedev, not Putin. Question is which lever
      will Medvedev pull to get Yanukovich back in line.

      --

      Lauren Goodrich
      Senior Eurasia Analyst
      STRATFOR
      T: 512.744.4311
      F: 512.744.4334
      email@example.com
      www.stratfor.com

<comment><USER5> You may have a point. It is hard to find intricate discussions of Timoshenko and Medvedev. You have to know about news.google.com, and how to spell both of their names.

Seriously, though: remember also, because Stratfor is not a legit journalism outpost, they can spice up their output in ways that e.g. Reuters, The Economist, and Bloomberg can't. Bloomberg can't write "Medvedev has never liked Timoshenko, mainly because she gave him no respect..." without an attributable source. Stratfor, on the other hand, can just make shit like this up, or source from random people who are themselves just making shit up.

<comment><USER11> None of that ever ends up in the actual articles, but you would know that had you read any of them.

And I admire your naive belief in "legit journalism outposts". Knee-deep in two wars and you didn't ever learn why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, the article plays on the "Coca-Cola spying on PETA" email, which is a little pathetic and hardly a smoking gun showing dirty behind-the-scenes tricks. But thats par for the course when it comes to corporate "intelligence" on subculture-based movements like animal rights. People in those movements know that the enemy is spying on them, but often times it seems like the corporate/military interests don't have a clue about anything going on... until something big like the Brandon Darby entrapment scheme comes up.

I would be interested in seeing what information of substance people find in the Stratfor leak, but its not going to be on issues like this.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a horribly-written hit piece.

</comment><comment><USER17> This guy is just missing the point of the leaks as well. Some of which is revealed in these emails about Wikileaks itself <http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releases.html>

</comment><comment><USER18> Hi Everyone, I'm seeing a lot of talk of Anonymous in relation to this leak but there's no mention of them on <http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html> at all that I can find.

Can someone point me to the info that shows they were involved? I may be suffering from internet blindness :-)

EDIT: Never mind, found it :-) must have had a Ctrl-F fail.</comment>


Security in Web service api - <AUTHOR> Hi everybody,
Currently, I'm building a website service which provides API for the native app. And I'm considering some solution for security like base auth and token.
Can you suggest some solution for it ? Thank you so much. <comment><USER2> First, secure (SSL) and verify the certificate on the mobile app. Make sure no MITM can read your response/request.

For auth, my favorite auth is two fold

For API access => Signature based verification, signing each and every request using a known signature algorithm with the secret key (only known to you and the app developer).

For users => Token based authentication (lots of open source solutions out there).

</comment><comment><USER3> Curious what you have considered already.</comment>


Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Investigation of a possible southern arc contrail - <AUTHOR> http://www.weathergraphics.com/malaysia/contrail.shtml

<comment><USER2> Looks like this aligns with the reports of debris found in this region.</comment>


Prediction: Facebook will be the largest social network in the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulallen.net/2007/05/25/prediction-facebook-will-be-the-largest-social-network-in-the-world/ <comment><USER2> At first I was like "Paul Allen loves facebook this much? Damn" Then I realized it wasn't Paul Allen from MS and classified this as more hype.

Social Networks are still very young, Facebook is promising but the game isn't won yet.

<comment><USER3> He had some interesting things to say, but he could do with a few less quotes like this: _"This announcement was at least an 8.0 on the Richter scale."_

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Facebook has 24 million active users (meaning they've used the site in the last 30 days–I like how they aren't overstating numbers like SecondLife) and 50% of them login each day. Mark says the next most active social network is not more than 15%."

However, the internet has several billion users, and 90% of them log on every day (I made those numbers up, but you get the idea). So where is the difference to Facebook? Just because somebody is using Facebook doesn't guarantee that they are using your Facebook plugin. And once there are as many plugins as there are services on the internet as a whole, I don't see an additional advantage for Facebook...

Just playing devils advocate, it just seems to me some people are being blinded by the dollar signs in their eyes. Sure, it would be nice to write a plugin that every facebook users uses, but in general it won't be so easy.

There is probably a bonus for being an early starter now, though.

<comment><USER5> If you look at it just in terms of # of users, of course facebook's offering suffers. But that isn't a great comparison - it's like comparing the # of viewers for The Office (awesome show btw) to the total viewers of all TV channels in existence.

I think the real win is that their api allows your app to take advantage of the connections between facebook's users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Social Networks are like nightclubs, the flavor of the day seems like it will rule forever UNTIL the next hot one comes along 2 years later. Social Networks are not new (geocities, tripod anyone?) . Facebook is going to be hot until this crop of college students graduate, get real jobs and move on to other things.

<comment><USER5> I believe that Mark mentioned (during his keynote speech) that over half of their user base is over 25 yrs old now.

Facebook will probably be hot until something an order of magnitude better comes along, and even then many people will not want to switch (inertia). Add to this the open approach (API + site integration), and it isn't too far a stretch to see them becoming the standard social operating system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well it's a little late for this prediction to very visionary..</comment>


StockSnap.io – Beautiful Free Stock Photos - <AUTHOR> https://stocksnap.io/

<comment><USER2> The last couple of years have seen a marked increase in the number of easily available, free, high-quality stock photos. My favorite of these sites right now is

[http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/stock- up](http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/stock-up)

\-- which is basically a scraper of other stock sites attached to a search engine.

Note that many "free" photos have CC licenses, so do your homework and make sure you follow any attribution rules. Looks like the OP's link has photos that are completely free of attribution requirements.

</comment><comment><USER3> The about page says these photos are curated from the web and submitted by users. How do you ensure that they fall under the Creative Commons CC0 license?

<comment><USER4> We only curate photos from CC0 resources. For both curated and user submitted images, we verify the identity of each author and perform reverse image lookups for each photo to ensure they're not copyrighted.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: US bank that offers Two-Factor Authentication? - <AUTHOR>

Since no customer service rep at any bank I've talked to has any idea what "two-factor" authentication is, I was wondering if anyone in the HN community knew of a US bank that offered it? I'd also be interested in an international bank that both offered two-factor authentication and took US citizens as clients. <comment><USER2> Bank of America has Safepass: [http://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/index.cfm?template=lear...](http://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/index.cfm?template=learn_about_safepass)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that link. I had no idea BoA offered it. Now if only I could convince myself to use Bank of America.

<comment><USER3> "Now if only I could convince myself to use Bank of America"

being their ex-customer for 7 years , I would still say no. You will be better off without them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not a bank, but First Tech Federal CU offers it:

[https://www.firsttechfed.com/eServices/Security/SecurityKey....](https://www.firsttechfed.com/eServices/Security/SecurityKey.aspx?src=esv3)

I can recommend them.

</comment><comment><USER5> HSBC offers two-factor authentication as a paid service. If your account balance is high enough or you are a business, it is offered for free.

<comment><AUTHOR> As far as I can tell, HSBC's Secure Key is not available in the US. Can you provide a link?

<comment><USER5> No, but I have an HSBC RSA dongle in my laptop bag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two-factor authentication is such a pain, It makes it much harder to steal your banking credentials when you sign on using public wifi.</comment>