EFF Is Proud to Stand Beside Techdirt in Its First Amendment Fight for Its Life - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/eff-proud-stand-beside-techdirt-its-first-amendment-fight-its-life <comment><USER2> Techdirt is one of the most deep digging websites I read regularly, with insightful and different takes on privacy and legal issues surrounding the tech industry. It would be sad if a real asshole who THINKS he invented email (he actually built a communication program called "EMAIL" \- had nothing to do with actually inventing what we all consider email).

This is a sad and pathetic attempt to somehow make himself known as the inventor - hopefully the EFF can protect techdirt against such a frivolous claim - and can make sure Shiva Ayyadurai is remembered for all of history as a self aggrandizing idiot who tried to claim he invented email - which is just as preposterous as Al Gore inventing the internet.

<comment><USER3> > which is just as preposterous as Al Gore inventing the internet.

The difference is that Gore never claimed to have invented the internet, that's just a dishonest characterization of his true statements and his actual accomplishments by GOP opponents of his during the 2000 campaign.

Gore had promoted high-speed telecommunications as an important breakthrough since the 1970s and worked for decades to make that vision a reality. He _did_ craft several pieces of legislation with the actual ARPAnet engineers who were inventing the internet to expand public access. He also was responsible for the 'Gore Bill', which is probably the most important piece of legislation tied to the proliferation of the internet. Among other important facets, it funded the research institute at Univ. of Illinois that brought Andressen together with the rest of the eventual Mosaic team that would create Netscape.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks EFF.

I hope this case exposes Ayyadurai for the fraud he is.</comment>


Climate activists plan to use drones to shut down Heathrow Airport next month - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/29/climate-activists-plan-to-use-drones-to-shut-down-heathrow-airport-next-month/ <comment><AUTHOR> At what point in time will activists realize that shutting down roads, runways and railways only elicits rage and diminishes any sympathy that people have for the particular cause at issue? Idiots.

<comment><USER2> [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of- rage...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/) has a nice theory on why they choose high-publicty, low-apparent-value targets.</comment></comment>


I'm an Engineer Who Happens to Be Female in Games - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/im-engineer-who-happens-female-games-jess-loeb <comment><USER2> What gender are you when you're not in games?</comment>


Serena flip-flops: goes Google, then back to Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://www.itwriting.com/blog/2721-serena-flip-flops-goes-google-then-back-to-microsoft.html

<comment><USER2> I was a software developer at Serena when they made the change to Google, which was generally well-received when proposed, and at cutover.

It didn't take long to discover that distribution lists were poorly supported. When we could get them set up, delivery was sketchy. This was probably the #1 early complaint from within my team.

As things progressed, and we started using Google Apps, I personally found that the very flat organization got out of hand when one had lots of documents shared with them.

I don't know whether these or similar complaints factored much into the decision. The decision to go to Google was made under a CEO who was very gung- ho about various cloud computing strategies. The new CEO is focused on returning Serena to core product strategies and increasing sales.

<comment><USER3> Microsoft (obviously) uses Office internally _everywhere._ If you have the money to buy all the little couplings (full version of the Office 2010 suite, 7 Enterprise, Communicator, Communicator compatible VoIP phones, smartphones with Exchange support, etc.) it works very, very well. There's a lot to be said about the cloud, especially for single individuals that move around a lot, but Microsoft has a really enticing offer for businesses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> OK, call me an idiot but I thought this was about Serena Williams getting sponsorship first from Google and then from Microsoft. I didn't know Google had that kind of sponsorship (if you want to play as well as Serena, use Google products would have been the message?) let alone Microsoft. My company used Anna Kournikova and recently Megan Fox, to questionable effect, so I thought, maybe. Duh!

<comment><USER5> sorta off-topic, but might be a valuable lesson in positioning yourself: if Anna Kournikova had never played singles and only played doubles (where she had some success) would she have a better reputation?

<comment><USER6> Anna Kournikova at different points in her career was ranked 8th in singles and 1st in doubles worldwide. She also continues to have a very successful career modeling. It's hard to call her a failure in any aspect of her career.

<comment><USER5> I wasn't. I really think ranking 8th and her doubles career was amazing (consider also who else was active at the time). Most of the female player, if they look any good, model these days. Most have such a short amount of time to make the money. She actually has back problems, and I amazed she does the marathons with the pain.

That being said, she did get beat-up pretty badly by ESPN. Heck, some of the anchors seemed to take pleasure in it (one of the reasons I don't watch them anymore). It just seems, in a lot of people's eyes, ESPN's perception is what they take for reality. How do you fix or prevent this type of thing from happening?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have essentially no experience with Microsoft products, but in order to collaborate with some folks, I recently prepared a MS using google docs. It was a pretty terrible experience, which I never want to repeat. It kept getting confused about where I wanted to put my text, and the font I wanted to use for it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Its kind of amazing to me that no one has figured out an enterprise calendering system on par with exchange. I kind of limp along with Google's caldav but it can totally be hinky across various platforms.

I have to believe there's a YC entrant here.

<comment><USER9> Lets build a solution!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Network effects matter: news at 11</comment>


Indie Game Music Bundle (Pay what you want) - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiemusicbundle.com/

<comment><USER2> Quite a bit disappointed to realize it wasn't a bundle of music licensed so that you could use it in your indie games. I'd happily pay significantly more than $10 for 17 albums of _that_.

<comment><USER3> There are lots of sites that offer the kind of thing you're asking - soundsnap.com is $1/sound, for instance, allowing you to use it royalty free.

I don't think the developers would want the music for their games (e.g. Super Meat Boy) used in other games, especially if they paid for an original composition, because it would dilute their brand.

I don't know what license terms the parties agreed to, though, but it's either up to the developer or the music artist. Either way it would be fairly complicated to bundle - I'm pretty sure the license terms wouldn't be the same for all parties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Been enjoying this since last night. Really surprised at the quality. The C418 "72 Minutes of Fame" is essentially a full, high quality instrumental electronic dance album (some of the tracks are very _Underworld_ ).

<comment><USER5> I just bought it, and I don't see C418 there. What is the name of the game?

edit: Nevermind, it's Minecraft.

<comment><USER6> He meant one of the additional goodies you get when you give more than $10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice, some new music to hack to for the rest of the day. :)

        - $1 - $9.99 gets you 10 albums.
        - $10+ gets you 17 albums.
        - Each album must downloaded separately as a zip file.
        - Four simultaneous downloads allowed, max.
        - I'm averaging ~100KB/s per download.
        - I've seen file sizes between 60MB - 400MB.

</comment><comment><USER8> The marketing leaves me with many questions. I suspect this could be a very successful drive if it answered some of those questions. Here are some that spring to my mind:

What are the stats on what other people have been paying, or am I the only person who is going to go for this? Also, why is it a "holiday sale"? Have you been offering this bundle before? If not, that doesn't make sense. Of course you don't need a reason to have a sale, but currently you aren't marketing your sale. You are just saying "sale". You also basically fix a price in the minds of most customers, 10 albums for $1 and 17 albums for $10. The second looks like bad value against the first. Why even suggest a price? Is there any reason for a limit of $1? Do you trust your customers that little? Or is that the PayPal minimum or something. And what is a "game album"? I've never heard of such a thing before. I don't know if I want to buy such a thing or not. And where can I get a sample? And what is the license on these? Also, a little bit of information on where exactly these game albums come from or what technology was used to create them, or something about their provenance would help. How do we even know that you aren't selling someone else's albums that can be found for free on the web somewhere else? Why are we paying you for them?

<comment><USER9> Hi, zircon here. I'm one of the musicians involved with the Game Music Bundle (Return All Robots! OST, Antigravity). Let me see if I can answer your questions.

1\. We will probably release more detailed stats once the sale is over, but as of earlier today we've sold over 9,000 bundles.

2\. It's a holiday sale because Black Friday through Cyber Monday is a popular time for there to be sales on things, especially digital items.

3\. We have not offered this sale before. To our knowledge, there hasn't been a sale on a collection of game music like this before at all.

4\. We are marketing the sale - not just by encouraging sharing on sites like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter, but also news stories on gaming websites like Kotaku, Joystiq, 1up, RockPaperShotgun, Destructoid, etc.

5\. The deal is indeed 'pay what you want', a very successful model used by the Humble Indie Bundle (all video games), for example, as well as other musicians like Radiohead. It has just never been applied to a group of albums like this, much less game albums.

6\. $1 is the minimum due to bandwidth costs and PayPal fees.

7\. Most of the albums here are soundtracks to independent video games. They were produced by independent musicians not affiliated with any label. That's what we mean by game albums or game soundtracks. Some of the games are quite popular (Minecraft, Super Meat Boy) while others are a bit more obscure (Return All Robots!) As for whether you would want them and how to get a sample, you can listen to all the music streaming in full by clicking on the album of your choice and then previewing some tracks. Thus, you can decide for yourself if you're interested in at least some of the music.

8\. There is no particular license on these. You can listen to them, copy them, send tracks to your friends (though ideally, we would prefer if they got copies too) etc. If you want to use a track from any given album for some kind of commercial project you would of course want to talk to the artist involved with that particular album. Most of us would be cool with any kind of non- commercial usage.

9\. As I mentioned, most of the albums consist of music used in various games. So for example, "Minecraft: Volume Alpha" is music from the game Minecraft. A few of them, like "Imposter Nostalgia" and "Antigravity" are simply original albums that are stylistically similar to electronic video game music. In terms of the technology used to create them, it varies greatly depending on the artist. Most of us have personal websites which you can find on the individual album pages, where we describe who we are and what tools we use.

10\. Every artist involved has some form of social media presence such as Twitter or Facebook, and has posted about this bundle to their friends, fans and followers. Thus you can verify by viewing these official accounts and their posts endorsing the sale. So, the sale is completely legitimate.

<comment><USER10> I would certainly not buy music if I can't listen to it first, so I looked for a way to listen to samples or something and found the same "looks like a play button but really an image" everywhere.

Wondering why someone would put fake "play" button that do nothing at all, apart maybe hurting sales, so I headed to the support page and I was not disappointed to see this <http://i.imgur.com/7M1GH.png>

How can I trust you with my money when your website doesn't even work properly ? Apart maybe from the part I truly dislike about nowadays web a.k.a. "google spy-alytics" and "we'd like to track your every move outside our networks social buttons".

I don't know why your site is broken, maybe it's because it doesn't like debian linux, maybe it doesn't like opera and iceweasel as browsers, maybe it requires a proprietary plugin I don't have, what I know is that I'm now heading to the closest bittorrent tracker to look for this music.

And sorry but as much as I like to support indie games and music, chances are I'm not coming back to give you any money afterwards mostly out of sheer laziness, but also lack of trust in broken website and refusal to support broken websites.

But I just realized that even I wanted, I can't give you my money as I don't have the required paypal or google account (I do have bitcoins though).

<comment><USER11> What a ridiculous diatribe. The site works fine, as do the audio previews.

You're complaining because the site doesn't support iceweasel and bitcoin? I'd wager this isn't the first site you've had those issues with.

<comment><USER10> No, I'm complaining because I'd like themto take my money and it is not possible for me to do so.

And no the site does not work at all on any of the computers (linux, mac and windows) and browsers (opera firefox, iron, rekonq, safari) combination I tried. Didn't work on ipad or smartphone either.

The cause of the problem: it requires adobe flash plugin I dont have and fails to make any mention of it or to provide a fallback alternative.

Not that it would be difficult to provide an alternative way to play those mp3 for which you can find the direct link in the source of the page.

When someone wants to give you money and your website or process prevent them from doing so, the only conclusion is that it is badly thought and designed. But only offering support through flash is plain stupid, how can anyone get in touch to tell them about a problem with the flash plugin when this very plugin is required to get support ? Suddenly email and web form are not good enough ?

<comment><USER11> You're trolling. I know it, you know it, the rest of the readers know it. That's why you've been downvoted. Next time you respond to an article have a think about the issue and how best to communicate your specific problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anyone else notice that Track 76 of the Super Meat Boy soundtrack seems mangled or cut off? It calls itself an extended cut along with two other tracks, but the other two tracks are 3:20 long, whereas the seemingly cut off "Can o' Salt (Ch 3 Light World Extended Cut)" is only 35 seconds and cuts abruptly at a nonsensical point.

I tried mentioning this to the GameMusicBundle Twitter account, but they seemed less than sympathetic and just suggested I contact Danny Baranowsky directly on Twitter. I have done that, but he hasn't responded yet. I just figured there might be other people who noticed the same thing, it would be great if you could mention it too and help me get it fixed.

</comment><comment><USER6> I do not like the limited amounts of "downloads". I see why it's there (people might share links with friends etc.) but it feels a bit like punishing me because of some cheapskates. Problem is, this does not count "downloads", it counts hits on the download link. Accidentally hit cancel in the save file dialog? Too bad, one "download" wasted. Same thing when I tried to get it from my cell phone (which sucks), it did not work, there went another attempt.

I probably could live with say 20 downloads in a month (or some timeframe), but this feels very limiting.

<comment><USER9> We're happy to refresh your count if you run out prematurely. We just have to keep bandwidth costs in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just purchased and look forward to listening but requiring me to only download 4 albums at a time is rather poor.

"Please only download 4 files at a time or you may be disconnected from the file servers."

<comment><USER9> This is primarily an issue with how Amazon S3 works, unfortunately.

<comment><USER14> Have you thought about giving the option to just torrent them? (Like how the HumbleBundle guys do)

<comment><USER13> Yes, would have much preferred a torrent with a passworded .zip or something similar. Would have been faster too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Super Meat Boy soundtrack and the VVVVVV soundtrack? I'm actually more excited about this than the last couple humble bundles I participated in.

<comment><USER6> I remember being very close to buying this exact version of the SMB OST a few months ago - it was I think 30 dollars, just that one. This bundle is a dream come true for me right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 4 albums have been added to the pool. I purchased for over $10 yesterday but I don't seem to be able to get those 4 new ones...anybody have success at this yet?

</comment><comment><USER11> If you buy one indie game soundtrack buy the Machinarium soundtrack. Insanely good as an album in its own right.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm a sucker for these...

</comment><comment><USER16> Bundles, bundles, bundles - I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. I'm actually surprised it took so long.</comment>


Ask HN: Whats the best way to get the initial 500 users? - <AUTHOR>

How do startups get off the ground with very few users? What is required to get the first 500, any advice will be most helpful! :) <comment><USER2> Blood, sweat and tears, lots and lots of tears. Really depends on what you are offering. Focusing on a niche can help get users of a particular kind that might create a good base.</comment>


Show HN: Built this using no-code (Webflow, Airtable, Zapier) - <AUTHOR> https://www.submitjuice.com <comment><USER2> Nice work! Visiting on a mobile device:

Remove the whole header and top branding. It's too small and just adds noise.

Instead, add a fixed hamburger menu.

Branding could be fixed as well but only shown on scroll.

Also, the big emojis take up precious vetical space. Make them inline like the rest of them.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Curated list of 150+ startup directories.

Any helpful feedback & suggestions would be much appreciated :)

<comment><USER3> I don't have a startup to submit (of course, THAT'S the no-code generator site I'd love to see), but the design looks good.

I'm curious about behind the scenes, of course, like the number of "flows/ zaps/ etc" for a given submission. Some testimonials would be nice, IMHO.

Also, I noticed one minor typo, in Step 1: "This will only __takes __a few minutes. "</comment></comment>


FAQ: Being a network admin in Iraq - <AUTHOR> http://packetlife.net/papers/network-admin-in-iraq/

<comment><USER2> I applied for the same job and was told after all it would come out to 115k , something like 80k tax free.

</comment><comment><USER3> I looked up the salary and came up with 25,000 a month, which fits with "impressive salary for a guy my age" (paraphrase). 300K a year?

Also: "A contract employee working overseas generally makes better money than they could in the U.S. (that was Ms. Khan's motivation -- a base salary of $48,000 a year and the chance to make as much as $80,000 with overtime, much of it tax-free)"

[http://enterpriseresilienceblog.typepad.com/enterprise_resil...](http://enterpriseresilienceblog.typepad.com/enterprise_resilience_man/2007/07/outsourcing- the.html)

<comment><USER4> Where did you see the 25k / month figure? I'm intrigued...

<comment><USER3> <http://www.alliraqjobs.com/job-9377.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "...I honestly feel safer out here than I did in Vegas... I also never work outside of the camp's secured perimeter. "

In one line he skewers CNN for portraying Iraq as dangerous, and then another he talks about working within a US military secured perimeter. So which is it?

<comment><USER6> It's safer on the bases than "over the wire", obviously.

If you're hanging out in the slums of Baghdad by yourself, that's another story.

According to <http://www.icasualties.org/oif/Details.aspx> 3 of the last 500 American deaths in Iraq have been on a base. None of them were classified as hostile. Those deaths go back over a year, to Aug/07.

Compare that to your hometown (be it Vegas, Silicon Valley, Cambridge, or Boise), and it probably stacks up favourably.

3 deaths per year is a mortality rate of 2 per 100 000. The rate for the US total is ~900 per 100K, for 15-24 year olds is ~90, and for 24-45 year olds it's about 200.

...I'm just saying, is all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, this was a pretty pointless article.</comment>


Webmonkey.com returns - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmonkey.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> ~8 years ago webmonkey was my first introduction to web development, six months ago I started coding Python and I see their featured tutorial is "Get Started With Python."

On a different note this is the 2nd major development learning resource that has launched in the past two weeks, the first been Google's Doctype (<http://code.google.com/doctype/>)

</comment><comment><USER2> Now if they could just bring back <http://www.suck.com> we'd be rockin'

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, Webmonkey was how I learned HTML. I hope the relaunched site is as good as it used to be-- concise, easy-to-follow tutorials.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes! It's official, the ".com" phenomena is back!

</comment><comment><USER5> Developers, Developers, Developers! <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/19/ballmer_eggs/>

</comment><comment><USER6> This is like if they relaunched the original nintendo...not sure if I'd use it much, but the nostalgia gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling</comment>


Do Professors Matter?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/10/30/katopes

<comment><USER2> The author embraces a noble and historically justifiable view of the university. I wish he were right to do so. Academia does have venerable traditions stretching back to the rituals and prerogatives of medieval guilds of learned men (and women). However, two key changes have hollowed out that tradition: education has turned into job training, and many, many teachers, far from paragons of academic virtue, are overworked wage-slaves.

The first key change is that contemporary students, droves of them, attend university just to get a job. Job skills, as represented by so many facts, can be learned from books, worksheets, online tutorials, and prefab curricula. A good teacher might make it easier to learn the rudiments of compiler design or marketing principles, but is hardly essential.

Not so long ago, students, fewer of them, attended university to study rhetoric and philosophy and the other subjects of the trivium and quadrivium, in order, as they hoped, to become more civilized and humane, or at least to acquire the intellectual trappings of the elite classes. (At some point, of course, such students might take up professional studies in medicine, law, or theology.) Literature and philosophy are not just a set of facts, the way, say, the keywords or design patterns of C++ are. Appreciating literature or living a philosophy, at least doing it well, requires a community of practitioners. There are lone mathematical geniuses (Ramanujan), but rarely a lone genius of literary criticism (Harold Bloom probably spends many hours alone with his books, but he has never existed apart from a sophisticated milieu so far as I know -- not that he's a genius). The acquisition of independent thought, good taste, and even morality must be learned from those who are more adept at them. Such intangible goods represent humans' unsteady and imperfect climb to civilization, and have been handed over from person to person for ages. Books may have been part of the process, but it is humans who humanize humans.

But, I can hear you saying, even the most careerist education tries to nurture independent thought and requires apprenticeship to masters. Nobody can really become an expert at object oriented design without learning from an acknowledged expert -- such design takes experience and taste and sensitivity to nuance, not simple formulas and rote memorization. But really, I would respond, no employer gives a fuck, because a moderate degree of cleverness, ample supply of facts, and ability to research more facts, is more than enough for a new hire. Intellectual sophistication, morality, the dawning of wisdom -- these things don't make money. Philosophy majors suck at following directions.

So the first key change, as I have said, is the careerist rather than humanist emphasis in education.

The second key change is that universities produce way more Ph.D.s than they can employ. Ph.D.s in some disciplines (statistics, molecular biology) can get professional jobs in their field outside of the academy, but Ph.D.s in many other disciplines cannot (Ph.D.s in classics can teach high school or serve french fries -- noble occupations both, but they don't require graduate school). By glutting the labor market with their own graduates, universities can bid down the wages, which they have done and will continue to do.

If students primarily want to learn just the facts (job skillz), and most of their teachers are wage slaves -- overworked and not fully credentialed (no tenure) -- why wouldn't a university contract out curriculum design to for- profit enterprises? If the modern university, heir to hallowed traditions and one-time crucible of civilization, is going to enter its death throes anyway, some savvy entrepreneurs should make a few bucks off it. Otherwise it would be a complete waste.

<comment><USER3> It seems like, on the one hand you are criticizing universities for focusing too much on job skills, and on the other hand for producing graduates that can't get jobs. Isn't there a contradiction?

<comment><USER2> Yes. In fact my whole rant is overblown. Not altogether wrong, but overblown.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is missing one very crucial fact. Universities are not only about teaching. For professors looking for jobs at traditional universities, they are looking for a _research_ position. That is the primary purpose for most faculty. Teaching at these types of institutions is by and large a secondary concern for professors. That is not to say they all take it lightly of course.

In terms of learning, universities have never been about training people for careers, at least historically. We have trade schools for that purpose, where the teachers do not have the same credentials as professors at big universities, but they also do not necessarily need them, as has been pointed out by many.

The point of learning at a big university, is that people on the cutting edge of research in a given field have a moral obligation to pass on their knowledge, and teach new experts in that field. This is for the betterment of our culture as a whole. Where else can you get taught by a researcher on the cutting edge? How many research companies allow such access to their core research personal? Let alone have these personal spend almost half their time educating?

This has been the historical purpose of university teaching. It has never been about teaching students jobs skills, but rather about teaching both _critical thinking_ skills, as well as insight from experts the public may not otherwise have access to.

In recent times, universities have been almost forced to accept that they do train people for jobs, in addition to the theory. This is because of the rush for university education for its value in getting _any_ job, however misplaced. Everyone wants the best for their kids, thus the pressure to go for the top, even though 99% of university students simply want a decent paying job, and are not there to learn anything other than a way to get that.

To summarize, yes, university professors matter. They are not simply teachers, but researchers at the forefront of their respective fields. Access to teachers of this sort is extremely important and cannot be replaced by trade schools.

The question being posed by the original article is more a question of how do we teach trade skills, and what is the level of expertise required for _that_ purpose. Should universities operate trade schools on the side? It is perhaps a necessity, if only because of the social stigma associated with actual trade schools. Many universities already employ non-research faculty, i.e. trade school professors, to teach lower level courses, leaving the specialized courses to those who work in those areas. On the other hand, actual trade schools are seemingly on the rise again. That is not a bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER5> _Fort Hays State University, in Kansas, apparently without consulting its faculty, "sanctions" courses in composition, economics, algebra and accounting offered by a company called StraighterLine which sells the courses for $99! One encouraging outcome of all of this, however, is that students at Fort Hays, apparently showing more sense than the people administering the college, have been questioning the legitimacy of this partnership and wondering how it will impact the value of their degrees._

I can't believe how much irrational hatred has been directed at StraighterLine, a company working so hard to make education more affordable.

Basically what this gentleman and other StraighterLine-bashers are saying is that no one should even try to offer the same educational content at a more affordable price because it would potentially make richer peoples' degree less valuable.

This kind of protectionism is one of many factors stifling innovation in Higher Ed today.

</comment><comment><USER6> Professors certainly matter to students. I had one [award-winning] Art History professor who was very accessible despite teaching popular 1st year classes with hundreds of students. I also had a stats prof from China who could barely speak English...

<comment><USER7> Great professors still matter sure. The problem is that there are so many more resources for learning thanks to the internet. 50 years ago, a bad economics professor was still somewhat acceptable because the alternative was learning nothing about econ. But now, there are dozens of great economics books available for next to nothing on Amazon and dozens of really good econ blogs to follow. A decently motivated student can learn quite a bit from these resources.

A great professor will still raise above the competition and make an impact on their students but the poorer professors are a joke.

<comment><USER8> The Internet's changed the world of education. I can tell, in some of my classes, which of my fellow students were "raised" on the Internet and which weren't. There's a surprisingly large group of people that's stunning professors by understanding the subject matter on a very deep level.

There's also a professor who I doubt knows as much about her subjects as some of her students, or at least isn't teaching like she knows what she's talking about. I think it's very possible nowadays for students to know more about part of a subject than the person that's being paid to teach them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the question shouldn't be "do professors matter?" as much as it should be "do universities matter?"

IF you choose to pursue a university career, then YES, the professor makes a HUGE difference. One of my best professors this semester had to step out for a week to tend to personal issues, and the week he was gone feels like a void in my mind. The content we discussed in lecture went in one ear and out the other. He is what makes that class fun and engaging for me. The same applies to any great professor. Remove them from their classrooms and you'll probably see the students exiting the class at the end of the semester not knowing the material as well as that professor could have helped them to.

On the other hand, self-paced learners who choose to teach themselves and to learn form experience are learning in a different way, and you could argue still that this method benefits greatly from a mentor; someone who can guide them through their learning. In essence, what a professor does. Albeit in a different fashion.

</comment><comment><USER10> This article belongs in the dictionary under the term FUD. It's basically designed to scare people away from any option other than the traditional system iby saying only old school institutions possesses the wisdom to determine what is and is not worth teaching.

Two problems here...

1\. The whole point of accreditation is to make sure every school teaches the basics that students need to earn a degree.

2\. If an institution does a poor job of training students their degree will become devalued. This happened at ITT Tech at one point and it led to them reforming their curriculum and becoming accredited (and honestly there degree still isn't exactly well respected). So we really don't need a council of professors to deliver edicts from on high.

In the end I think this line of thinking is just Higher Education realizing they can't fend the fair market off anymore and doing everything in their power to avoid having to compete.

<comment><USER11> Quite right.

What we should be doing is measuring the output of colleges. This article argues for measuring the inputs, and says anyone with different inputs is inadequate.

It doesn't matter who is responsible for what, as long as the outputs are adequate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm wondering if this is one of those situations where people are expected to take responsibility for these duties but aren't given the power or recognition to do so.

>Over time, the aggregated actions and values of an institution's faculty establish and define the institution's values. Rather than being mere "information delivery systems," as some contemporary observers of higher education seem to think, faculty provide the soul, spirit, character and ethical texture of an institution.</comment>


How to use py2exe and py2app - <AUTHOR> http://warp.byu.edu/site/node/151 <comment><USER2> I have more success with pyinstaller than py2exe because it's not targeted at a particular target platform. There is a complication where you need to configure pyinstaller itself for the target platform and then build the app. I scripted this though and now it builds seamlessly every time I need my app (which uses wxpython as well) to support a new platform.

I found this more practical than having different packaging systems for each platform. With those scripts I can now package even for systems I have zero experience with but which python runs on (e.g. AIX, HPUX, QNX).

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish there was a way to use python to program the iPhone...

<comment><USER4> Write a Python interpreter. :)

<comment><USER5> Not allowed. :(

<comment><USER4> Wait -- what? Seriously? Wow. I wonder what their reasoning is.

<comment><USER6> to avoid apps that look like one thing, then mutate into something altogether different, through scripts it downloaded from the internet.

since apple approves all apps that get into the app store, they don't want apps that substantially change their own nature.

<comment><USER4> So is all data banned? (E.g. files.) Because _any_ data can be used for that purpose.

Can Apple view the Objective-C source code of apps they're about to approve/deny, to see whether you were trying to do something shady like that?

<comment><USER6> no, i don't think "any data" could be used for that purpose. they were thinking of scenarios like this: developer writes app that can be extended substantially with scripts. somebody else writes a script that extends that app into a combination phishing scheme and porn viewer.

and no, apple does not review an app's source code, just the finished binary. a little surprising, because it seems like it would be far easier to detect malicious apps by looking at the source. i guess they decided that would be going a little too far.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The GNU Make Book - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/GNU-Make-Book-John-Graham-Cumming/dp/1593276494/

<comment><USER2> The ebook is a _lot_ cheaper on the No Starch Press site, and DRM free, so if you're looking the ebook, buy it directly from them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just wondering: How does this compare with the GNU Make users manual? Does it cover roughly the same ground or is it more or less deeper?

<comment><USER4> I've read the manual and I'm currently reviewing the book - the book is a lot more in-depth than the user manual and starts further in (chapter 1 drops you right in with environment variables, there's no introduction to make, what it does, GNU Make vs other build systems etc.).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the top review:

> The GNU Make Book is intended for people who already have an understanding > of GNU Make, what it is, and the basics of how and why someone would use it.

So a whole _book_ about the Make tool, and yet it still requires prior understanding of Make?

<comment><USER6> Why would you buy a book on something like GNU Make if you didn't already know what it is and how to (kind of) use it?

<comment><USER7> So that I _can_ learn it. Everyone's gotta start somewhere. Not everyone learns the same way. Some people want a beginning book on a topic.

<comment><USER8> Lots of those already exist. There also exists a need for getting a deeper understanding of the Make tool and its capabilities, and I'm glad that this is trying to fill that void.

<comment><USER7> Indeed they do. But I'm answering "Why would you buy a book on something ... if I don't already know what it is?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't normally complain about what articles get up voted, but this is like 3rd time I see this book on the front page under the time of a month.

Doing a HN search, ([https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22gnu%20make%22&sort=byDate&p...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22gnu%20make%22&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)), it the pattern from jgrahamc look like advertisement when first he submit www, then posting without www a month later, then add a ? the next month.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. Each of jgrahamc's articles he posted was useful and interesting in its own right, and would well qualify as a quality hacker news post. And if he wants to plug his book on his own blog, I'm OK with that.

However, I do think just posting the Amazon link to the book page on here is little more questionable, and might border on just blatant advertising (Unless jgrahamc has moreto add than just "Buy my book"?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Memories... i used make a lot back in the "Desktop days"</comment>


US regulators nab Kickstarter cheat - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33108064

<comment><USER2> "The settlement bars Mr Chevalier from misrepresenting any crowdfunding campaign he is involved with and from withholding refunds. It also imposes a repayment order of $111,793.71 that has been suspended because Mr Chevalier does not have enough money to repay it."

So basically, no punishment whatsoever. (I doubt there's any pending criminal charges)

</comment><comment><USER3> > At the time he also pledged to refund backers

If that wasn't said he would have been free as a bird.

<comment><USER4> Not nesc. if you fail to deliver and fail to spend money on developing the product, you'd still likely be screwed.

However, if he spent $85k on himself [salary+expenses which were essentially just his money] and $35k on development, he'd have been fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9699721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9699721)</comment>


Instagram is down - <AUTHOR> https://instagram.com/ <comment><USER2> I like it when big sites like this go down. Makes me not worry so much about when my sites go down for a few minutes - at least it won't affect millions of people

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, 36 minutes in, still down.

<comment><USER4> Just back up, so that's 44 minutes

<comment><USER5> I imagine that's their availability SLO blown for the year

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Who cares?

</comment><comment><USER7> 5XX Server Error..</comment>


Ask HN: Where to find a list of hashes for copyrighted material? - Fire-Dragon-DoL Due to the recent law the EU signed, any product is required to perform some sort of content filtering of what users upload (assuming the data is available to the public). As such, I need to perform some content filtering, but I can't seem to figure out where I'd go to gather a list of hashes of copyrighted material. Is there any API, a list of hashes or can it be requested to someone?<p>I'm just one software developer and don't represent any company. <comment><AUTHOR> I just don't see how hashing is going to prevent copyright violations when motivated people can make insignificant edits to files to change their hashes, _especially_ on text files (add a random string to the end), images (change the HSL of a single pixel), and music (add an extra space in the ID3 tag). The whole thing seems like a Sisyphean task. Any list of hashes will grow to unmanageable size almost immediately.

<comment><USER2> You'll need to rely on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locality- sensitive_hashing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locality-sensitive_hashing) and fuzzy matching. I've heard Shazam works really well in most cases, although I'm not sure whether they submit the raw recording or just "fingerprints".

Still far from a trivial problem, especially for video.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, interesting. I was unfamiliar with this, and thinking in terms of cryptographic hashes needing to be identical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Sadly law makers aren't technical people, I don't think they have a clue on how to implement such system. Basically only big players can afford the R&D effort.

I think EU should build this as a free online service to which you send a query in some compressed & hashed form and the API would reply whether that piece is protected by copyright or not.

</comment><comment><USER3> Go to thepiratebay.org, download a torrent, look at all the hashes within.

(note that there is basically no way to realistically filter content based on file hashes alone)

<comment> Fire-Dragon-DoL That's problematic though, it's the only reasonable implementation (reasonable as in: don't need to spend an insane amount of money on it) for any startup. Performing video/audio/images or even text comparison it's a business on its own. It sounds weird that it's not possible to get such a list</comment></comment>


Ask HN: From a full-stack developer to pa full-stack marketer - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I consider myself to be a full-stack developer. I confounded a startup and unfortunately we don't have enough funding to hire someone for marketing. Therefore one of the founders (who are all more or less technical) has to work on marketing.
So I'm asking: Is it possible for an engineer to become a marketer? Im sure many of you have been in similar situation. What have you learned? What are some good resources (books, blogs, websites) on the subject?
Thanks <comment><USER2> Some great free marketing resources:

<http://headrush.typepad.com/> (highly recommended)

<http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-resources>

<http://blog.kissmetrics.com/marketing-guides/>

<http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/free_stuff.asp>

<http://www.fogcreek.com/guide/>

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, I'll check them out</comment></comment>


C++0x (upcoming C++ standard, includes lambda functions) - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B0x

<comment><USER2> So the lambda functions are implemented in a way that only really works with templates and you have to explicitly pass scope? I don't really write C++ "natively," but this seems awkward to me, particularly vis-a-vis Apple's implementation of blocks in C. Does it look better to anyone who has a better handle on the feel of idiomatic C++?

<comment><USER3> I've been using them for a while now (gcc has support) and they're not awkward. The ability to specify scope is actually rather nice and most of the time you'll either leave the scope empty with [] or pass everything in by value [=] or reference [&]. The return type of the lambda function is also usually detectable by the compiler so you only need to specify it rarely.

<comment><USER4> To be more specific: the return type of the lambda can be omitted for a lambda whose body is just "return {expression}". The compiler could, if it wanted, always deduce the return type (since implementing type inference would be easy). The fact that it doesn't isn't to make it easy for compilers; it was a design decision of the language: having unspecified return types for complicated pieces of code hurts readability and maintainability.

<comment><USER3> Return types can't always be deduced since they can be ambiguous - imagine an if statement where one branch returns a float and the other returns a double. The desired return type could really be any numeric value since the types can be converted so the return type does need to be specified. Since C++ has overloaded functions the compiler can't just look at the function that the result is being passed into to determine the type either.

<comment><USER4> The solution would be then to do autoconversions as appropriate or return an error.

The compiler already deals with this issue with the ?: operator. It's a readability and maintenance problem there, too. It'd be easy to do; the language designers chose not to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> C++ it's getting ridiculous, just like strange mix becoming a Tower of Babel.

P.S. I've working with C++ for more than 10 years.

<comment><USER3> I thought the same thing when I starting working with the new standard, but I've really grown to enjoy a lot of the new features, specifically the new pointer types, rvalue references, initializer lists, variadic templates, and better support for functional programming via binds and lambdas. C++0x really does fix a lot of things that were broken on awkward previously, while also expanding support for memory and speed constrained systems via things like std::array. For me, this stuff breaths new life into the language.

<comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> does it eliminate header files D: ?

<comment><USER7> I may be in the minority, but I like header files. Interface => Implementation, enforced at the file level. Add Obj-C's #import macro and they even look reasonable!

<comment><USER8> Well, you either have to publish your member variables and their names to the world, or use PIMPL, which is (I think) a bit of a hack. Having partial classes (a la C#) would be nice for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> errr haven't we missed the boat on 0x? My calendar says 2010.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C1X> is the new 'C' draft standard, I think that the C++ guys figured they'd be ready a bit earlier than this. They might name it C++09 to save face.

<comment><USER9> After edit, your comment makes more sense. I have no doubt that they figured they'd be ready earlier than this ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are these lambdas going to be same as blocks on iOS?

<comment><USER8> Not at all. Behind the compiler curtain, they're the same as functors (<http://www.newty.de/fpt/functor.html>)</comment></comment>


The Icy Mountains of Pluto - <AUTHOR> https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-icy-mountains-of-pluto

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9893412](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9893412)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just wondering, why was my submission removed and replaced by an equivalent one wich now has 280+ upvotes ?

Was there anthing wrong with it ?

EDIT: nevermind, by looking at the ids, it seems mine wasn't first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Unlike the icy moons of giant planets, Pluto cannot be heated by > gravitational interactions with a much larger planetary body. Some other > process must be generating the mountainous landscape.

This is really exciting! There goes a theory. Charon seems to be also active, perhaps this suggests they split not so long ago? If that were the case it would be really interesting to know what hit them.</comment>


Apple Wins EU Import Ban on Samsung Galaxy Tab - <AUTHOR> http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_wins_eu_import_ban_on_samsung_galaxy_tab/ <comment><USER2> Believe it or not I think this is a bad thing for Apple — competition leads to innovation, and I think we're still in the early days of this technology. My bet is that Apple fears Android turning into Windows, but since mobile is so consumer centric I think that really gives them a leg up.</comment>


Sheryl Sandberg & Male-Dominated Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_auletta <comment><USER2> _At her Phi Beta Kappa induction, there were separate ceremonies for men and women. At hers, a woman gave a speech called "Feeling Like a Fraud." During the talk, Sandberg looked around the room and saw people nodding. "I thought it was the best speech I'd ever heard," she recalls. "I felt like that my whole life." At every stage of her time in school, Sandberg thought, I really fooled them. There was "zero chance," she concluded, that the men in the other room felt the same._

This is actually very common among successful people. It's called "Impostor Syndrome" and I don't think it affects women more than men. [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Impostor_Synd...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Impostor_Syndrome) (The opposite is the Dunning-Kruger effect, [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dunning%E2%80...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) )

 _Sandberg says she eventually realized that women, unlike men, encountered tradeoffs between success and likability._

I'm not sure if it's exactly the same, but a study posted to HN just yesterday proves that this affects men as well. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2724212>

Also, I don't understand this part: _Sandberg asked Goler to oversee human resources at Facebook. Goler wavered, saying that she didn't think she was qualified. "No man would ever turn down more responsibility," Sandberg admonished her. Goler then said yes._

There are a ton of engineers who don't want to be in management, and have turned down offers of "more responsibility". How could Sandberg not know that, having worked at Google and Facebook?

<comment><USER3> Regarding "No man would ever turn down more responsibility": The conversations reported in stories like this lack the full content and context of the situation. Just because you read sentence A and can think of counter-examples, doesn't mean that the person that reportedly said A doesn't know about the counter-examples.

Since Goler apparently was concerned more about qualification than about "being in management", it makes sense in the context of reports that women underrate themselves to suggest being more assertive.

Also, I've rarely found good engineers who would turn down "more responsibility". They just want it in the areas they want it in (say, a particular area of the code base, standards, product direction), not in areas that others want them to ("management").

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am growing tired of this one item.

Women did not (and still mostly do not) want anything to do with computers. Now x years later they want to reap the same benefits as the nerdy dorky white kid who spent all his youth in front of a monitor.

No sympathy here.

<comment><USER5> Quite so! Women, all acting as a single unified force, have never once done anything with a computer ever.

And all Hispanics are lazy.

And all Irish people drink.

Etc.

The trouble with generalizations is that they stop being useful when you're dealing with individual human beings. It's your business if you want to say absurdly wrong-headed, misogynist things but at least sign your real name to them, huh?

edit: Ah, the good ol' HN No Girls Allowed Brigade. Good luck, travelers.

<comment><USER4> Danilo, technically speaking I am the same camp as the women. In fact I think they are more women in tech holding executive positions than African- Americans, let alone African (which I am). I did not grow up playing with a Commodore 64, all the way up to my first year in university in Dakar (capital of Senegal) I had never heard anyone I knew wanting to become a software engineer. So today I am not going to write or support articles about how we do not have enough black men on the board of leading tech companies.

<comment><USER6> Well, you see, this is where you are wrong. Playing victim is a mechanism that has certainly won its place in today's struggle for power in the Western civilization. Guaranteed results! Even better when you have real disadvantage on your side. Some people have made it into careers, entire new markets, and stable revenue streams. White guilt is a studied sociological phenomena for a reason, after all.

If you refuse to use it, I salute you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a little unnerving to see a woman who was propped up and sponsored by men and given every advantage (yes, after working hard--like many others) say there is no glass ceiling. How would she know when she got to ride in the special elevator to the top?

It's easy to say there's nothing wrong when you've never encountered the problems that most other women have.

<comment><USER8> From what I have read here on HN and elsewhere she's just very, very good. " _Propped up and sponsored by men_ "? Could you elaborate? You're seriously downplaying Sheryl's skills and ethics. And " _the problems that most other women have_ "? Don't let my mother hear that BS, she'd say: " _who the hell is most other women_ "?

The glass ceiling metaphor is too abstract because it makes an underhanded claim to universality. "A glass ceiling for women in tech" is too vague and doesn't advance the discussion.

<comment><USER7> Sure I can elaborate on my "[propping] up and sponsored by men" comment although you questioning that makes me feel like you didn't read the article. That was a consistent theme--people asserting that her attitude about women in business/tech/being under represented was a result of her having a lot of advantages (via men propping her up and sponsoring her) that most women don't have. And I don't know your mother but what I said is hardly BS. I'm sure both she and you know who I mean by "most women" I mean women who make up the vast majority of women in our western society. Women who have to choose between giving their all to their career and having children because unlike Sandberg they don't have nannies or a 50/50 relationship where they can expect their husband to co-parent. Women who aren't mentored by the best of the best and don't have parents who are PhD (dropouts) and Ophthalmologists. I'm not discounting anything she's done--she's remarkable and a brilliant person. But for her to act like other women aren't doing what she's doing because they aren't assertive enough or that the problem lies within their reaction to sexism--give me a break. In the article somebody counters her points on that by saying that Sandberg acts as if this is a meritocracy when it's not--that's spot on.

As for glass ceiling metaphor, why don't you ask Sandberg what she's referring to. I was just referencing what she said "She opposes all forms of affirmative action for women. "If you don't believe there is a glass ceiling, there is no need," she told me."

Oh and as for specifics about being propped up and sponsored by men I'd point to things like this "In January of 1991, Summers became the chief economist at the World Bank, and that spring he recruited Sandberg as a research assistant." I don't care how smart or good you are, without certain connections you're not going to get a research associateship at the world bank.

<comment><USER9> > "In January of 1991, Summers became the chief economist at the World Bank, > and that spring he recruited Sandberg as a research assistant." I don't care > how smart or good you are, without certain connections you're not going to > get a research associateship at the world bank.

TIL The current FB COO worked as a research assistant at the World Bank.

Sometimes I want to blame my parents for being just a pair of middle-aged farmers in an Eastern-European country, when they could have had guys like Summers as their friend and a mansion in Hamptons if they had worked hard enough.</sarcasm>

<comment><USER10> I guess it depends in how you measure those things. A quote I like is: "What one faces in his/her life is destiny. How he/she faces it is personal choice". We are what we make ourselves into. With our last breath we stop fighting for our goals. She is not more or less successful than one fighting to make her monthly wage. She was in a different playground, that's all. If she fought well to get where she is, good for her. If not, well there is not much there for a hacker to admire, is there?

<comment><USER6> His point is that even if you face your destiny in the best possible way (to put it in your terms), if your destiny does not include Harvard professors that move to the World Bank, there won't be any articles in the New Yorker about you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I thought it was an interesting article, but by focusing so heavily on how the career ladder works, I think it missed the point. This article is more about why there are so few female Eric Schmidt's than why there are so few female Mark Zuckerberg's.

And as far as I can tell, the google guys weren't alpha male types charging forward at every stage of the process - they had a lot of self-doubt as well. I'm sure there were mentors, but Sheryl Sandberg is an economics major who was "mentored" by Larry Summers (an impressive guy, to be sure, but this sounds like the career path of someone who earned n impressive severance package after the financial meltdown, not someone who came out of nowhere in the tech world).

I'm not saying that the career ladder described in this article doesn't exist in silicon valley - clearly it does, but probably to a lesser extent than in other industries. In short, this article probably explains more about other industries than silicon valley itself.

</comment><comment><USER12> Part I

It's simple: The article is promoting a grand disaster. It's still more simple: The article has a huge logical gap.

Sandberg does a lot of 'reaching out' to women; she does so much of this that the article can reasonably pose the question:

"Can Sheryl Sandberg upend Silicon Valley's male-dominated culture?"

In particular, as in Sandberg's buffet dinners with lots of women, her commencement speech at Barnard College, her TED talk, she's trying to talk to many women or 'most' women about how to 'do better'.

Then, that's the gap, at least in the article, and maybe also in what she is doing: Right away we can see that her example and thinking as in the article (again, I'm talking about the article here and not necessarily her) just cannot even hope to work for more than 1% of women. For the other 99+%, her example and advice, as in the article, is just somewhat dangerous fantasy nonsense.

For an analogy, not perfect but close enough, the claim is, play as well as Dirk Nowitzki and you, too, can win an NBA championship. Nope: No matter how many people play as well as Dirk Nowitzki, in a given year (on separate teams) at most one will win an NBA championship. So, the fantasy of the article is nonsense.

To move this simple analogy closer to the real situation, only a very tiny fraction of people can have careers at or near the top of hot, leading, very valuable businesses.

Or, no matter what the heck the advice, just CANNOT put more than 1% of the people in the top 1% of the positions. EVER. Again, for the logical gap, the article is suggesting, entertaining its readers, with the fantasy that all women who will "Be like Sheryl" can also be in the top 1% of business jobs. Nope. So, the fantasy of the article is nonsense.

Next, there is a striking conflict right at the surface: She has a nanny at home and a staff at work. So, what about THOSE women, that is, the nanny, no doubt a woman, and the staff, likely well over 50% women? That is, what about their 'work-life balance'? For the children of the nanny, does the nanny have a nanny? For the staff, does each staff member have a staff? Since the answers are likely no, the fantasy of the article is nonsense.

So, net, how many women are setting aside their own 'work-life balance' so that Ms. Sandberg can be such a 'successful woman'?

Then at work, when 'crunch time' comes and she needs to be home with her two children, what does she do? Sure: First, she has a staff. Second, she can delegate. Third, she can rush home and spend 'quality time' with her children while the nanny does the washing, cleaning, cooking, etc. Again, the fantasy of the article is nonsense, fundamentally, for all but a tiny fraction of women.

Next, for 'career advice' for women, the article and her example are nonsense. Here is the blunt, bold, bottom line fact of life about careers in the US now and for some decades: Making your career direction trying to be near the top of a large corporation is a fool's errand. First, unless one gets lucky with stock, such as Ms. Sandberg did at Google, there's actually not much money, from just salary, after taxes, after unreimbursed business expenses, e.g., the clothes, car, nanny, house, buffets, in being in such a position. E.g., her car will be expensive because as soon as it needs maintenance she won't sit there for a few hours in a muffler shop, brake shop, tune-up shop, tire shop, oil change place, etc. and, instead, will just trade in the thing for a new one. Second, such jobs tend not to last very long.

In particular, the article is swooning over the situation that Ms. Sandberg can be a CEO: Sure, just start a lemonade stand and be a CEO. But the article means that she can be hired as a CEO in some large corporation. Well, maybe. Then what? She's just a hired CEO, and that's NOT a very good job because (1) have to spend most of the effort trying to be successful while pleasing both the SEC and Wall Street (keeping down class action stockholder suits, etc.) and (2) actually do not have much real control over the future of the business. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs (after his RETURN to Apple which was nearly dead), Larry Ellison, Fred Smith have control; John Akers, Lou Gerstner, Jeffery Immelt, Carly Florina, didn't or don't. Such jobs tend not to last very long.

The article shows another serious problem: Ms. Sandberg flatly doesn't know what the heck she wants. What she's done is to work hard, be great at memorization, dot i's, cross t's, each day have all the items on her to-do list checked off, do well going without sleep, save time on hair, makeup, exercise, and clothes, all for the goal of getting 'security' in some sense from getting praise, acceptance, and approval from a herd of women and the public from being an 'accomplished woman'.

That's her life's goal, her (P. Tillich) 'ultimate concern' -- 'security' in some sense from getting praise, acceptance, and approval from a herd of women and the public from being an 'accomplished woman'.

She's making two huge mistakes: (1) The point of work is to make money, bring the money home, deposit it in the family checkbook, pay the bills, and get some good financial security for the family. Period. That's IT. Asking for more from work is a fool's errand pursued only by fools. (2) The good things in life are what pursue once have done well enough on financial security. Mostly these good things are the home and family and things close to them. These good things are mostly NOT distant things such as praise, acceptance, and approval from a herd of women and the public.

If I were her husband, then I would conclude that she was a disaster as a wife, mother, and person because she is much more interested in praise, acceptance, and approval from New York City, Boston, etc. than from her own husband and children. Bummer. Super bummer. Super confused, lost, brain-dead bummer.

I've seen such things far too often before: Some of these women are totally beyond belief. In their teens and twenties, they can work harder and go with less sleep than any man could ever hope to approach. They have fantastic rote memories. Their abilities at detail work of dotting i's and crossing t's is astounding, bested only by computers. They can zip through humanities subjects, especially novels, with blinding speed and get A+ on a corresponding test with discussion questions. Their social skills can be somewhat mechanical and analytical (not like 'Miss Congeniality') but far, far better than any man could every hope to understand. There are usually close associations with anxiety, perfectionism, and even obsessive-compulsive disorder. Finally, the thinking is usually quite distant from reality; e.g., they don't see that they are neglecting what is important, their home, for nonsense on the other side of the country. That is, they don't have good life goals and work hard for them; instead they have compulsions, that is, things they do to near exhaustion without knowing why.

Finally, they are not willing to get their happiness from their home and their security from joining with their husband to "take on the world together" and, instead, want to be full of anxiety from feeling persecuted by men, thus, want to compete with men and beat men 'in their own game', etc. Brain-dead.

For all their PBK, etc. accomplishments, they actually are not 'smart' but dumb. I've seen far too many.

<comment><USER12> Part II

Here's some actual good career advice for women: For the big corporations, essentially f'get about those. Instead, nearly all of the US economy is on Main Street. A big advantage here is a geographical barrier to entry: Main Street in Peoria does not compete with Main Street in Paducah.

So, what businesses on Main Street? A good one is to help your husband in such a business. If he drives a taxi, then you can handle the phone calls. If he runs a restaurant, then let him have the back of the house and you handle the front of the house. If he is a lawyer, then you can be the office manager ('COO'). If he is farming 2000 acres, then you can handle the books. If he owns 10 fast food shops, gas stations, convenience stores, pizza shops, etc., then you can help with personnel, staff scheduling, purchasing, leasing, the books, etc.

Else, you can be a CPA, tax lawyer, run a photocopying shop with office supplies, etc. Or there are the two standards -- nursing and K-12 teaching.

These career directions are much more stable than being at the top of a large corporation. Typically you get to put down 'roots' in a community and stay there and not move across the country every few years. Since you and/or your husband own the business, you can't be fired. Since the business meets a solid, continuing need in the economy and is not some strange flash in the pan, your job is stable. Since you have many customers broadly in the economy, you cannot be hurt by just one or a few customers going under and, generally, will do okay unless the whole economy is in the tank. If you are successful, say, grow to 10 McDonald's, then you can do quite well financially, typically better than a large corporation COO. Often you get to bring your children to work and also get them a start in the 'family business'. Such Main Street approaches totally knock the socks off being a big company C-level executive.

Crucial here is for you and your husband to be MARRIED and neither of you neglecting the marriage for something outside -- fast women, slow horses, cheap booze, applause from strangers, status, fame, prestige, saving the whales, oceans, environment, planet, etc.

Finland was a tough little country. They beat the Swedes, the Soviets, and the Nazis. Now Finland is world class in accomplishing the goals of 'feminism'. But, now Finland is losing: Finland is dying. Literally. The Fins are well on the way to being extinct, just as extinct as the Neanderthals. Why? On average, each woman in Finland has only 1.5 children. Finland was able to beat the Swedes, Soviets, and Nazis but is losing to Ms. Sandberg's hero Gloria Steinem, who has no children at all.

Clearly this stuff of woman emphasizing something other than home and family encounters some fundamental 'Darwinian' problems and can't last.

Ms. Sandberg would have women be weak, sick, or dead limbs in the tree: Even if Ms. Sandberg's two children are strong limbs, there are several woman among Ms. Sandberg's nanny and staff who will have a tough time having strong limbs.

So, at present, a large fraction of women of Western European descent are far too eager to strive to crash through glass ceilings and neglect home and family and, thus, are rapidly removing their genes from the gene pool.

We are currently in the period of most rapid change in the gene pool of the last maybe 20,000 years.

Why? Clearly in the past women were strong limbs on the tree whether they really 'wanted' to be or not. Now women have 'options'. In a very few more generations, what will be left are nearly only women who very much want nothing to do with any such 'options'. Whatever changes in the gene pool will be required will have to happen or the whole population of at least Western European descent will, along with Finland, go extinct. Period.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why does Facebook respect my data more than HN? - <AUTHOR> I don't mean for the tone of this submission to be confrontational — I'm a big fan of the HN community and consume much of my news here — but I was recently troubled to learn that HN doesn't let users delete some of their content (most notably, user accounts).
Granted, this isn't a new issue. I see that, according to The Unofficial HN Blog, the solution is to keep your profile anonymous.
Still, HN's treatment of personal data is somewhat surprising, considering that this community is so progressive when it comes to discussing privacy issues. In fact, some of the privacy-related HN posts about Facebook inspired me to delete my personal data from that site.
Why does Facebook seem to be more accommodating than HN when it comes to giving me the freedom to access my own data? <comment><USER3> There's not just one sense of something being someone's data. The comments people make here are part of public conversations with other people, like in a newsgroup. There's a different sense of something being someone's data in a situation like that than there is in, say, Google Docs.

Imagine one of those collaborative drawing programs in which multiple users can make marks and the resulting drawing is the sum of all their marks. Should one of the users be able to come back later and claim that he wanted all the marks he'd made deleted, on the grounds that they were "his content?" I'd argue that someone doing that would be violating an implicit social contract with the other users.

Similarly, if someone wanted all their HN comments deleted, they'd ruin other people's comments by making them incomprehensible. And how far would deletion be expected to go? If user y quotes part of a comment by user x, is that also supposed to be deleted if x wants his comments deleted? It should be if it's "his personal data," right?

We do delete individual comments and submissions when people do something they worry will get them in trouble. That combined with the fact that accounts are anonymous and that users can wipe their profiles seems to me to strike the right balance.

<comment><USER4> > Imagine one of those collaborative drawing programs

However this _isn 't_ a drawing board, this is a message board where people discuss various topics.

I think reddit handles this situation well in that the content isn't deleted but the "name" associated with the content just shows up as "[deleted]".

<comment><USER5> But with reddit, you can also roll through every last comment you ever wrote and delete them (as it should be; you own the copyright to those comments):

Reddit History Wiper [http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/111025](http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/111025)

<comment><USER6> You have granted Reddit a perpetual license to them though, so they can keep them if they want

> you agree that by posting messages, uploading files, inputting data, or > engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Website, you > grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide > license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, enhance, transmit, > distribute, publicly perform, display, or sublicense any such communication > in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) and for any > purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so.

^Reddit copyright policy

<comment><USER5> Reddit still gives you the ability to delete your comments at any time. Hacker News does not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _I don 't mean for the tone of this submission to be confrontational_

Pretty hard to believe considering a title like, "how do I delete my HN data?" would have been more informative as to the post's content and would have made far fewer assumptions, not to mention it would avoid the inherent negative bias you have toward Facebook.

We need to stop promoting passive aggressive content like this. The author easily could have e-mailed site staff before taking up the pitchfork, and we developers know that a feature like account deletion doesn't just appear out of the blue -- it takes time to code. There's no need to paint HN as intentionally disrespectful of our privacy.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps a different title wouldn't have been upvoted sufficiently to get us all reading about and discussing the issue. It strikes me there's a strong element of direct marketing in getting from the New page to the front page. Once you're on the front page, of course, your content speaks for itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I consider HN respectful of my personal data by not asking for it, and respectful of the community by not allowing commenters to alter historical conversations, beyond a short pragmatic time window.

There's a line that needs to be drawn, and no matter where you draw it, you will find some people on one side and some on the other.

HN gives you more choice and freedom than Facebook (or G+), by allowing pseudonymity -- you just can't change your mind later.

Some people get a lot of professional and personal mileage by having their real name (or well-known pseudo) attached to HN content. Others actively avoid that. And a lot of people do both -- some simple analysis on HN comments can demonstrate multifurcation of single legal identities.

</comment><comment><USER10> The common advice for this and many similar issues with hn is to email pg and ask him to delete your account, unban you, or give you a pony. Whether you consider this an acceptable solution is another question.

<comment><USER11> I imagine pg has more pressing matters to deal with. Better email email@example.com instead if you need something deleted. A YCombinator employee confirmed to me recently that this is the address to contact in case you absolutely have to, so it obviously shouldn't be abused.

<comment><USER12> I think there are other admins besides PG. I don't know who they are or how many there are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Uh wait, FB lets you actually delete your stuff? Since when? From what i understand, the best they do is make it invisible to u and to ppl u know.

<comment><USER14> Deletion actually works, and in pretty much the way you'd expect of any site. Graph relationships that touch users are required to be deletable. Once deleted, there _may_ be a record that an item existed and what type it had (post, comment, etc.) but the actual content is gone. Try downloading your data sometime from Account Settings—it's fun to play around with.

<comment><USER13> I haven't played with the downloaded data yet, but I did this experiment once:

1) Copy Url of one of ur pics and save it somewhere.

2) Delete that Picture. (Now it doesn't show up in your photo album)

3) Access through saved link.

When i tried it, the image was still accessible, so FB didn't REALLY delete it. They just told me they did. I dont think it would show up in downloaded data (i am pretty sure they are smart enough), but they still have it. So...

Disclaimer: It maybe that for some optimization stuff, they use a deferred delete mechanism where they REALLY delete it from the system at a later date. But even if the saved link doesn't work, there's the possibility that they just changed the link.

<comment><USER5> Pictures can take weeks to be purged from their CDN, but when deleted, they are removed from the origin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps because it's just not a widely asked for feature. You used to have to email pg if you forgot your password and needed it reset. Are there a large number of people all the sudden clamoring to delete their accounts?

</comment><comment><USER16> > Why does Facebook seem to be more accommodating than HN when it comes to > giving me the freedom to access my own data?

Presumably for the same reason that Eric Lippert gives for why certain nice and intuitive language features aren't implemented in C#: someone has to implement them.

For HN to have Facebook-grade privacy controls and account management, someone would have to write that code.

<comment><USER17> I don't think it would take "Facebook grade" anything to enable deleting or deactivating accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> When you write something and publish it on the public internet, it ceases to be your personal data. Discussion on a public forum becomes part of the public record and you are not entitled to alter it.

If you remember 1984, one of the first things that tells us we are in a dystopia is that Winston's job is to alter and delete from the historical record to suit his employer's purposes. Once you've voluntarily made something public, editing or deleting it is, in a sense, depriving the public of its right to know.

As far as accounts, deleting an account is largely symbolic. You are not entitled to be humored - if you don't want an account anymore, stop using it.

The only personal data HN has is your email address, which is optional - <USER2> are free to remove it from your account at any time.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd say: they don't respect your data more here's why:

You have no personal data stored in your account settings.

Some stuff you post on FB is supposed to be private, HN post are all public. Because they are public, they probably have been replicated quite a few times on internet archives.

Unlike FB, HN has no tracking tools (well not on the client side anyway), unlike FB which tries to track you everywhere on the internet.

Deleting your account is cumbersome to implement: how to deal with your comments, and would these need to be deleted too ?

</comment><comment><USER20> The simple answer is that this perceived benevolence is forced upon Facebook anyhow, having a substantial presence in the EU and being subject to data privacy laws there. On the pg side of things I can only assume the chilling effect on conversation works as intended.

</comment><comment><USER21> If you want to post something anonymously, at least HN doesn't force you to use your real name so what is the problem?

Sure, you might want to delete something after x months. But you can't delete it from the internet. Think about Google Cache, Archive.org etc...

</comment><comment><USER22> It's generally a good practice to not put things on the internet that you don't want to be on the internet.

Follow that, and you'll find that the inability to delete an entire account is not a problem you need ever face.

</comment><comment><USER23> Another thing I'd love to have while we are discussing data would be a way to download all of my own comments. I guess I could scrape the threads page, but an API would obviously be nicer.

<comment><USER24> [https://www.hnsearch.com/api](https://www.hnsearch.com/api)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> There's a real conflict here between the expectations of individuals and the expectations of the group.

The individuals are usually told via user agreements that the content is theirs, and that they own their comments and data and are personally liable for the content of them. That is... if you libel someone, this is your problem.

And the group expects that once a collaborative work has been created (a conversation), that the work will stand in it's original form. And that implies that when others post a comment within the context of some greater conversation, that the context for their comment is preserved.

Therein is the conflict. If an individual deletes (physically removes) their data (we did tell them it was theirs), the collaborative work is affected and the context of everyone else's contributions is changed.

To resolve this nearly all fora work on the basis that you can nuke your account but not your comments. And if you do nuke comments, that you can only nuke a subset of them and that a marker will be left to indicate that a comment once existed.

This works about as well as you imagine, it pleases no-one fully and everyone just a little.

The alternative that is also taken by some fora is to have your contributions licensed in such a way that the operator of the site has a perpetual right to reproduce the content. Great... the group gets their value, but you've lost control of your content whilst still being liable for it.

And who is liable for a comment that now shows up with a [deleted] author? Likely as not, it's the site operator.

Everything on comments is just a shade of grey in this conflict zone.

When it comes to accounts. I fully agree with you. The account isn't a collaborative work, and it is solely your work.

The vast majority of fora allow account deletion by policy, but the software tends to not have caught up with the policy. Meaning you have to email the site owner and ask for deletion. On the sites I run (mostly vBulletin, some XenForo, a few Vanilla) I do deletions within a week or two of being notified. As the software doesn't support undeletion I tend to warn people and give a cooling-off period until a confirmation from the person is received to acknowledge it's an irreversible action.

I'm rambling... gist is: deletion of comments would affect the collaborative work that is the essence of a forum and should be managed with extreme caution by the site owner and attempt to leave things in context. Deletion of user profiles has no such impact and should be honoured, but unfortunately the buttons to achieve this tend not to be built into the underlying software.

And on a final note, I think systems that support aliases should be allow people to rename themselves too. But that's an even less-supported thing than profile deletion.

Forum software sucks, but it's not all the fault of software most of it comes from the social stuff surrounding a collaborative work.

</comment><comment><USER26> i expect everyone to abuse my data to the maximum extent possible in their own best interest.

judging from the general tone around here most people take a much more naive approach.

just learn to know better and get on with it...</comment>


The Trucker Hats of iPhone Apps - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/05/08/the-trucker-hats-of-iphone-apps/ <comment><USER2> "There is a sucker born every minute".</comment>


500 Startups Live Stream Demo Day - <AUTHOR> http://www.livestream.com/500startups

<comment><USER2> Demoday is going great, dont miss the 2nd half!

<comment><USER3> when does the 2nd half start??

Does livestream show a schedule of the event?? I can't seem to find start times anywhere.

<comment><USER4> 2nd half starts at 5pm PST.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: FPV Drone/Quadcopter Racing League - <AUTHOR> https://fpvracing.tv

<comment><USER2> It's going to get so exciting when we can mix VR and the real world. Racing is a bit boring though, I hope more interesting games arise.

<comment><USER3> Why is racing boring?</comment></comment>


99% of the Microbes in Our Own Bodies Are Still a Total Mystery to Science - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencealert.com/more-than-99-percent-of-the-microbes-inside-us-are-unknown-to-science <comment><AUTHOR> " a family member developed a stress fracture in the pelvic area – an unusual place for one so young. She was a long distance runner and the specialists simply concluded it was from running. However the MRI showed osteopenia. When doing our own research we found that those with gluten intolerance or with gluten allergies often develop osteopenia. Indeed the relative was soon diagnosed with this food allergy and has since been able to restore her bone health. Even though she ate mostly organic and unprocessed foods, the gluten allergy interfered with her ability to absorb and utilize many essential nutrients."

[https://www.enhancedvision.com/low-vision-tips/what-does- dig...](https://www.enhancedvision.com/low-vision-tips/what-does-digestion- have-to-do-with-your-eyes-part-1.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> The "vast majority" were proteobacteria. I'm not exactly sure what 99% means - there is a pretty darn good likelihood that they found some new strains, but not completely new phyla or anything special.

Though, honestly, if you just go around sequencing dirt you can find that much biodiversity. Bit of an exaggerated headline.

<comment><AUTHOR> The newsworthy event is these unknown microbes were located inside our body, not in sequencing dirt, and most of them doesn't match existing genetic databases.

From the article: "Given the fact it's becoming increasingly clear that the microbes within our bodies – especially our gut bacteria – can play a crucial role in regulating our emotions[0], immune system[1], and even our brains[2], it's important that we begin to properly understand exactly which tiny creatures live inside us."

[0] [https://www.sciencealert.com/new-findings-suggest-human- emot...](https://www.sciencealert.com/new-findings-suggest-human-emotions- really-are-affected-by-gut-bacteria)

[1] [https://www.sciencealert.com/another-study-just-linked- chron...](https://www.sciencealert.com/another-study-just-linked-chronic- fatigue-syndrome-to-gut-bacteria)

[2] [https://www.sciencealert.com/cortisol-could-be-how-gut- bacte...](https://www.sciencealert.com/cortisol-could-be-how-gut-bacteria- communicates-with-the-brain)

also search on Google: "gut health and eyesight"</comment></comment>


Strictly Tagged Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://arrdem.com/2015/08/03/Strictly-Tagged-Clojure-Core <comment><USER2> > While statically typed, Clojure is an aggressively dynamically checked > language.

Not sure what that means, thought Clojure was a dynamically typed language with optional static types (via Clojure.Typed). If it were statically typed then it would not blow up at _run time_ when you, for example, mke a typo.

Personally I find Clojure.Typed code far more readable, not to mention the added safety/performance. Any chance that will become the default? A statically typed Clojure + ClojureScript would be pretty compelling ;-)

<comment><USER3> > not to mention the added safety/performance

I believe core.typed has no effect -- neither positive nor negative -- on performance. AFAIK, it doesn't affect code generation in any way.

<comment><USER2> > I believe core.typed has no effect -- neither positive nor negative -- on > performance

Interesting, assumed otherwise. Groovy, another dynamic language with optional static typing, does benefit performance-wise when electing to use the `@CompileStatic` annotation on applicable code blocks.

A Clojure.Typed with performance improvements would certainly benefit projects like Storm. Probably a ton of work involved though, otherwise it would have been done already.

<comment><USER4> There's two typing systems here: core.typed which is an interesting research project which has its own type system and a focus on program correctness, and Clojure's own type annotations, which use Java's type system and affect performance. The article is about improving the latter.

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER5> Groovy also has two such typing systems. Type tagging, which has been present since Groovy 1.x, causes runtime type checks and actually slows down the code. Developers would use Java if they needed compile-time typing, say, for performance.

Since Groovy 2, however, the `@CompileStatic` annotation has been available. It's not being used much, probably because people using Groovy just use it for scripting, e.g. testing Java code or in Gradle build scripts. Because only one programmer built it, many developers are concerned about residual bugs, and just use Java or Scala instead.

<comment><USER2> That's crazy if what you say is true in your July 14th post [1]. I left in 2010, what a mess the project has become o_O

[http://gavingroovygrover.tumblr.com/](http://gavingroovygrover.tumblr.com/)

<comment><USER5> You can reference that blog entry directly, i.e. [http://gavingroovygrover.tumblr.com/post/124058010761/groovy...](http://gavingroovygrover.tumblr.com/post/124058010761/groovys- manifesto-the-struggle-continues)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/facebook-emotional-support-groups/572941/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Not an emotional support group but i joined a facebook group for people in my occupation a while back and it's probably been the the most i've used facebook since I made my account years and years ago.

It's great people there are awesome and friendly. People show off their work, ask for and get lots of support. I've asked for help with different things there and gotten amazing advice from people, i've been able to help people having similar problems I've faced at work and it's just generally great to be able to interact with people all over the world who spend their days doing something very similar to myself.

Though i've also learned just how different it can be doing my work. There's businesses of different sizes, people who specialize in different parts of the business, a lot of different sales people and reps from related industries and just a whole world of things I never really knew about it before joining.

It's the one thing i've found about facebook that makes it more than an address book for family and people i've met and known in my life.</comment>


Medium censoring an article on Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> It currently gets a 410 "article under investigation" notice.
https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894
Article cites data sources of WHO, CDC, etc.  Almost like Medium oversight does not think those sources should be trusted?
I do hope they read it and reverse the block, it is an excellent write-up with extensive sources to back it up. <comment><USER2> On the flip side, there's a thread on Twitter taking apart the article as being very wrong:

[https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1241522140559503360](https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1241522140559503360)

<comment><USER3> Wow! Thank you for sharing!

I thought i knew something until I read this. Now I'm happy to admit my ignorance.

Fantastic tweet thread!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a lot of bad information articles going around, a lot of newsjacking in the guise of a helpful article. The kind of malicious people who do this now SEO well. For a long time, a search for "Is lemon acidic?" would come up that's lemons are an alkaline. And you have people gaming FB's fact check by making a true statement and then attaching a background that trigger's FB's false news image AI, which will post something like "this is fact checked as false" yet still post it fully so it doesn't look like censorship.

So the short of it is that with all the fake and dangerous information going around, the media has been aggressive in filtering content.

So

</comment><comment><USER5> Well it's still up on a lot of other sites, including catholic.com. I just skimmed over it, and it seems more like a political rant than a news article but then again thats what most articles on medium are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting... I did not see much politics when I went through it. Interesting how my mind works...</comment></comment>


Show HN: Personal Digital Will Dissemination with Deadman's Switch - <AUTHOR> http://isjackdeadyet.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Obviously this is just a personal page, but I thought some geeks might like the idea and be interested in rolling their own :)

</comment><comment><USER2> That is one awesome name to have

Edit: Pretty awesome site as well :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Coronamap.it: our small and free contribution to keep community informed - <AUTHOR> Dear HN, my name is Marco Dalle Feste and together with my colleague Daniele Nicassio, I'm an italian software developers smart working since the beginning of our company.
In this times of global crisis, we have decided to find a way to give our modest contribution doing what we do better: we developed and published the first version of our free service to share information about the spreading of COVID-19.
Given the severity and importance of the situation we focus on the reliability of data, and because of that every report we present in the application comes from verified official sources for every different geographic area.
For different reasons we have focused our efforts on Italy as the first central point for our application, at least at this moment: users can indeed use https://coronamap.it to explore the contagion data updated to province (county) level in the italian country, or to national level for the other countries of the world. Our objective for the next days is to improve the granularity of the provided data using national and international sources for the main world countries, which are entering an increasing critical situation.
We care very much about the work we do and for this reason we hope this service will be useful to provide a uniform and clear information about the evolution of the disease.
We are contacting you to kindly ask if you are interested in publishing a story and help spreading awareness to the people in these difficult times.
Best regards, Marco Dalle Feste and Daniele Nicassio <comment><AUTHOR> Here Is the direct link to the map: [https://coronamap.it](https://coronamap.it)</comment>