All the best engineering advice I stole from non-technical people - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bellmar/all-the-best-engineering-advice-i-stole-from-non-technical-people-eb7f90ca2f5f <comment><USER2> > _Effective teams need trust. That's not to say that frameworks for decision > making or metrics tracking are not useful, they are critical — but replacing > trust with process is called bureaucracy._

A thousand times this. Highly effective teams have super high levels of trust and mutual accountability.

The moment you lose trust, you now have to replace trust with some other type of mechanism. This leads to process/bureaucracy.

Trivial example for those that don't "get it": think about why do we need code reviews? If we knew people would write perfect code every time, they would never be needed. However, we hold them because we know that even in our own "best code" we may miss something/forget some detail.

However, think about your own process, at least for me, depending on a feature/the engineer, my code review might be cursory rather than super line by line. The difference? How much I trust that engineers ability in that specific type of code.

But that was a digression, my main point is that hight trust means high speed, low trust causes slow speeds. The more you can build up trust and eliminate/prevent process, the better your organization will be.

For anyone that wants more details on this, I highly recommend the book "The speed of trust" by Stephen Covey.

<comment> Hex-3-En THIS is basically what I feel is the reason why most german software companies are lacking success in international competition... Disclaimer: I'm german, have software engineering degree and hate german conservative company structures not adapting to the 21st century...

<comment><USER3> can you explain a bit more about "German conservative company structures" for us non-Germans?

<comment><USER4> In a nutshell: Germans seem to love bureaucracy, process, and red tape.

[https://www.dw.com/en/germans-and- bureaucracy/a-16446787](https://www.dw.com/en/germans-and- bureaucracy/a-16446787)

<comment><USER5> There is a trade-off.

German society (compared to some others) seems to do much more enforcement of industry-wide and society-wide standardization (e.g. of measurement systems, part compatibility, common procedures, ...), with an expectation that everyone should "follow the rules".

This has the advantage of increasing interoperability and compatibility and making many things more predictable and easier to assess/audit, at the expense of sometimes fixing poor choices and forcing them into contexts where they should be discarded.

* * *

As one example, most of the design features of computer keyboards sold worldwide from the 1980s–1990s were forced to conform to a (not especially well considered, in my opinion) German standard, which was adopted by IBM and then copied by everyone else, and later became the basis of an ISO standard.

Beige or gray color with matte surface texture and dark labels (no colors allowed), cylindrical keytops with primary symbols in one corner to make room for standard German labels, low keyboard height (which did not fit many of the keyswitches from the 1970s), a shape precisely accommodating the standard German key layout, ...

At some point companies started ignoring this standard (e.g. producing black keyboards), and I don't think there was ever enforcement. But we are still stuck with many of those design choices now, a dramatic difference from the extreme diversity of designs from the 1960s and 1970s.

Arguably many of the keyboards of the 1970s were better than almost anything produced at mass scale since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _they have innate understanding that being observed working is more valuable than the results of their work._

I've seen coders who knew this by heart forget this less than 5 years after entering management and become champions of forcing everybody into the office for 8:30 stand-ups and time tracking systems that enforce minute by minute "project accountability".

I don't know exactly how this happens, all I know is its like a damn force of nature. The only thing I've ever seen kill morale and tank projects faster is random periodic layoffs.

<comment><USER7> I know exactly how it happens. Engineering projects take a long time. 90% of the effort lives in the basement where nobody can see it; getting data from some other system, optimizing queries, spinning up the servers... nothing at all user-facing. So to the untrained eye, 90% of the time, programmers are doing nothing. And that 90% can be weeks, months, even years.

I don't think any of this is unique to software engineering, either. You don't just one day decide to build a bridge and show up at the bank of the river with a cement mixer tomorrow. To someone that wants to drive over the river, it looks like no progress is being made on the project. Hence, lots of meetings (delaying the project further) to make sure everyone is working hard enough. (Because there is always "that one guy" who actually isn't doing anything. And it looks the same as someone who is working hard to an outsider.)

As for why we spend money hiring people that don't actually do anything, tracking the progress of other people's work... I think it's just loss aversion in action. If you spend 10% of the day working on timesheets and pay an additional employee to check up on them... you know where your money's going. But if someone just shows up to work and does nothing, then they're stealing from you and must be punished! It is human nature.

I don't know what we did in the past that's different from today. Somehow we got to the moon. But now companies are so bloated that even doing nothing seems like it requires 30,000 employees. I don't have much hope for the future generation of megaprojects. And, you know, we're not really doing them anymore. I wonder what changed. Or maybe looking back at the all the achievements of the entire human race at once makes it difficult to put the present day into perspective.

<comment><USER8> Peter Thiel asked himself the same question. If you subtract screens and style, how do know you're not living in 1973?

I think Yuval Harari was onto something when he said that what guides the vision of a society and thus science spending is ideology, religion and politics.

See medieval churches, the Manhattan Project, the moon landing. I could put a name on it, but better to leave politics out of HN.

<comment><USER9> As someone who kind of remembers 73 in England, the coffee is way better now. Also we had some epic strikes and power cuts back then and a splendid 73% market crash. After decades of relative economic decline we decided to join EEC, the predecessor to the EU after which things recovered economically from the 'sick man or Europe' to the fastest growing economy in Europe until we recently voted to go back to the good old days.

<comment><USER10> Only joining the EEC had little, if anything, to do with the recovery and change of coffee.

You remember a country still suffering from WWII and loss of world leader role (and colonies), in a much poorer global period. For starters, the '70s had a global recession and oil crisis, and many countries were affected, not just England. Have a look at pictures of New York of the same period -- it looks like a third world country [1].

In the 80s and 90s, countries that didn't join the EEC, as well as countries that joined EU much later, had the same economic uplift.

(And of course several countries that did join the ECC/EU had economic decline and crashes, e.g. the P.I.I.G.S).

[1] [https://allthatsinteresting.com/1970s-new-york- photos#8](https://allthatsinteresting.com/1970s-new-york-photos#8)

<comment><USER9> Yeah there were many factors. The UK used to be quite socialist in the 1945-1975 period which was OK for the NHS but many other things like British Leyland didn't work so well.

<comment><USER9> This was quite interesting on the economics [https://voxeu.org/article/britain-s-eu-membership-new- insigh...](https://voxeu.org/article/britain-s-eu-membership-new-insight- economic-history)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The best one I received: "It is easy to like likable people. It is much harder to like people who have flaws. It does not mean you should not do it."

I saw a lot of tech people with the same bias as me: instead of dealing with people who think a bit different or act a bit different, we prefer to isolate and stay in our own world. Dealing with different people is hard but can be really rewarding. The lazy approach of sticking with your own crowd is comfortable but not necessarily the best approach.

And I double down on her "thinking is work too". I think internet makes us very addicted to have a constant flow of information pouring into our brain. We dont want it to stop. Disconnecting and staying with your thoughts is something that used to happen naturally, now it takes some efforts to do it. Yet we absolutely need it

<comment><USER12> Your first point is why I'm quite skeptical of the narrative around "brilliant assholes". Are they really an asshole, or do they just not communicate in the manner you'd prefer?

<comment><USER13> > Your first point is why I'm quite skeptical of the narrative around > "brilliant assholes". Are they really an asshole, or do they just not > communicate in the manner you'd prefer?

As someone who generally enjoys working with the "brilliant asshole," there are two types to look for.

The first is a brilliant engineer who is an asshole in matters unrelated to the task at-hand. I've seen coworkers physically assaulted by this type.

The second is a brilliant engineer who takes no shit when it comes to the task at-hand, which I think is a bit more of the Torvaldian asshole. If you have someone trying to slip in a below-threshold quality solution into place, this person will not let it slide. One of my favorite engineers had a little comic strip tacked to his cube, the punchline was something along the lines of "You're right, let's do it the stupidest fucking way possible because it is easier for you personally."

Regarding the second, I tend to see their frustrations come out when interacting with the "politician," the kind of person who puts on a polite veneer but uses it as a shield. This is the kind of person who will tell you they aren't doing something because they don't feel like it, but when management gets involved starts acting surprised at the accusation while playing into the "brilliant asshole's" known-quantity.

If you see someone at work getting frustrated with another, don't just buy into the "he's an asshole" narrative. Do a little investigative legwork.

<comment><USER14> Often times I get frustrated with the second type you describe because they seem to assume that I have deliberately (or otherwise) chosen to do something suboptimal out of laziness or neglect when often it is simply from not being a subject matter expert myself.

There is a lot to be said for not taking any shit when it comes to getting things right in a project. However, I think that the most brilliant engineer is the one who helps people who make mistakes or are not as smart/experienced as they. Implying the only reason someone would not do "The Right Thing" is because they're bad is a sort of self fulfilling prophecy.

<comment><USER13> That's definitely problematic behavior you're describing, there is a big difference between starting from a place of reason and moving to stern due to repeated behavior and starting with stern. The latter is the "good asshole."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Excellent writing, I really enjoyed the content of the post and the way it's written.

This phrase particularly stood out to me:

> We are stronger by considering the opposite first.

That's something I'm not very good at, but work hard to do. In many situations I have a tendency to assume I'm right, and that as soon as my interlocutor understands my argument, they will see I'm right. "I'm a rational person and I believe X, so if you don't believe X you must be irrational." So I spend lots of time clarifying my argument, and it gets nowhere.

By genuinely spending a larger proportion of my time thinking about others' points of view, I arrive at better solutions.

<comment><USER16> Good old syllogism in defense of ego. (Post hoc ergo propter hoc and reduction fallacy kinda, but really just jumping to conclusions.) "Rationalist" meets hypocrisy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > When I find myself itching to interrupt someone with my thoughts about a > topic I try to ask myself "what am I being asked to be an expert in here?" > Often I realize that in my enthusiasm to show my casual knowledge I'm about > to correct someone that who has devoted a considerable amount of time and > effort into developing their expertise in the topic. I never regret keeping > my mouth shut and letting them speak.

This definitely resonated with me.

<comment><USER18> there is rarely a really good reason to speak. All our meetings would be about 10% of what they are if

\- ppl weren't interrupted

\- stayed on point

\- things weren't repeated more than once

<comment><USER16> That last bit of only valid if minutes are taken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >When I was in a traditional office environment I used to tell my people: If it's 2pm and you've finished your work for the day and you have no meetings, just go home

I've often had this thought - what is the ultimate cost of giving someone a random friday off, not counted against any sort of vacation policy? "Hey, you've been working really hard and the team is better off for the work you've done, take a three or four day weekend". Would that really harm the bottom line? I mean, in a metrics driven environment, if we hit our metrics, then why not spend some time gearing up for the next thing by recharging?

</comment><comment> B-Con > But trust also degrades naturally over time. Italian researchers Cristiano > Castelfranchi and Rino Falcone have a model of trust in which it's > observability not success that is the key factor. Under their theory an > entity that is silently successful can end up seen as less trustworthy than > an entity that visibly fails.

I would believe it.

From what I know, trust is a fickle, and irrational attribute. It places disproportionate value on first hand sensory input, and it isn't nearly a commutative as would seem reasonable.

<comment><USER20> The most trusted client relationships I had in tech consulting where those that had gone through a major foul up (usually a software issue on our side) that was honestly and diligently corrected. Accountability is a big factor in the equation of trust. Finger pointing has the opposite effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Places where no one is sure who owns what, or who is responsible for what > are unlikely to have proper monitoring and much more likely to be two or > three upgrades behind. The seams are where things get lost, sometimes for > years. So if your mandate is security or availability the seams are your > best bet of finding a big pay off.

So true. Sometimes there's a person behind the scenes keeping it all working with bailing wire and elbow grease, but that person is also a huge point of failure.

<comment><USER22> Sometimes the opposite of one person keeping it all together behind the scenes is "diffuse responsibility", where many people are theoretically responsible, and in practice _nobody_ keeps on top of things because they leave it to others, or even finger-point that "someone else" should have done something.

Diffuse is different from distributed.

In distributed responsibility, there is redundancy. Multiple people ensure things operate. This is good.

In diffuse responsibilty, people cancel each other out, so it's worse than having one person.

An office version of the bystander effect, if you will.

This is particularly bad in volunteer organisations, where wishes and reality do not mix well.

Single point of failure is in important thing.

So I've seen people try to convert a SPOF system, where one or two people are keeping the business and systems running, to a diffused responsibility system.

With the result that one or two people still keep the business running... out of exasperated necessity.

But with more complaining by others, because that's not supposed to happen.

If it were complaining by others that more people aren't taking up meaningful responsibility and doing the work, that makes sense to me. But it's usually complaining by others about the people doing the work. And since they are volunteers, that's a shitty position to be in.

Complaints include that they aren't "letting" others do it. Which couldn't be further from the truth.

People keep being asked to help, and keep being individually not very available. Or, worse, available in not really useful way (impractical hours for example, or sessions too short), or on balance unhelpful.

Those few being meaningfully responsible are, however, not "letting" others access critical databases such as personal data, and safety critical systems, without building up a trust reservoir and track record first, and in some cases formalised relationships. And that seems to make would-be volunteers rather grumbly, in a public way.

At least in volunteer organisations, the bottom line is most people avoid work if they think they can rationalise why it shouldn't need to be done, will gut requirements and constraints, if they don't personally like them, and will avoid taking initiatives on things they think are stalled, if they can get away with portraying it as someone else's fault.

In short, they are contradictory, wanting thing to happen, but rarely taking actions that lead to it.

That doesn't match what actually needs to be done, so it falls on the same few shoulders again and again, and usually at crunch times, as those shoulders are criticised if they take action too early.

Then we end up with "hidden single point of failure", which may be worse than the visible kind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Of all the advice articles I've read, most of them are contrite, seemingly obvious and not actionable.

This one was pretty good. Not going to argue it's all gold, but she did a great job of putting some thought into it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice article, but every time someone mentions imposter syndrome it grinds my gears - it always strikes me as a thinly veiled humblebrag.

<comment><USER25> Can you elaborate?

For me imposter syndrome usually reads as "I undervalue my own work/skill"

<comment><USER26> I think the person above you is saying that it sometimes reads as "I cannot believe just how good I really am", or something to that effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> My collection is at [http://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup](http://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup) .. though not exclusively non-engineers, I find it genuinely useful to recalibrate if stuck for fresh perspective.

</comment><comment><USER28> Really enjoyed that!

Minor nitpick though:

> Another thing he used to say a lot was "when you punch someone you need to > pull your arm back, before you launch it forward. If you don't your hit will > be weak."

This is not true.

</comment><comment><USER29> > If it's 2pm and you've finished your work for the day and you have no > meetings, just go home.

It never makes sense to me when people say this. As a Software Engineer, there's always work that can be done. How many people actually have a list of "work for the day"?

<comment><USER30> I generally pick a goal for the day, and then work hard towards it. If I've done it right, I don't have the energy to start another big rock mid day. Best I can do is think about what tomorrow's big rock is going to be, and get myself set up to hit the ground running. That feeling of never-ending work (and thus, work until your brain is toast) is anathema to being maximally productive. It just makes me take longer on each day's big rock so I'm not burning myself out in the long term anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> "To go left, turn right."

I encountered this idea in a different context, and I too thought it was insightful/funny:

(On some divided highways) "Left turn from right lane"

The jughandle would make as good a symbol for a philosophical movement as the yin-yang.

<comment><USER32> A variation is "never replace/remove something if you can't explain what good it does". The classic example is the big code rewrite, where years of bugfixes and nuances get lost in the 'clean' reimplementation.

<comment><USER33> Also, Chesterton's Fence

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "I never regret keeping my mouth shut and letting them speak." love it. even though i like to annoy people with my dumb comments, this is sound advice for sure. :)

<comment><USER35> Asking the "dumb" questions is actually often a good thing.

For one, you learn faster. Secondly, there's a chance someone else was thinking the same question and was too afraid of looking "dumb" to ask it. Just make sure you don't occupy all of their time with questions, especially in a public forum, thereby wasting other peoples' time.

The quote was actually talking more towards speaking up in an attempt to impress the expert with the little bit of knowledge you have in the subject. It's patronizing and they often see right through your front. It is much more effective to let the expert do their thing and for you to learn than trying to impress them with your little bit of subject matter knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Regarding #5 - thinking about a schema is the hardest part! The rest is just busy-work.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's not "curated"?

</comment><comment><USER38> > "People like us make our money in the seams of things" Who said it: a Senior > Official at the National Security Agency (NSA)

I find this sentiment to be terrifying when it comes from the government, let alone the NSA.

Government employees should be worried about nothing except than the efficient and legal discharge of their legal obligations/goals. I hope the wider context of the conversation makes this more innocent than it initially sounds.

<comment><USER39> I read "make our money" to be "earn our salaries", ie their job is primarily involved with the "seams"

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I liked this article and it was nice to think through some of these things in these contexts.

That said, if I was speaking at a big government meeting (where the sign on the door often indicates a classification that is above what you can say on Medium) and found myself quoted in a blog post later I would be pissed.

In future, I would recommend the author take all the names of the organizations out or get permission from the person. The quote would have been just as powerful without the agency name drops in a security context.

<comment><USER41> Mikey Dickerson is a fairly public figure, so in this context I think it's fine.

<comment><USER40> Agreed, and he probably wouldn't mind.

In this case I was talking about name dropping agencies and how they operate. Example: "A Senior NSA Official" in what was likely a classified meeting with DHS officials and state department, and calling out how they were speaking with each other.

I'm not saying making it public is bad for the public overall, but I'm not sure that was the intent (based on the focus and purpose of the article) and generally those kinds of discussions are covered by NDAs and aren't for public record.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Her #1: "Security and reliability are more likely to go wrong in the seams between components".

Cannot confirm for security. Too naive thinking. Security mostly goes wrong in the very core, not at the seams.

One of her next is also a big red flag

> A big part of what I do as an engineering manager is stopping truly > brilliant people from executing on plans that begin with the words "I can > just do this myself in a weekend."

It completely denies the impossibility of doing great work in a team. Someone has do it somewhen. She'll loose the brilliant guy who offered to do it properly, and she'll come up with the typical business solution. Unscalable and unmaintainable.

I stopped reading then. Way too self-congratulating engineer bashing.

<comment><USER43> Is the world not _full_ of great work people have done as teams?

If I look around my lounge room right now, literally everything my eyes can see was put together by, not just a team, but a _company_ (literally a team of teams), and much of it is actually very good and has already lasted for many years without fault.

I challenge you to name one person who has built a thing _on their own_ without anyone else's help.

<comment><USER42> On the contrary the best works were made by 1, max. 2 people. A team helps with testing or docs, but not much else.

Show me a good project made by more than 2. I doubt you'll find any.

<comment><USER44> What's the definition of a good project in your mind? I believe you, and the person you are replying to, are coming at this from two different frames of mind.

Is the quality of the final product all that matters? Is how the people working on the project felt during it a factor?

I'm, for instance, quite happy with the keyboard I am using at the moment. I doubt, very much, that it is the result of the work of a lone individual or a pair. Is your point that the original design might have been drawn by a lone individual, and you view the rest of the work performed by other people as mere augments to that person's vision?

Or does your interjection only apply to software?

<comment><USER42> I also did a lot of other projects. Like building engines or houses or planning cities or doing a movie.

Only in software you have the luxury to do it alone or in a pair. In architecture it sometimes works, in movies rarely (but such things do exist, like Shane Carruth), in engineering very rarely. In architecture or movies we call that phenomenon, many cooks don't make good meals. Or planning by committee. Never give up your project to a committee. Eg. Guido or Larry made a huge mistake.

Compared to those other fields and comparing the results you see excellency mostly with projects made by the fewest amount of people.

In SW its trivial to see. All projects managed by a big team are barely successful and more look like managed towards destruction. All managed still by a good founder do look great. Genetic arguments rarely count here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Color Of Envy And Rooting Against Goliath: Why others are upset with Color - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/25/color-backlash/ <comment><USER2> In all honesty, they have the vision, team, and strategy to justify this 'ridiculous' amount of funding. It seems like people are afraid of someone outsmarting and outhustling everyone else in this already crowded space. A very human thing to feel. I wish them the best and I hope Facebook doesn't end up buying them.

<comment><USER3> Agreed.

It may be human to be envious of Color's success and root against it, but I'd much rather see them succeed if only to validate that large valuations are not always a bad thing and can help startups build something even bigger in rare cases. For example, I doubt Facebook would be as big as it is today without the hype surrounding its ridiculous valuations. The worst thing to come out of this would be if Color fails and scares everybody into thinking we are in a startup bubble again.

<comment><USER2> Well said. We will get to see it all pan out over the next few months and years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If Color really is just a trojan horse for data mining, it's a worse Biblical character than Goliath.</comment>


Netflix refuses CRTC demand to hand over subscriber data - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/netflix-refuses-crtc-demand-to-hand-over-subscriber-data-1.2774921?cmp=rss <comment><USER3> > _Netflix 's kind of late-1990s view of the internet as some unregulatable > space was dragged into the 21st century and was put on notice," said > Carleton University journalism professor Dwayne Winseck_

This bit scares me. The view of an open internet isn't a 'late 1990s' view, it's the view it should always be.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it's unclear.

The CRTC is arguing that Netflix is now a legitimate broadcaster subject to the same laws that govern traditional broadcasters.

Open internet doesn't mean unregulated and lawless.

In fact, we need quite a bit of laws and regulations to ensure an open internet.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure what Canadian content rules the CRTC is trying to enforce, but if it's anything like 5% of content shown must be Canadian I'm not sure how they can enforce that as a content provider where the consumer picks what they want to watch.

Additionally if noone is watching the Canadian shows how does the CRTC determine what % content they require netflix to provide.

<comment><USER6> But with Netflix the consumer doesn't pick the content. They choose a 'channel' they want, just as they would on a normal TV. They don't pay per show, they pay for a curated service and then 'tune in', albeit on demand.

The consumer doesn't choose what's on Netflix, they only choose what they watch. They don't choose what they pay for, they pay for what Netflix chooses. This is the same model as every content provider in Canada, which is why Netflix needs to abide by the same laws.

<comment><USER7> Is the parent comment a sarcasm ?

If not - then it's _completely_ incorrect description of how Netflix works. They have one month for free - so you can check for yourself how exactly it functions, before commenting.

(disclaimer: I'm a happy streaming-only Netflix user for several years, and I do not own a TV, my cable subscription is internet-only).

<comment><USER6> I've used Netflix... You've given no example or explanation whatsoever of how I'm wrong.

<comment><USER8> What are these "channels" of which you speak? I choose specific episodes of specific shows that I want to watch. There are no "channels," no curated collections that just serially stream various episodes of varied shows.

Please explain how a user of Netflix chooses a "channel" and receives the streaming content of said channel without the need to continue to select content to watch.

<comment><USER6> Each show is essentially the same as a channel. BTW, the current incumbents also have Netflix-like services. Which are subject to CRTC rules...

<comment><USER8> The current incumbents are indeed broadcasters - they broadcast on radio frequency spectrum their selection of episodes from a variety of shows. And yes, they have features similar to Netflix. No amount of logic dictates that such features offered by others automatically drags Netflix into the "broadcaster" categorization. Taking such logic further would bring bloggers into the "broadcaster" category should the incumbent broadcasters begin blogging themselves.

Each show is not "essentially the same" as a channel. A channel is a curation of related content (by the curator's definition of 'related.') Obtaining a collection of all episodes of a series and making them available for customers to play on demand is pretty much the opposite of curation, in my opinion.

So I'm still not seeing how Netflix is a broadcaster by any existing definition of the term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >It was also told to hand over information related to the Canadian content it creates or provides to subscribers.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has a mandate to determine whether broadcasters comply with their operating license via a set quota of Canadian-specific content, along with Canadian-content fees. This quote deals with the heart of the matter because Netflix was given an exemption from being classified under the Canadian Broadcasting Act, and one of the conditions to maintain this exemption was that the exempted entity would share Canadian subscriber data.

I don't believe that Netflix needs to release specific subscriber details (e.g. name, number), but would have needed to release anonymized details broken down by province and potentially city. Since Netflix is choosing not to comply _at all_ will make an interesting test of the CRTC's powers (which are typically quite extensive). I wonder how Hulu and other streaming providers are handling this?

A Financial Post article provides a little more detail around this point[1].

[1] [http://business.financialpost.com/2014/09/19/sparks-fly- as-n...](http://business.financialpost.com/2014/09/19/sparks-fly-as-netflix- balks-at-crtcs-call-for-subscriber-numbers/?__lsa=bf24-9ac9)

<comment><USER10> How can Netflix be described as a broadcaster? If I start serving streaming video to Canadians from my home do I suddenly fall under CRTC jurisdiction?

<comment><USER9> That's exactly the issue at hand! To answer your second question first, streaming video over the Internet was at stake in a 1999 decision around the distinction and definitions of the terms "old" vs. "new media"[1][2], resulting in the "exemption" policy for new media that is now being revisited.

Getting to the root of your first question, the CRTC deems that any media delivered to residents of Canada (i.e. on Canadian soil) is within their jurisdiction. I believe most regulatory bodies operate on similar "boundaries" (e.g. United States FCC), other than maritime bodies that need to delineate a 12-mile radius from their coastline to make the distinction between "territorial" vs. "international" waters[3].

EDIT: If you happen to stream content to a private audience, I think you'd be exempt just because you're too small of a target to go after. But if you tried to scale your Canadian streaming operation up, you'll probably run afoul of the CRTC without obtaining either a license or at least applying for an exemption. IANAL.

[1] [http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/1999/PB99-197.htm](http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/1999/PB99-197.htm)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Radio- television_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Radio- television_and_Telecommunications_Commission#Regulation_of_the_Internet)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters)

<comment><USER10> >Getting to the root of your first question, the CRTC deems that any media delivered to residents of Canada (i.e. on Canadian soil) is within their jurisdiction. I believe most regulatory bodies operate on similar "boundaries" (e.g. United States FCC), other than maritime bodies that need to delineate a 12-mile radius from their coastline to make the distinction between "territorial" vs. "international" waters[3].

No. The FCC only has jurisdiction over broadband delivery (very limited, is working to expand on this to ensure better service quality through the country), telephone, and over the air programming through its regulation of the RF spectrum.

What the hell Canada!

<comment><USER11> Well that's not quite true. The FCC enforces rules against cable television (requiring closed captioning, for example) and satellite. I think cable is required to carry all broadcast stations as well.

<comment><USER10> I agree that I missed cable television regulation. Thank you. With regards to satellite, that would fall under their regulation of the RF spectrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Canada has simply relied on supply side regulation of everything too long, while the Canadian market persists in wanting too many things which are not Canadian.

This applies to music, film, TV, aeroplanes, and in the case of Quebec even the spoken language itself.

Canada has to move to demand based thinking where if you want to sell Canadian content you have to have a need-or-wants end market for it, not simply force a quota of it on people that was produced with ever increasingly necessary subsidies thanks to how out of touch with the end market it becomes.

Make Canadian content more attractive to everyone (including Canadians) and the problem would solve itself.

<comment><USER13> Agree in principle, but the fact is that most American content is subsidized in one way or another, and most other countries also subsidize film and TV production. From an economic view I don't like subsidies, but as someone who works in indie film I'm not going to be purist about it if one helps me get paid, it's difficult enough to fund and sell film as it is.

Cultural material is not a simple commodity that you can apply laws of supply and demand to, because cultural products are not economic substitutes for each other. This is one of the few areas where I think some protectionism may be justified, because if you import all your media then it tends to crowd out one's domestic culture, which in extreme cases can lead to social fragmentation. If you don't have any kind of domestic media output then that also limits your country's potential for tourism and inward investment.

I grew up in Ireland and although I was very interested in film from an early age there was very little domestic film or TV production going on; maybe 30-40% of what was on TV came from the UK and >50% came from the US (cheap for programmers to purchase given the tiny size of the market, and for political reasons we did not wish to get too much of our programming from the UK). There was only one TV channel for many years and it was quite demoralizing to realize that how little cultural output of our own there was. Apart from a documentary shot in 1934 by an Irish-American filmmaker, there wasn't a single Irish-produced feature film for nearly _50 years_ , until 1982 (when I was 12), and even that involved an English director. The domestic industry didn't really get going until the early 1990s.

As a kid, I would borrow library books and read magazine articles about film production but even the notion of 'home movies' seemed impossibly remote - <USER2> literally never saw a video or film camera until I moved to London. It didn't occur to me to pursue a career in film as a youth because the domestic industry simply didn't exist. Even with cheap digital technology available today, making a film is quite an expensive undertaking - there's no guarantee that filmmakers will simply bootstrap themselves as the inevitable result of market forces.

<comment><USER14> Or every ethnic group isn't entitled to their own set of TV shows, movies, etc especially if there isn't enough demand to justify it.

I think your way of thinking ties too closely with the failed multiculturalism experiments of the 20th century. Trying to artificially make media fit for various demographics leads to low quality media, tax increases, and ultimately a certain level of isolation.

In the USA in the 70s and 80s, we tried this sort of thing. There was a cola for black people, urban newspapers for the black community, we encouraged them to go to traditionally black colleges, we encouraged them entering traditionally black jobs, staying in traditionally black communities, staying out of the suburbs, etc. Instead of trying to integrate them into the mainstream, we isolated them. It was a disservice. The same thing is happening all over the world, especially with Muslims immigrants. We can see the multicultural mindset causing problems in Europe, especially in the UK and France.

Even if we took your argument on face value, what then? Some kind of quota for Irish directors? So we turn down an English director with great ideas and lots of talent for some Irish director because you feel, as an Irish person, that somehow you can feel his "Irishness" via his directorial decisions? So if he made a sci-fi film about the future on another planet, you'll absorb some level of Irishness from this? That's absurd.

I think its time we put multiculturism down and accept that a certain level of assimilation is normal and healthy. If your entire cultural identity is at risk from a Michael Bay film, well, that sounds like it wasn't too strong to begin with. My parents were immigrants. I feel only a superficial connection to their culture. I don't see why that's so terrible. Their great grandparents came from another culture as well. The idea that we need to protect those from a certain culture from change is highly questionable.

<comment><USER15> This is not about creating content for every ethnic group in Canada. This is just about creating Canadian content for Canadians. It's not about multiculturalism, it's about supporting Canada's homegrown television and film production sectors.

Also, I thought the 70s and 80s were about DE-segregating people. I thought that's what the Freedom Riders went South for.

There is already more than "a certain level of assimilation" going around in Canada, for example. Content laws are there to make sure it doesn't turn to total assimilation.

<comment><USER16> " This is just about creating Canadian content for Canadians."

How about American (not USian) making content for Americans? Or Terran, making content for Terrans? Why this divide?

As someone who lives in Canada, why should I let someone else decides what I'm going to watch?

Why should Québec and New Hampshire be so different? They are geographically close. It would make sense for them to tend to become more and more alike. If anything, those laws are artificially creating different cultures.

It's not 'assimilation', it's living with other people. Do you think of yourself as 'assimilated' if you start playing the same games as one of your friends?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As usual the best reporting of the issue is by Michael Geist:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/michael-geist/crtc- netflix_b_58...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/michael-geist/crtc- netflix_b_5869106.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> > "Netflix's kind of late-1990s view of the internet as some unregulatable > space was dragged into the 21st century and was put on notice," said > Carleton University journalism professor Dwayne Winseck, who characterized > Wright's appearance as "theatre."

Yes, those terrible 90's where a massive industry was born thanks to the internet. An industry that continues to enrich the lives of the entire civilized world while creating tons of wealth. This nightmare must be stopped! Seriously, there may be reasons for a regulated internet, but this particular argument seems silly.

<comment><USER19> Would politicians care about regulatory control if the internet wasn't generating wealth?

<comment><USER20> Wealth, free speech, financial transactions, encryption, communication, broadcasting, new forms of currency, data, spying, politics, public awareness, social networks, file sharing, open exchange of ideas.

So many reasons for the modern, massive welfare state to hyper regulate the Internet. They've resented the freedom it represents almost since the day the Web was born.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is Netfix really a broadcaster? In the cable television industry, sending content to a single subscriber or identified group of subscribers is often called narrowcast.

</comment><comment><USER22> I fear my comment will be lost in the weeds but here goes:

Why exactly does the CRTC need subscriber data? If it's Canadian content they're worried about then maybe they should look at the content not the subscriber?

And hey: I'm a subscriber. Don't I get a say in whether anyone but Netflix gets to have access to it?

I probably wouldn't be so bothered if the CRTC wasn't made up of people who used to work for Bell, Rogers etc… (conflict of interest?)

</comment><comment><USER23> Bewildering. Netflix isn't broadcasting any programming at prearranged times. They should be completely outside CRTC jurisdiction. As a Canadian subscriber, I applaud their guts and hope they keep protecting my privacy.

<comment><USER24> It does not sound to me that Netflix is interested in protecting your privacy. If that happens, well, that is an incidental benefit.

"Wright said Netflix was concerned that private corporate information submitted to the commission might later find its way into the public sphere, which could make the service vulnerable to exploitation by its competitors."

<comment><USER23> But that's the beauty of market competition: those who protect their clients, get loyalty from their clients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does Netflix have a physical presence (servers) in Canada? If not, isn't it the Canadian ISPs who are technically "broadcasting" by allowing their users to stream Netflix' content?

<comment><USER26> That probably wouldn't be a good precedent to set. :P

<comment><USER25> True. I was trying to think like a lawyer. That never ends well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The set quota of Canadian-specific content being required to sell to Canadians seems like a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER28> sounds all very similar to what Netflix found in France. Though since this is not broadcast over the air and user selectable I want to know how Netflix content differs from any other web content?

<comment><USER29> They get paid.

To do business legally in a country, you need to abide by that country's rules. One of Canada's is the "Canadian Content" requirement of broadcasters that says that a certain amount of content being broadcast in Canada to Canadians must also be Canadian.

Whether the rule is dumb or counter-productive is immaterial at this juncture. Rules is rules.

Netflix quacks like a broadcaster so it falls under the rule, no? Not quite. There's a "new media" exemption that says, in return for giving the CRTC, when asked, statistics on the Canadian consumers of your service, you can be exempt from that particular scrutiny.

Netflix was asked. Netflix didn't give the information.

Now we see what the CRTC will do. It has every right to ask for an injunction from the courts to shut down Netflix's Canadian operations. But it doesn't want to, because Canadians like Netflix and bringing this to the courts might just be the opening Netflix needs to strike down the information requirement (allowing it to operate in the clear with no conditions until a new regulatory framework is built and approved).

<comment><USER30> Broadcaster? Not hardly.

If Netflix were a broadcaster then at 8PM local time, everyone watching Netflix would be watching the same show. Assuming that Netflix was only a single channel, anyhow.

But hey, let's suppose that Netflix has not a single channel but say, 1000 channels. That's way, way way more than cable or satellite or anything like that. Okay, but Netflix has nearly 7000 movies and a bunch of TV shows, so it's not a 1000 channel broadcaster.

Let's say that Netflix has one channel for every movie and every show in their collection. That's something like 10000 or more channels (which is way way way more than any other broadcaster in the history of the world has ever offered) and it STILL wouldn't work!

Why not? Because you can start watching a Netflix title WHENEVER you want. But let's be reasonable, let's say that they'll run as many channels as they need so that you never have to wait more than a minute to start streaming. Since most of their titles are movies and a movie is on average around 90 minutes long, that's 10k*90 = 900k channels.

There you have it folks! In order for Netflix to be a "broadcaster" you've got to assume that they're roughly equivalent to a cable company with in excess of 900,000 channels.

If that could be considered "quacking" like something then I quack like a billionare!

<comment><USER31> So you're saying a billionaire should be exempt from e.g. income tax simply due to being a billionaire and expecting them to provide a certain quota of their income to the state would be unreasonable, as they have so much income?

I am not convinced.

<comment><USER30> No, not at all. I don't have anywhere NEAR a billion dollars of net worth, but apparently being within oh say 5 or 6 orders of magnitude is close enough!

Most broadcasters in Canada broadcast on a few channels. The cable companies operate a few hundred, but they make no decisions about the programming of any one particular channel; they're aggregators.

In order to argue that Netflix is a broadcaster you have to fit them into the "channel model" because that's what makes "broadcast" broadcast. On a particular channel only one thing is playing at any one particular time, and it's the same everywhere. So trying to shoehorn Netflix into that model you have to make some crazy assumptions about how their service works (that aren't right) and then you get a channel count approaching or exceeding a million.

That's patently absurd which nicely makes the point that Netflix isn't a broadcaster. Do you know how much bandwidth it takes to broadcast a TV channel? It's 8MHz. 8Mhz * 1mm channels = 8 Terahertz of total bandwidth if they're broadcasting over the air, which according to all folks who are reasonable, is what a broadcast is.

If Netflix is a broadcaster than so is anyone who operates any website which doesn't block Canadian visitors. If they are going to go after Netflix I would appreciate them applying the law evenly and going after literally everyone else on the internet too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Yoink is a hosted mutex platform on Slack - <AUTHOR> https://yoink.xyz/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

We created Yoink internally after many occurrences where one person wanted to use our staging environment, but was unsure if someone else was still using it. Hence, we built a bot we could pester instead of each other.

Since listing it on the Slack app store, we've seen other teams use it as a poor man's version control for binary assets and an inventory management system for mobile test devices.

Yoink is free (as in beer) to use via Slack and we hope it's useful to more teams!</comment>


Opendoor: A Startup Worth Emulating - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2016/opendoor-a-startup-worth-emulating/ <comment><USER2> So how did this pan out? I've only seen them in the news for the layoffs there recently, but did this value proposition end up working out in the fourish years since the article was posted?</comment>


Dear people-who-run-Twitter, whom to follow, whom - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/VictoriaCoren/status/20509320497

<comment><USER2> As a linguist, I can say resolutely that your prescriptivism is basically pounding your fists against the immovable brick wall of change. All types of case are rapidly disappearing from English. It's a continuing trend and has been for hundreds of years. The ambiguity generated is a trade-off people make for a variety of conveniences, let alone to fit in.

The subjunctive mood is basically gone from practiced speech, too. None of it is terribly worth lamenting.

In fact, changing it to "whom" would do nothing more than alienate its large- scale market, who aren't all leather elbow pads and Strunk & White, but rather real people who exercise language outside of the confines of a book report.

Sorry, dude. It's just not worth getting bent out of shape about.

<comment><USER3> The _immovable_ brick wall of _change_? That doesn't sound right...

<comment><USER4> I think that's the point. Good writing often doesn't make sense on a literal level. Apart from this, my favorite example from recently: "and with Kevin Garnett and the newly-signed Jermaine O'Neal, Danny Ainge has just successfully assembled the greatest collection of big men in the history of 2002." [http://freedarko.blogspot.com/2010/08/luke-harangody- boston-...](http://freedarko.blogspot.com/2010/08/luke-harangody-boston-and- gathering.html)

<comment><USER5> Without Shaq's name in there, I had to read the article in order to understand the humor of the quote: the Celtics now have Shaq and Jermaine O'Neal and Kevin Garnett all on one team; in 2002 (when they were near their collective prime), that collection of big men would have been unstoppable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To come back with a predictable response: everyone says "who" even if they mean "whom". Using "whom", even if it is grammatically correct, is perceived to be wrong in most conversational situations, or other informal situations like Twitter.

Anyway, the quick guide: if you would say "him/her", use "whom", and if you would say "he/she", use "who".

"Who is that?" ... "He is the programmer."

"To whom is the message addressed?" ... "It is addressed to him."

He -> Who / Him -> Whom

But who wouldn't say "Who is it addressed to?" You'd sound like the posh bloke from an Ealing Comedy if you used "whom" all the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> You might sound like Inspector Morse; he was repeatedly correcting Lewis. Here in England, "everyone" doesn't say "who" when they mean "whom".

<comment><USER6> What, _that_ Ralph Corderoy, one-time of the PCG? You should be able to work out who I am from my username ;)

Anyway, I can't remember when I last heard someone use "whom" outside of slightly cheesy television series like Morse...

<comment><AUTHOR> Almost certainly that one. Mr Burns, is that you? You've had me accessing bits that hadn't been scrubbed in a long time and have suffered some rot. Have you just arrived at number 63 or just left? There's a Dorset LUG if you're interested.

Morse can be cheesy, but I thought it was a cultural reference that Americans may know. :-)

<comment><USER6> Sent email, rather than doing our correspondence here :] Left Dorset last year, now in Hampshire again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> William Safire said it best:

 _"The best rule for dealing with who vs. whom is this: Whenever whom is required, recast the sentence. This keeps a huge section of the hard disk of your mind available for baseball averages."_

Put this in the "most people don't care" bin along with the subjunctive mood, which I see intelligent people failing to use more often than not.

<comment><USER8> I wish I were in a subjunctive mood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I might be wrong, but it seems to me that the who/whom distinction in North American English has been ignored so much for a long enough period of time to say that ignoring it is now correct. On the other hand, the distinction is still commonly observed in British English, I think. So basically Victoria Coren is asking twitter to rewrite things in her dialect. I guess she's free to ask. And maybe they _should_ do some internationalization...

<comment><USER10> Just because lazy people in North America couldn't be bothered working it out any more doesn't mean Twitter shouldn't set a good example. Ignoring it is not correct, the distinction is correct. It's not a dialect, either, given that it's, uh, the original.

<comment><USER11> Given that there already is an official distinction between "American English" and "British English", I don't think your comment is very correct. It might be just another rule to add (actually remove) in the A.E. schoolbooks.

Languages evolve. If enough people drop "whom" in America, arguing about this change would be like arguing about whether sweets or candy is "correct".

<comment><USER10> This still doesn't make it a dialect though :) Sorry, but it just annoys me to see American English fanatics say how British English is "wrong", or a "dialect" of American English when it was the original base of American English to start with :)

I do agree with you, languages evolve. But that doesn't mean we should just drop grammar altogether. I was a little snappy in my original response, and I apologise for that, but the sentiment is still the same.

<comment><USER12> Saying American English evolved from British English is just as false as the reverse, and just as false as saying humans evolved from monkeys. Both evolved from a common ancestor. British English has changed just as much as American English has since they began to split in the 17-18th centuries.

<comment><USER13> I've heard it said that modern American English is closer to that common ancestor than modern British English.

<comment><USER8> Visit Tangier island in Tidewater Virginia:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidewater_accent>

Also visit the Guineas:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_County,_Virginia#Gui...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_County,_Virginia#Guinea)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Often times proper grammar isn't the best approach from a marketing standpoint. Look at apple's use of, "the funnest _ yet" slogans that they used for a while. Catering to the most commonly used vernacular is generally a better strategy from a marketing perspective.

I'm going out on a limb here, but my bet is that the mistake is on purpose.

<comment><USER15> Depending on your target demographic obviously. If you're aiming for the general market then you're absolutely right, you'll hit more birds with your stones if you talk to people on their level. However, if you're aiming college grads or PhD grads, you're probably going to annoy them if you're letting grammatical errors enter your marketing.

I've closed BBC news articles when there's been a grammatical mistake in the first paragraph. I didn't pay my License Fee in the UK for them to abuse it with bad news.

<comment><USER16> I have to say that the BBC news has more spelling and grammar errors per thousand words than most blogs I read.

... now let me try desperately to bring this back on topic by saying that I think the thread above blaming Britain for grammatical prescriptivism is way off. Strunk and White popularized some prescriptions unknown in the UK (such as not using "which" in the role of "that") and in my thoroughly anecdotal experience Americans spell [by the conventions of the country they're in] significantly better than Brits do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Victoria Coren's had an interesting career. Writer, TV presenter, including _Balderdash and Piffle_ connected to the Oxford English Dictionary, poker player, and porn film maker, though just the once. It's nice to see see someone well known, in the UK at least, show their pedant side. Hopefully, her appearance on news.yc will make twitter take note. :-) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Coren>

</comment><comment><USER17> If the fans of BE want to win these things, they need to work on the Indians, not the Americans. (The US doesn't look to the UK for language lessons. We fight amongst ourselves.) Of course, even winning the "world-wide English" wars may not be enough to influence Americans.

BTW - Does French or German have these problems?

<comment><USER18> I can't speak on the issue of the German language, but France has the Académie Française, whose job it is to standardize the language and approve new changes. They carry no legal clout, but where they go, the french language usually follows.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise#Fu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise#Functions)

<comment><USER19> The "French language" may follow, but the Quebecois sure don't... (so, yes, French has exactly the same issue).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While you're at it, put "following" before the number to distinguish it better from "followers".

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm not convinced that it should be 'whom'. It's a sentence fragment. It's not a subject or an object of a sentence. Replacing 'who' with 'he' or 'him' makes no sense either way.

And lastly: It's not a novel or paper. It's just a quick phrase used artistically. With 'whom' is sounds stuffy and out of place. 'Who' sounds correct in the context, and hits the target audience.

<comment><AUTHOR> You test with "he" versus "him" in the reply to the question, not by replacing "who/whom" in the question itself. So the answer to "whom to follow" is "follow him", not "follow he".

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The same goes for Facebook's blatant abuse of the neuter singular "their" instead of "his/her" -- which really can be resolved most of the time since Facebook usually possess people's genders.

Anyway...

</comment><comment><USER23> It doesn't bother me on an American website. On a British website, I would notice it, but foregoing "whom" is an old American tradition.

<comment><USER16> I wouldn't point this out in a discussion on any other topic (honest), but you mean "forgoing" (going without), not "foregoing" (previous).

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the disambiguation. HN keeps me posting at the weirdest hours of the day for some reason.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How much of a visual learner are you? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I've found that it's difficult for me to process spoken words and translate them into concepts I understand. When asked a question about anything remotely non-trivial, I often struggle with understanding the content of the question until I write the spoken words down. Further, I have a much greater shot at quickly processing and retaining the content if I draw or utilize a visual. I can retain visual concepts for years, while non-visual concepts fade away much sooner.
If a presentation or discussion is accompanied by visuals, I still have trouble. I believe this to be because much of the content, in these contexts, is still verbal. The visuals are used to assist with, rather than fully replace, the spoken word.
My current conclusion is that I am much more of a purely visual learner than most. Does any of the above ring true for others?
If it does, how have you optimized for this learning style?
If not, how does your learning style differ from this? <comment><USER3> I'm not solely a visual learner: I learn best with some sort of hands on activity or by stimulating multiple senses during learning. Lectures, even with visual aids, often are very difficult for me to sit and learn from: Notes aren't generally enough, but I can doodle and take lighter notes retaining more (teachers in school didn't like this all that much). I generally liked writing research papers because I could work with the concepts and things I had read on paper: Working with the words and editing and things like that tended to make a better understanding of the subject. I do this for fun at times - for example, I've been studying Chaos Magick and wound up answering my own questions in writing so i could try understanding (and passed that onto someone with actual knowledge to correct me if I am wrong). Foreign language is all about use and the right input - pronunciation takes me a while to catch, but it is easier if I can hear the word while seeing it written (lots of times), which allows me to better understand syllables and figure out the patterns, with occasional explanations of what the mouth is doing. Seeing + hearing + use. Visual cues I can project or imagine them in front of me, and mentally manipulate it. Sure, the details differ from the real thing, but it still helps.

I used to think I was a visual learner as well - until I realized it was the doodling/notetaking movement that got me to pay attention more than the notes themselves, though I kept up the notetaking habit to a point because it proved useful to refresh my mind later on.

And sometimes I think I just have to make sure to not be bored while learning - note taking or drawing could just let my mind focus on words. In addition, science has debunked this a few times (sorry for not having links) - <USER2> makes me wonder if it isn't more akin to horoscopes... if you think you are a visual learner, it is easy to notice things you've learned well visually and also pick out things that went wrongly that were non-visual: Decide you are something else, and you might see the same pattern - a brain trick more than anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the reply! This helps me think about learning in some new ways.</comment></comment>


23andme goes free for today: DNA testing, disease risk analysis - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2011/04/11/23andme-offers-free-dna-testing-on-sale-today-only/

<comment><USER2> Knowing nothing more than what I've read in articles elsewhere, to someone who's not going to have a child immediately, these kits provide information that is of limited use. For example, they might tell you that you have a 10% higher chance of developing a type of cancer which has an incidence of 1 in 10 (10%). Implying you're now told that you have an 11% chance of getting the cancer than the general population. Mostly, this is just going to get you stressed and not "prepare" you to face the slightly-more-likely cancer.

I suppose this might be useful to figure out potential genetic defects, but as adults, wouldn't most defects have manifested already (I'm speculating here, correct me if I'm wrong).

</comment><comment><USER3> The title is a bit misleading. You get the kit for free if you sign up for their $9/mo "Personal Genome" service.

Its still cheaper than before, but not _free_.

<comment><USER4> Last year it was $99 (I think) and people were all over it. Add in the free interest and this looks like the exact same deal.

<comment><USER3> According to the article, it was $99 last year w/ a $5/mo subscription.

<comment><USER5> It was $99 with no commitment last year on DNA Day. The holiday sale later in the year was $99 with a $5 (per month for 1 year) commitment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> lie.

from $199 to $108.

very different from free.

<comment><USER7> Well, really from $307 to $108, since the $199 requires the $9/month for a year commitment too.

<comment><USER6> either way. not the kind of small letter bait and switch advertisement i expect from a company asking for my family info and DNA samples.</comment></comment></comment>


SpaceX first stage landing failed for Starlink-4 launch - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/f4d8sg/rspacex_starlink4_official_launch_discussion/ <comment><USER2> well it would become noteworthy that their failures make news simply because they had taken the concept of recovering the first stage to the point of people just assuming it was how rocket launches are meant to be.

I remember the first video of one successfully landing after launching and being wowed but when two landed together then it truly felt like science fiction had become reality

<comment><USER3> I watched this live with a friend. We had previously watched a couple of failures, and were almost expecting that one to fail as well. We went out of our minds when the smoke cleared and the booster was upright.

It does feel annoying when rocket launches, which are enormously complex, go right and get no press, but surface in the news when they explode or fail in some way. By most standards, this launch was perfectly successful, but every time the first stages crash the press treats this like some kind of major failure.

<comment><USER4> important to note that by any other launch provider's standards this was a perfect launch. Payload was inserted into the correct orbit, no one else even attempts to recover the booster.

<comment><USER5> However it's important to note that recovering the first stage makes sense only if it's successful enough times. Because it reduces the payload and it's more expensive as a single use.

<comment><USER6> >1 is enough times for an individual booster. Some failures are ok, as long as the average is >~1.2

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please all keep in mind that the primary mission is a success and that landing the booster is an _optimization_ , not a failure if it does not work. A failure is when the primary mission fails, everything else is a success.

<comment><USER8> Also worth keeping in mind: Every other launch system out there "Fails" to recover their first stage on every single launch. SpaceX "Failing" here is reverting to norm.

<comment><USER7> Not quite, they re-flew this particular booster 3 times after the initial launch. Reverting to the norm would be a crash after the first flight. Makes you wonder what the maximum life expectancy is for these boosters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I believe they do a little horizontal kick just before landing when they validate things are look good. Potentially something wasn't right and it just crashed into the ocean like 100 yards from the drone ship.. the good thing is that spaceX seems to learn from all of these issues and compensates, so will be interesting to here what happened.

<comment><USER10> This is accurate. More good examples of this passive-safety landing procedure in action were in the Heavy demo flight and the CRS-16 mission. The Heavy demo center core failed to relight two of the three engines needed for landing, and plunged right into the water off the side of the landing barge ([https://youtu.be/A0FZIwabctw?t=72](https://youtu.be/A0FZIwabctw?t=72)). CRS-16's booster had a hydraulic failure of the grid fins but still had engine and RCS control, so it was able to make a soft water splashdown at the last second (dramatic video from the booster's perspective is here: [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1070399755526656000](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1070399755526656000)).

<comment><USER11> If I remember correctly this procedure was implemented after SES-9, which came in too hot and broke straight through the deck of the droneship.

<comment><USER10> I didn't know that. Thanks for the detail. Better to lose a booster than both lose a booster and cripple a droneship.

On that topic, I've always been impressed at how tough those droneships are. They've taken a lot of punishment but they've never lost one at sea yet. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall of the first meeting between reps from SpaceX and McDonough Marine.

"So, you folks make big rockets. I'm guessing you're going to need these barges to transport them around to avoid roads. And there's likely some insurance implications here."

"In that order: yes, technically yes, and _definitely_ yes."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's a list that includes all their landing attempts:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches)

After their first successful drone-ship landing in April 2016, they had two failures of Falcon 9 in June 2016 and Dec 2018, two failures (of core only) on Falcon Heavy in Feb 2018 and June 2019, and 47 successful landing.

<comment><USER13> I believe it's 48 successful landings after the 1st as they kept mentioning today would be the 50th successful core to land. (Which counts each booster separately, including the FH side cores, but you must have been doing that too to get to 48 since the first)

<comment><USER12> I'm giving the number of successful landing after the first successful _drone- ship_ landing, which doesn't include the first successful _pad_ landing. (This seemed a more fair way to count because drone-ship landing are harder; if you start counting after the first successful pad landing you include two failed drone ship landing which should be considered still total experiments.)

<comment><USER13> Dammit. I read that 3 times before commenting and still missed that point of emphasis. Touché

<comment><USER12> No worries :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> SpaceX has made landing so routine that now failed landings are news.

<comment><USER15> I wonder if they're deliberate? Like if you're 100% you can land in "normal" circumstances, maybe try perturbing the parameters or input data a bit... to stress-test your algos, as if simulating wind, earthquake, different planet's gravity, different atmosphere, different rocket, engine failure...

<comment><USER16> Absolutely. Musk has openly shared that at spacex, failure is just a chance to learn. Successful landings don't teach you much, so the launch of an old core like this one (4 previous landings) is a good chance to experiment a bit.

<comment><USER17> > _Absolutely._

There is no chance they are deliberately crashing rockets because landing them is too easy. That's lunacy.

<comment><USER18> Agreed. They do stress test old cores, but they make it clear that it's an intentional test before they do so. They don't shake up the parameters on a whim just because they've had a good stretch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I recall that the last landing had an unusually hard touchdown.

[https://youtu.be/1KmBDCiL7MU?t=1188](https://youtu.be/1KmBDCiL7MU?t=1188)

<comment><USER20> Maybe they're trying to cut the fuel they take closer to the limit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Starlink launches are heavy and I wonder pushing the envelope reduces the margin of error. The last successful barge landing with Starlink crushed the leg core as it came in hot and heavy.

I'm sure these tough landings will help SpaceX.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm hoping we get an info-dump into the public channel on the nature of the recovery failure.

Footage from the drone ship before they cut away due to no landing to show indicated the sea had larger swells than I remember seeing on previous attempts and some water striking the camera lens from somewhere. I wonder if they aborted the landing because they couldn't guarantee the drone would have the right attitude to receive the rocket at time of touchdown?

</comment><comment><USER23> This was the fourth mission for this first stage booster, which is the most any core has launched yet, is that right?

<comment><USER21> Yes. No core has done 5 launches yet.

<comment><USER7> That's just a matter of time though. The rate they are going up it will probably happen this year.

<comment><USER21> I read they plan one of the next few starlink launches to be a fifth reflight booster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I remember seeing the first landing. I thought it was some fake footage. Glad to see they progressed so rapidly that a relatively minor failure becomes news.

</comment><comment><USER25> the fact that a failed landing makes more headlines nowadays is pretty damn impressive

</comment><comment><USER26> Perhaps apocryphal, but:

"You learn more from one failure than from ten successes"

\- Von Braun

"I'd rather have ten successes"

\- Elon Musk

</comment><comment><USER27> this shouldn't be news. this isn't news

</comment><comment><USER28> When are people gonna start talking about the elephant in the room? There is no publicly available data that points to reusable rockets being safe for human return.

<comment><USER29> There hasn't been a single failure of a reused falcon 9 booster on launch, which is the bit relevant to human spaceflight. Humans aren't going to ride a falcon 9 down to landing.

If you're talking about starship then I'm not sure how worthwhile extrapolating from F9 is. I would guess they're pushing F9 to its limits here - after all a small gain in launch efficiency multiplied by the size of the StarLink constellation is a big overall improvement!

<comment><USER28> I'm talking about extrapolating from any rocket launch. Sorry if I'm not clear, but I am talking about starship.</comment></comment></comment>