Programming Sucks and Why I Quit (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://deirdre.net/programming-sucks-why-i-quit/ <comment><USER2> I agree that programming _as a career_ sucks a lot more than it used to. I understand that part of my saying so is the result of changes in me or my own circumstances. Life was better when I didn't have to deal so much with product and project managers, when I didn't have to be the "leader" creating momentum and mentoring those who don't want to be mentored. I do miss the days when I was an individual contributor minding my own business.

On the other hand, that doesn't explain everything. As the computing industry has become bigger and more lucrative, it has also become less like a gentleman's race and more like a cage fight. The primary mode of interaction has shifted from collaboration to competition. There are always more projects in any given space, creating more factions each more determined to sling FUD at each other so that their project and their investment in it stay relevant. There are more sub-sub-domains of knowledge, with those on the peaks of each sneering at the others. The environment for women has become measurably _worse_ than it used to be; I worked with a higher percentage of women on Encore's kernel team twenty years ago than I do now even at Red Hat. It's a nasty, aggression-soaked environment, and anybody who doesn't believe that must not have read the other comments on this very page. I can tell you, it didn't used to be that way.

Programming as an activity has its ups and downs. Programming as a career has started to just plain suck.

<comment><USER3> > measurably

Do you have some measurements to back this up? I could believe it's true, but you shouldn't say something is measurably worse and then not provide those measurements.

<comment><USER2> [http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/report-the-number-of-women- ent...](http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/report-the-number-of-women-entering- computing-took-a-nosedive/)

<comment><USER3> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, I thought I was critical, but there's some serious negativity going down here.

Maybe the article is a little scattered, but the tl;dr is Deirdre switched to programming for herself, and quit making crap other people want. For those reacting to the title without reading the article, she clarified that programming is awesome, but programming for money on other peoples terms sucks.

I don't know about you guys, maybe you're too young, but it resonates with me. Maybe I would have wasted fewer years programming for others earlier in my life if I'd known how bummed I'd get about it, or how excited I'd get about programming on my own terms.

<comment><USER5> I feel she was gloating more on what she did than why she quit, but I am in the same boat, I hate programming for others. I have a single client I work for that pays my bills and the rest of the time I build my own stuff. Sometimes the work for them is so mind numbingly boring and not interesting to me, that I could go a whole month only putting in 15 hours of work.

<comment><USER6> Were I gloating, I'd point out that I a) had code in space before I turned 18 (digital tape driver); b) had written (in Pascal) the code to control emissions for four power plants by the time I was 22.

Truth is, I feel like there aren't any more really interesting problems for me to solve. I've accomplished enough of each kind of thing that really engages me that I'm done.

I'd turned down an Apple job in the mid-80s and always regretted it, so once I spent 5+ years on the Safari team, I felt like that was the only checkbox left.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have no idea how the middle section of this post is relevant to the rest of it. It just seems like the author needed to flesh out another rant or justify a choice no one questioned them on and decided to find any reason to diss the web. An error in the W3 validator is not really an 'error', especially considering the type of errors that are included in those 600 odd (Most of them are about missing spaces).

EDIT: Just seen the date on the article, likely the hundreds and hundreds of errors at the time are gone now, seeing as there's only like 50 showing now

<comment><AUTHOR> Among her later projects was Apple's Safari.

Writing code that _must absolutely positively do the right thing_ ... with other people's unvalidated crap ... might just colour your views slightly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Programming is nothing but transforming data from one form into another.

Once you reach a level of competency where like the author of this article you can implement any kind of transform you like then 99% of programming becomes rather boring.

Sure there are still the 1% of interesting problems and algorithms that are fun to work on, but you can only implement so many basic CRUD API's, and boilerplate business logic classes, and cut and paste website designs before you tire of that stuff.

After 30+ years of coding I'm sure the author of this article has implemented pretty much everything she has ever wanted to. It's natural that she would find implementing the same things over and over again for other people to be unrewarding, and instead desire to pursue the new challenge of designing an interesting new product of her own.

<comment><USER6> Yep, you've got it. Once I realized I had the skill to accomplish a workable version of anything is when I started noticing that there weren't many problems I cared enough about to feel like they were worth my time.

There are things I'm interested in implementing still. I still enjoy working in Ruby, and my Python's gotten rusty, but I actually work mostly in PHP these days (because of WordPress). I keep promising myself to learn Swift, but I lack Swift-type problems to solve that I care about.

The other thing, as one gets older and has a lot more experience: how much of your remaining unknown quantity of time are you willing to spend doing programming vs. some of your other life goals?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Author claims to have been working for 38 years.

They're not quitting, they're retiring. What a silly article.

<comment><USER10> So, after a law professor retires s/he immediately stops thinking about law?

<comment><USER11> > _So, after a law professor retires s /he immediately stops thinking about > law?_

The proper analogy would be: "So, after a _lawyer_ retires s/he immediately stops _practicing_ law?"

Yes, s/he does.

<comment><USER10> So, when you retire will you immediately stop practicing programming?

<comment><USER12> Equivocation; "practicing" law and "practicing" programming are not the same thing.

<comment><USER10> It can be compared. Both require to mentally navigate certain set of constraints and rules and build up a mental model of the domain problem, after which you produce a concrete result. In programming it's software, in law practice it's mostly a written consultation or a decision.

The point I'm making, is that both are mental endeavours. Programming isn't constantly typing at a desk, hitting TAB, and letting the IDE do the rest, but actually solving the problem in your head.

If I quit a programming job, that doesn't mean I stop thinking on programming problems. Same goes for law.

The problem that the author is describing, is that she has reached the limits of her profession to such an extent, that even thinking on (most) programming problems isn't interesting to her anymore. Which is a sad thing.

<comment><USER12> "Practicing law" _specifically means_ performing legal services, in the real law system, for a real client. It is a term of art, not a generic English use of the term. Practicing programming has a much fuzzier meaning, because it _is_ the generic English term.

My point is your snark doesn't hold, because "practicing law" is fundamentally a different thing from "practicing" programming.

<comment><USER10> Just because my initial comment was a short sentence, doesn't mean it was snarky; like this one.

And although I agree with your definition within a professional legal context, that context is irrelevant to the discussion, since we are discussing a person's personal relationship to the discipline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, I'd expect people here to be more empathic towards a person having a career in software engineering longer than most of the lifetimes of the HN crowd (assuming the article is truthful).

Instead one gets a bunch of dismissive, I-know-better-then-all-of-you BS. And they say bankers are arrogant.

<comment><USER6> Thank you.

<comment><USER10> I might've confused the gender of your name further down in the comments (not a native English speaker). Sorry for that. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I got the "...back in my day, everything was all neat and tidy...now it's all gone to shit..." sort of feeling while reading this article. Websites have always been shit, and if you approach rendering/parsing/consuming web content programmatically and expect perfection...you're in for a frustrating experience.

<comment><USER2> In this case, "back in my day" far precedes websites, so it's entirely possible for both the OP and you to be correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I agree with the author that programming sucks pretty bad. Making it suck less is part of the joy I get when programming. Even the highest quality software is at best organized chaos. We all know how to approach problems, that's the boring part that no one really cares about. Diving in and discovering the unknown is where the fun begins. That's where we have the opportunity to optimize, refactor, learn new things, and perfect the art.

Maybe everyone reaches a point where they become jaded, but all of the things causing the author to quit are the exact things that make me want to continue.

</comment><comment><USER15> "...consistently one of my top ten web hits, partly because of strong Google ranking." Wonder what the other part is, because the article is garbage.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nothing to see here. Someone ranting about how there's errors in web-pages. Not really sure the point.

</comment><comment><USER17> I love programming when it is for myself or something I am passionate about. However writing CRUD apps or other mundane LOB apps is pretty mind numbing after a while. I don't regret leaving programming as my job but I could never give it up fully. I love it too much. The best bit about doing it just for myself is I can use what I want, this makes all the difference to my enjoyment. If I had to write everything in Java I don't think I would enjoy it quite as much ;)

</comment><comment><USER18> "About the Author"

"Deirdre Saoirse Moen is a science fiction and fantasy writer, photographer, and graphic designer from Menlo Park, California."

What? I thought this was a programmer quitting his job..

<comment><USER19> "His"? I think it's a programmer who quit her job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hrm:

[https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fdeirdre.net%2F...](https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fdeirdre.net%2Fprogramming- sucks-why-i-quit%2F)

I think the more likely reason why validation errors show up all over the internet is because for 99% of business/entertainment/service on the internet they are irrelevant.

Personally I would not like Firefox to fail to render on HTML validation errors, what a terrible idea that would be.

In the meantime, I have no idea what HTML validation has to to do with not enjoying working for someone else.

Swap "programming" from the sentence: Programming for somone else sucks. With "carpentry" or "plumbing" or "manufacturing" or "cooking" and you'll have the same bitter, burned out employees. The trick to life is to avoid being bitter when asked to get things done, and rather take pride in having been asked to help someone get something done. If you don't feel appreciated in your work, look for something else to do. If there is literally nothing else you can do, being bitter isn't going to make life any better.

Not to sound like an asshole, but I have very little patience for people who lack creativity in how they use their time. Yes, I've been frustrated at my work before, and listless in the face of a project I don't want to start/finish, but I find a way to keep working, or I'd be looking for something else to do.

</comment><comment><USER21> This article made me angry. Why does she care that cnn.com has 349 errors that can only be found by running a validator? The web is a huge place. Does anyone really expect that every single site out there is going to be perfect? And you're going to be depressed to find out that it isn't. And change careers. Give me a break. Her complaints are akin to a writer whining about grammar, and quitting their job because there's so much bad grammar out there. Good riddance!

<comment><AUTHOR> The "HTML is an error condition" quip was actually what lead me to that piece. And the fact that you need a specific _validator_ to actually check the source is actually a pretty strong indicator of the magnitude of the problem. Browsers simply don't care, or worse, _have to not care_ , that what they're getting is valid HTML. Rather, it's that they will, and pretty much _must_ , render pretty much any random crap.

See my recent comment about Web fonts, and additional discussions about Web accessibility for the disabled (a very good friend has exceptionally limited vision), and think over how a truly _semantically_ constructed Web document might be just slightly easier to parse by assisting software or systems.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10326649](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10326649)

[https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/f6mP6XqH...](https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/f6mP6XqH81S)

A rigorous document structure, strict adherance to it, and penalties (e.g., lower SERP ranking) for invalid / poorly constructed pages would help.

As for Saoirse Moen, her (last) day job _was_ in fact working on a Web browser. Dealing with crap HTML, JS, CSS, etc., etc., etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Irrelevant rant, irrelevant article, yet in the front page of HN. Beats me every time.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think this is a reasonable stance, mostly because she is saying it's not programming itself that sucks, it programming for others on matters that aren't what you are passionate about that sucks, and I think that's an important distinction to make. Her options are to either find something she is passionate about programming and do that for a living, or do like many of us do and do it on the side.

I'm a sysadmin, and I have almost no formal programming training, but on the side I really like experimenting with developing solutions to my very specific set of problems, and it is empowering to me. At work I often cobble stuff together in bash, perl, and python, but I'm sure if a professional programmer reviewed my code they would balk... but it works for me, and I document everything heavily to make sure the next fellow won't have too much trouble.

For me programming is about problem solving, because that's what I do best. I will admit though, sometimes I go through burnout phases, and perhaps this is where the author is at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's easy to get down on the negative sides of programming... the rub is that there are negatives to every job. There are widespread problems in every industry that need fixed/improved.

In the end, we all have a choice of what we want to focus on and what to do about it.

Stay focused on the bright side, minimize the negative, and keep on keep'n on.

</comment><comment><USER25> > Instead, I need to pick projects that I care about and not spend long > stretches of time on things I don't.

I'm getting this feeling myself more and more lately. And I've only been doing this for a little over 5 years. Although, I wonder if I'll have this thought regardless of what field I am working in.

<comment><USER26> After similar lines of thought, my conclusion is that you have to embrace the process of writing code and not get too personally invested in the end product - it doesn't belong to you, and a company can and will sell it, scrap it, or let it decay slowly. Step back and be grateful for the opportunity to apply your skills to help someone else create something they felt they needed, and don't worry about what they do with it after the fact. I've found over and over that caring about a project too much leads to disappointment - the more bleeding edge the project, the more interesting it is, and the more likely it is to die. Embrace the idea that your job is to help someone with a short term goal. It can be fun, but don't let it be your life. Life is about people, not things, and certainly not the code you wrote last week. Help someone by using your skills and move on, it's very rewarding.

<comment><USER2> That is so depressing. I'm not saying you're wrong, or wrong for saying it, but it's still depressing. For years I've taken pride in my ability to see beyond the code I'm working on, to how that code or other activities (e.g. teaching or even blogging) can contribute to business goals and/or make the computing world a better place. It's what we're _supposed_ to do. We're told we'll be rewarded for it, and sometimes we are financially (thanks boss), but it still takes its mental and emotional toll. Others will undermine your efforts with a competing project or contrary message, or outright pull a project out from under you, often with the best of reasons or intentions, but it still leaves you feeling betrayed.

To end this on a more positive note, consider this: "we're not here to make friends" is EXACTLY WRONG. The friendships you make are the _only_ thing that will last. The "legacy" of your code will become smaller and less valuable over time, even if it's really awesome code; more likely it'll just be tossed aside without a second thought by the next developer or exec with their own agenda to pursue. Your money will be spent. All of the companies I worked for twenty-plus years ago, their technical and financial assets gone as though they'd never been, but some of the friendships I made back then continue. Make code, make money, make friends, but only one of those will last.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is nonsense. Anyone who knows anything about developing on the web should know that W3 Validation means nothing. It's not even something worth striving for. They are not analogous to actual programming errors.

<comment><USER28> I think many comments like this are missing the point. You don't get a "Haskell/C/Java/Lisp validator". You have a compiler, which will flag obvious crap as crap. The possibly crap stuff are flagged as warnings. And then you have a linter when you want your crap to smell slightly better. But the point is that obviously wrong stuff on the web should give you errors, not a vaguely working page, sometimes, in some browser version.

<comment><USER27> It is you who has missed the point. I mention in my comment specifically that W3 validation errors are not comparable to compiler errors or run time errors in programming.

As far as things working in one browser and not another, if you're working with _standard_ features they tend to work across all modern browsers. If you are using features which are still only candidates, then yes they may not work but you've chosen to implement non-standard features so you've done this to yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Echoing some of the sentiment elsewhere in comments, I liked programming a lot more when I was more of a one-man show, instead of a team member with other people doing business analysis, project management, client contact, and basically everything except pulling predefined stories off a scrum board and delivering them.

I'm sure it's more efficient and effective, but it feels like factory work now.

<comment><USER6> Like you, I did enjoy it more when I was contracted to do the 1.0 version of something and where I was basically working alone to a spec.

Though I prefer the modern tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I totally get burning out or losing your passion etc. But I'm not sure how other people's web pages being of poor quality affects one's own work -- if anything, it motivates me to do a better job (and gives me a competitive advantage, or at least a reputation which attracts the right kinds of clients/customers).

<comment><AUTHOR> The author mentions working on Safari. Perhaps writing code to deal with other people's crap has something to do with her views.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think the author is tired of being "liberal in what you accept." In other words, getting old! :D

</comment><comment><USER32> needs (2014) added to title

</comment><comment><USER33> [https://github.com/deirdresm](https://github.com/deirdresm) Maybe you haven't started programming at all?

<comment><USER6> Actually, I deleted my github account while I was a software engineer at Apple. Here, have a photo of my Steve Jobs engraved iPad I got while working on the Safari team:

[http://deirdre.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SJ-engraved- iP...](http://deirdre.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SJ-engraved-iPad1.jpg)

Presence or absence of a github account isn't meaningful. Plenty of really great programmers have never had them, and there's plenty of crap code on github. (And the inverse is also true, of course.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> First world problems :)

I'm grateful for the opportunity to work from home, support my family comfortably, be in a field with lots of employment opportunities to fall back on, and be constantly learning new stuff.

Sorry it didn't work out for you, but it sounds like you found other interests to occupy you and (hopefully) support you, e.g. fantasy/scifi writing.

<comment><USER28> > Sorry it didn't work out for you

What? The author was in the field for THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS!

<comment><USER34> Unless I missed it, she didn't say for how many of those 38 years that programming sucked, though. Her examples of suckiness were all from just a few years ago.

Anyway, that's a potentially long time to be doing something you don't enjoy.

<comment><USER6> That's a difficult question. Essentially, some part of any job sucks. Even within a given field, some jobs and/or projects will suck more than others. Some tools and languages suck more for certain applications than for others.

I've always enjoyed—and still enjoy—the technical aspects of programming.

Since this just came in my email….

"Working at $FIRM offers you the opportunity to work in a fast-paced, challenging, startup environment with a team of passionate individuals who love bringing ideas to life. At $FIRM, no role is small and every person plays a part in the development of our game-changing technology."

fast-paced = you won't have time to think to solve the problems better

challenging = no one knows how to behave themselves, least of all the founders

startup environment = so forget reasonable workweeks and having any time on weekends

team of passionate individuals = they don't have lives, either

no role is small = you will be assigned roles that the last person quit over _because_ it was so trivial

That's the kind of thing I'm done with.

<comment><USER34> You might find freelancing more appealing than these kinds of full time jobs as you describe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> because as a beginner logic coder it can be exhausting ... grinding and grinding and grinding away to figure out how to achieve X.

Maybe not having anytime to yourself isn't important, but im not a coding robot and need a nice amount of downtime!

</comment><comment><USER36> Drivel.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article is garbage, but I did enjoy the one linked to at [http://www.stilldrinking.org/programming- sucks](http://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks)</comment>


Ask YC: Any Feedback on new web app ratings site appreciated - <AUTHOR> http://www.wappied.com

<comment><USER2> I like this better than most web 2.0 directories I've seen (<http://www.listio.com> etc.), but it has to feel pretty exhaustive before I'll depend on it. If I don't expect it to give me better results than just plain Googling, I won't bookmark it to give it a chance.

Link directly to each site from the browse/search results page. I want the option to skip your site summary page and quickly open ten blogging sites in new tabs for comparison.

On the summary pages, I almost didn't realize there were reviews. If there are only one or two, it's not enough content for me to realize it just by looking at my scrollbar. That adwords block is going to be a wall for most people. I'd remove the screenshot altogether and put truncated reviews right next to the vital details.

Edit: There's another reason for removing the screenshot - for me, it just registers as a flash ad, and I almost don't even look at it. At <http://www.wappied.com/apps/mint> my brain wants to think that's a Vista ad on the right. Once you do look at it, it's still only about a quarter of its original size, so you're absorbing purely visual data(does it look cool?), which you already kind of get from the nice-sized logo.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tend to agree - there's something wrong with the screenshots/slides right now.

Of course, for some reason I can't explain, I also like having them around in some fashion, so users can experience parts of the app without trying them. Perhaps this is what "tour" pages are for.

Maybe I should just make pictures part of people's reviews, if they want to show off a cool feature....

Hmm...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Might consider star ratings without forcing a login. I think the site is useful, but not useful enough to want to create a user account. A great technique is marketing is to get people to make very small commitments (star ratings) which will lead to bigger ones (getting an account).

<comment><USER4> This man sounds like he's been reading "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini :) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good idea but I don't like the layout. It looks like a template that domain- parking services use.

<comment><USER4> The amount of space between the categories does give that impression a little. Nothing a change to the grid won't easily fix.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, interesting. It's definitely a balance between showing the categories, or some of the categories so that users know they're there to navigate. Each category will be getting grayscale icons - we'll see if that helps at all.

<comment><USER6> If you need more text, grab the highest rated app in that category and display it below the name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It looks good. I do have one minor suggestion. Part of what you're about is helping people find apps. From About Page: "What if, ... you could find the best webapp for your needs, at any given time, and instantly compare it to all of its competitors?" I really like that idea, and it would be useful to me. Currently, no one has got them all in one place and compared them. In fact, just a short time ago I did a post on YC asking about tools because I know I had read about them but forgotten where. So you definitely have me there.

I thinking building on this would really up the usefulness of your site immensely, because people want to know what's out there when they're looking for tools. Rating is secondary to someone looking for tools. Instead, they need to know what tools exist. Building out the categories more is a suggestion, as would be providing your own content (editorial) on how well apps in the same category work compared to each other. For example, if you're looking for a commenting system for your blog, what are the pros and cons of the major offerings. I understand this might run into a problem of what is a web app and what isn't, but people love to have someone else do the work of finding them a solution. That involves more than a one line description and a rating.

Rating is good to eliminate the lowest bottom feeders, but it doesn't help you choose between two five-star programs. Original editorial content helps people by providing more information, as will user comments of course once you get a mass of users.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, Thanks tstegart. I whole-heartedly agree. The categories, aside from high quality reviews are the most important part. When you want to find the best app for a particular use, you don't really care about how good it is for some other use.

To me, it's kind of like Yelp - sometimes I want to just know what has the best food, and don't care about the service. Sometimes I want to know both.

What I'm still trying to figure out is how to implement this from a user perspective - it's difficult enough to get a user to provide a review, let alone multiple reviews for different purposes.

Perhaps the genii of YC have some good ideas...

<comment><USER4> To be honest, having the call-to-action to write a review separated from the main text doesn't help. Right now, you've put your ads in between where you learn about the app and where you find the review button. It almost completely ruins the work your interface (which is great by the way) is doing to get people to click on the review button. I'm not sure having the ads there is worth the ruination of your review button click-rate.

People like seeing information where its supposed to be, and ads where they are supposed to be. Part of what makes Web 2.0 websites so great is that the ads aren't in-your-face annoying. Here, your ads are messing up the user experience in an attempt to get in front of the user.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. I took the ads and pushed them to the bottom. To your point, creating a review has to be incredibly easy. I think there are a couple other things UI-wise that can be done to make sure of this, like letting users click on the stars under the app's name, to create their own review

<comment><USER4> What about a Netflix style pop-up when you click on the stars, suggesting users leave comments, or write a full review? Clicking on full review takes you to a page where you answer in-depth questions (like have you bought this) and leave comments (or questions are suggested for you to answer).

Some people will want to do a quick review, others will want to leave a comment, and still others will want to fully explain how it helped them or what they liked/disliked. This way you take into account various user participation levels with the app the user is reviewing. The final rating could be a weighted average of the three types of reviews, with in-depth and commented reviews being rated higher. Knowing your review will count more and be more important if you put more effort into it is another psychological tool to get people to write about the apps they care about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Love it.

<comment><USER4> Haha, I love the reviews you're writing. Apparently one person thinks you're on crack when it comes to Live Journal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Let me add an app while I wait for the confirmation email. Don't display it until my account is confirmed.

<comment><USER4> I second this. Is there a reason for needing to login when adding an app or review? I only say this because I saw an article today on getting rid of logins. What about just requiring a captcha?

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with this for apps, to be sure - I think I just implemented it that way because of second-nature.

I will remove the login until app creations become problematic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Why not use OpenID? 2\. You're using the HTML 4.01 doctype but you're coding in XHTML. Not a huge problem but your pages are VERY invalid.

<comment><AUTHOR> We should use OpenID - it was just lower on the list of features.

Ahh doctypes. We'll have to get that squared away too, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Couple other things I noticed: \- Standardize on either "Log in" or "Sign in" \- Logo doesn't have weird apostrophe in Wapp'ied like other text does (why is it there anyway) \- When adding an app, it isn't immediately clear how to upload a logo. The empty picture boxes don't tell you anything \- Category counts would be useful \- Getting a 500 error on 'Newest'

<comment><AUTHOR> These are all good suggestions, which I've added. Sorry about the 500 errors - I pulled the trigger too quickly on deployment. I've started to keep track of the todo list publicly at: <http://www.wappied.com/about>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Service Temporarily Unavailable"

For a lot of pages. What's up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I was pushing a fix for a few errors, and it took 60 seconds or so for apache to figure out Mongrel was up and running again. I'll stop pushing fixes for awhile!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just curious, how long did it take you to code this site? I take it you can't just make it in Sprout.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably 2-3 weeks of on and off development work. I've got a lot of other things going on, so I didn't keep track too well. I did hire another ruby on rails contractor to augment some of my development work, which I highly recommend (if you're good at finding them).

<comment><USER4> How many people are working on it now? You say "we" in your comments. Is there a team involved, or is this a solo project. Either way, it looks great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just 1 developer on a continuing basis (me), and I paid another contractor to do some programming work, and another contractor to input some data.

<comment><USER4> Are you full time, or part-time? How much time do you estimate you'll be putting into it per week once its up and running?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll probably be paying more for others to work on it, and I'll focus on writing reviews.

I need to take a week to regroup though, and figure out the strategy for this.

It looks like success hinges on two things (which in retrospect is obvious): (1) getting a really well organized (categorized) database of apps (2) creating momentum on review writing.

<comment><USER4> App owners have incentive to add themselves to the database. Maybe an email announcing yourself to App owners would be less work than going through and adding them all yourself. It also is a sort of secondary press release and will get people talking about you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Do you really believe in drones? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.napolux.com/2016/11/17/do-you-really-believe-in-drones/ <comment><USER2> I was wondering about that too: where do the drones deliver? How do they make it safe? What if something happens and the drone falls on people?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly my point. They can probably work in places not densely populated or point-to-point between $brand warehouses.

Having tried some drones I can't imagine a drone knocking at my window precise enough to not damage itself or my property (or at worse, myself)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How often is too often to switch jobs? - <AUTHOR>

I got a job as a developer right out of school and worked there for only 4 months before switching to another job with more pay and better benefits. I have discovered that I do not really enjoy my new job. It is a very large company and things move so slowly I am bored out of my mind. I show up at 9am and almost never stay until 5, but still get everything done which is assigned to me. Apparently they think I am some kind of star who is going to make big changes but I just can't stand all the processes and hoops that need to be jumped though. It takes a full day to get a deployment done and up to a week just to run a SQL script to update a database because of processes and approvals. I want to find a new job but I have only been here for 3 months and am worried it is going to look bad that I switch jobs too often. How long should I wait before looking for another job so it doesn't look bad on my resume? <comment><USER2> I usually tell people "Stay as long as necessary to fully exploit the opportunity." You're right to worry about not learning things quickly, since the time when you're just out of college is the best time to gain skills quickly. But have you learned _why_ those processes and approvals exist? What events or forces led to them being instituted, and what sort of problems was the organization solving? Have you learned how to figure that out, how to develop little birdies within the organization who will tell you things and keep you informed of office politics? How to build a reputation for yourself so you can bypass many of the petty procedures? These are critical skills that are much easier to learn in a big company than in a startup.

I would focus on learning the soft skills while you have an opportunity, and then jump ship once you feel that you know _how_ to develop these soft skills, and that most of the remaining work you're doing is specific to how things work in that one company. Then use the skills you've developed to jump ship for a better opportunity.

As for how often is too often - it's not unusual to have a bunch of jobs in your first few years out of college. 3 months is generally too short, though, if you leave after 3 months it looks like you're superficial and can't be bothered to learn anything in depth. I'd stay minimum 6-8 months, maximum of about a year or two, for the first few jobs. Then take that experience and knowledge of what kind of environment you really like, pick a job that really excites you, and stay 3-4 years to really learn an area well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Very helpful comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I just feel in the same way. But I have a little experience, 2 years, after 3, current 7 months and the feel of going to slow is very frustrating. I'll recommend talk to your manager's and change of project or move to other area that create new stuffs maybe that will help if can't happen move on. I myself don't like the people that change very often of work.</comment>


Hedge Fund Manager Michael Burry on Bloomberg's Risk Takers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/video/72756316/

<comment><USER2> Great, thanks for sharing!</comment>


Show HN: Run iOS apps in the browser - <AUTHOR> http://app.io <comment><USER3> I'm not hearing anything, I guess audio isn't emulated yet? This would be great with web audio. Having a podcast app, I can't unfortunately get much use from it in the absence.

Anyway, congrats. I hope Apple's okay with it because the concept is crazy- awesome for users and developers.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! Audio is on our wish-list. We'll count this as another 'vote' for that feature. Apple is aware of what we're out to achieve here.

<comment><USER5> Are they okay with it? Apple has always seemed like the type of company that wouldn't want to dilute the "Apple Experience". I'm quite impressed they're aware of it and haven't asked you to shut it down. Kudos.

<comment><USER6> Apple hasn't had much of an experience for developers recently...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wondering how the streaming works. It seems to send a bunch of GIF images which hold the diff from the last frame when something is moving.

The framerate is quite low at the moment, but that's probably because of HN?!

Edit: it also sends full JPEGs of the screen when there's much going on. I believe my JSMPEG[1] would really be a viable alternative for this use-case. Streaming support is in the works :)

[1] [https://github.com/phoboslab/jsmpeg](https://github.com/phoboslab/jsmpeg)

<comment><USER4> Hi there, COO here. I wrote a good response on this when we were branded as Kickfolio: [http://www.quora.com/How-Does-X-Work/How-does-Kickfolio- work...](http://www.quora.com/How-Does-X-Work/How-does-Kickfolio-work-in- simulating-iOS-apps). You're quite right - we stream diff'd GIFs and JPEGs at different times. We did originally try encoding with FFMPEG and other technologies, but surprisingly this works best! We're constantly improving the algorithm. I'm just about to push up another change this weekend :)

<comment><USER7> While your implementation seems to be quite ingenious, the answer on Quora doesn't explain anything besides "sending frames" and "magic happens".

I would have liked to see a more in-depth explanation, but I understand if you don't want to share it at this point.

<comment><USER4> ;) Quite right - we have two patent applications in the works! So unfortunately I can't provide a whole lot more detail at this point. Feel free to email me though if you're interested to chat offline. Great job with JSMPEG by the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was able to open app.io and run the demo inside the demo on app.io when it asked me to tweet (which got to me to Safari). It actually ran really nicely.

<comment><USER9> Internally, we call doing that Appception :)

<comment><USER10> We need to tweet deeper!

<comment><USER10> Wow, I didn't expect this to upset so many people. Just trying to inject some light-hearted humour.

<comment><USER8> Reddit style humor is discouraged on hacker news. Comments that aren't thoughtful are also discouraged. I even think meta comments like this are discouraged.

<comment><USER10> Reddit-style humour? It was in reference to a film.

I'm honestly flabbergasted. Oh HN, how you never fail to disappoint.

<comment><USER11> The problem on Reddit isn't really the existence of lighthearted comments, but the fact that they inevitably get moderated to the top of the thread, obscuring more insightful comments. That's what they're trying to prevent here, I think. I wouldn't take it personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We've been a customer of these guys for months now. They power the preview functionality of our app builder.

I have to say that they're a bunch of awesome folks who are responsive to feedback and really work hard to make their service matter. Keep it up guys!

<comment><USER13> @gozmike I just want to know ONE thing. How did you get to know about this company?? I could've searched down the rabbit hole without ever hearing about it. Mind sharing sources?

<comment><USER12> Pieceable let us down. Somehow when looking for an alternative I stumbled upon app.io when it was called Kickfolio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This runs amazingly smooth, especially considering the traffic it is going to get from HN at the moment. Kudos!

[http://www.appsurfer.com/](http://www.appsurfer.com/) does the same for Android, but it feels definitely more sluggish than this.

<comment><USER15> Thanks! Our technical ninjas are working their magic behind the scenes!

<comment><USER16> Nice one davey!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> That should be their headline, I didn't get what they are doing the first time I saw the page earlier today.

<comment><USER18> you should also check out [http://www.appsurfer.com/](http://www.appsurfer.com/) for running android apps.

<comment><USER19> Amazon also has one in their app store. It runs on EC2.

For example, (picking a random paid app) [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007VUCAVO](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007VUCAVO)

<comment><USER20> That's really impressive and works well. Hopefully iOS will eventually have a way to try out apps before purchasing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just try this on my Android phone, it shows the desktop web page... If it gives the webpage that suits for Android phones, I think this would be more useful.

<comment><USER22> Hi, Designer/Co-founder here. Ed (our CEO) is currently working on a branch called feature/mobile-optimizations...so expect big things in the coming weeks. :)

<comment><USER21> Cool!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Very cool.

Have you seen Pieceable Viewer? It's very similar, but I believe it used an implementation of UIKit in flash to simulate the apps. They were bought out by Facebook, but the website is still live. [http://pieceable.com](http://pieceable.com)

<comment><USER15> Yep we love Pieceable and know some of the guys. They've done well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does this violate Apple's developer terms in any way, as you are running these in the simulator?

<comment><USER15> Not that we are aware of. We've shown some people in Apple and they've loved it so far!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Great work! It was super easy to set up a project and it just worked. It _just_ worked, I love it when I can say that.

A couple of feedback points:

\- If the simulator could be more responsive, it would be great

\- Seems like even though you are simulating an iPhone 5, it doesn't use Retina images (I'm on a MacBook Pro Retina and the images look pixelated)

\- I think being able to set up a password should be available on the free plan as well

Also, for cost:

\- Are you thinking of also implementing a (cheaper) "freelance" payment plan? Someone that can have up to 5 apps, but only needs a maximum of 5,000 views/month. I think the $109/month is a bit too much for a freelance developer

<comment><USER26> Agreed. Something in the $30-$50 region with a lower usage allowance and the ability for more (private) apps than the free allowance would be much more palatable to me as a freelancer.

<comment><USER27> $30-$50? Huh, how about $1 per usage?

<comment><USER26> That would be better for me (in the short-term), but supporting a large number of low-value customers is probably not going to be sustainable for them.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the suggestions! This is a hot topic internally, so we'll have some more announcements in the coming months. Keep an eye on the blog/twitter.

We haven't forgotten about the indie devs! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is this at all related to the Android-streaming software on [http://www.appsurfer.com/](http://www.appsurfer.com/), or is just a similar idea on a different platform?

<comment><USER4> Hi, COO here. It's a similar idea. We've chosen to focus on iOS first, then branch out in to many other platforms, even beyond mobile eventually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I just tried it, and it is currently rather slow, but I suppose that is the HN effect. I signed up for a free account nevertheless, because as luck would have it, I'm working for a project right now, where this might come in handy.

However, I couldn't find any documentation on that, but do you also support iPad apps? I can see that that would be a tad more difficult due to the higher streaming data bandwith.

Nevertheless, great app, I like the idea.

<comment><USER9> CEO here. Thanks so much for the feedback. Yep, we are currently being slammed. Glad to have you on board. We do support iPad - <USER2> [http://docs.app.io](http://docs.app.io) for a few options and ways you can use the service.

<comment><USER29> Ah, thanks, I found it under the API -> device page. You should put that on the front page somewhere, that it runs on iPhone & iPad. I may be a bit slow but since the demo was iPhone and since it is streaming, I supposed iPad was out of the loop.

<comment><USER22> Hi, Designer/Co-founder here. That's great feedback, thank you. I will rework the design to include iPad and make it more obvious we support both. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can you tell us how this works? A ton of Mac Minis Streaming iOS simulator output to a HTML5 canvas using vnc or something like that?

<comment><USER9> It does run on Mac Mini servers. We don't use VNC, but rather our own approach to make it work. We used to be called Kickfolio, and this Quora thread has a nice response from one of our other co-founders, Chris. [http://www.quora.com/How-Does-X-Work/How-does-Kickfolio- work...](http://www.quora.com/How-Does-X-Work/How-does-Kickfolio-work-in- simulating-iOS-apps)

<comment><USER31> I was about to ask the question "Why didn't you use the video element" \- answered well within the link (if anyone has the same question)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I used this the other day and it was significantly speedier.. i'm guessing it's the HN effect. Cool concept.

<comment><USER22> Thanks Chris, appreciate the support. [Co-founder]

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Sorry guys, nice flat design and everything, but I'm on fiber and on a brand new MacBook Retina 15", and it is _sloooow_.

Good idea, but slow like this, not acceptable.

<comment><USER34> Its a shame that it is so slow, especially when its pretty amazing to be able to do this in a browser. Perhaps whilst the HN storm is taking place a less intensive demo could be implemented.

<comment><USER13> Dude have some respect, the just got HN'ed, it's okay. Check them again some hours or a day later. I guess they will add more bandwith when they have more customers to pay it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Do you plan on integrating with cloud storage / sourcecode providers ? Something like a github instant preview, either directly on the project's home page, or in the source browser. Or, an HTML widget to enable developers / companies to embed previews of their work directly on their blog / homepages.

I can see a pretty bright future for your company, congrats.

<comment><USER4> The good folk at Jenkins actually created a plugin for the CI platform which we love: [https://wiki.jenkins- ci.org/display/JENKINS/App.io+Plugin](https://wiki.jenkins- ci.org/display/JENKINS/App.io+Plugin). We have an API so if anybody is keen to integrate with GitHub we'd gladly welcome it! Embedding into blogs and on homepages is possible today via a simple iFrame and is one of our core use cases. Thanks for your feedback and positive outlook on App.io's future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> FYI emdowling ([https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=emdowling](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=emdowling)) from app.io is replying to comments here with useful info but his account seems to have been hellbanned. You can turn showdead on in your HN profile page to read what he wrote.

</comment><comment><USER37> We've been a customer for a few months now and use it to power the runtime for our App-Development-In-The-Cloud[1] startup. Very cool, and Chris et al are very nice and helpful guys!

[1] [http://www.cloupp.com](http://www.cloupp.com)

<comment><USER4> Thanks mate! Appreciate the kind works and your hard work in building something great for developers, too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This seems really cool. Unfortunately my app crashes and I can't see any logs to know why. I have some ideas as to why, but I won't know unless I can get to the log. I posted a message to the support link but no response. Logs would be good.

</comment><comment><USER39> Very cool - I notice it works well on iOS Safari too.

Any plans for a native app or mobile optimised interface? For some apps, being able to touch is going to make the demo experience much better, and hopefully convert more users to paid installs.

<comment><USER4> Hi, COO here. Thanks for your feedback. Coincidentally, we have a mobile- optimized version being finished off shortly! We agree that a native app would be great. More on that in the coming months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Would love to use this on my blog all the time, but the price point is way out of range. I've tried it though, and it's incredible if you can afford it.

<comment><USER15> Hey Natasham25, there's also a free plan that you can sign up for. You'll be able to embed it on your blog (for free) as long as the app plays stay under the limit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Very cool! This actually can be very useful for our company to demo apps. I guess audio is not there yet, but still very nice and great URL as well.

</comment><comment><USER42> I´m currently loading up my app and it takes forever to finish. Would be good if I could see one sample app and how exactly the whole thing works.

<comment><USER4> Hi there. It shouldn't take too long to process. I suggest clicking 'Support' from the dashboard and we'll investigate further. It may be an .IPA instead of an .APP (we require the simulator build), or we may need to reprocess your app manually. Sorry for any inconvenience.

<comment><USER42> Thanks Chris, I just sent you a message via the support interface. Cheers!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> robert-boehnke Are they running one Mac OS X instance per Simulator or is there a way to run multiple Simulators at once that I don't know of?

<comment><USER9> CEO here. We are running on Mac OS X and you can run multiple simulators by using multiple user accounts. This is a part of our approach but not all of it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I can't tell what the difference between the Pro and Business package is other than the price. Can you clarify? Cool idea btw.

<comment><USER22> Hi, Co-founder here. The Pro plan allows you up to 5 apps and 20,000 app plays per month. The Business plan allows you up to 20 apps and 100,000 app plays per month. More info can be found here: [https://app.io/#pricing](https://app.io/#pricing)

<comment><USER43> I missed it since the first thing I did after seeing the demo was click Sign Up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This works surprisingly well, great job. How many instances of iOS emulator can you run per machine? Do you run your own servers?

</comment><comment><USER45> @emdowling - your comments aren't showing up here - maybe because your account is new? The service looks awesome btw!

</comment><comment><USER46> Really great work!

This will also be great for us android users to see what all the hype about certain apps is all about.

</comment><comment><USER47> OK, the tech behind this could be the first serious competitor to Teamviewer in a while. This is cool!

</comment><comment><USER48> HN killed it? "Could not launch the application"

<comment><USER15> Ahh the HN effect. Looking into it now. Thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> WOWSOME!!

How did he make it? How is that even possible?

<comment><USER4> Haha, thanks mate. Just hard work and iteration!

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> what is this, virtualization for ants?

</comment><comment><USER50> no idea the point of this but seems at first pointless

<comment><USER22> Hi, Co-founder here. Thanks for the honesty. We have found that people are drawn to our service for one or two big reasons. The first is the ability to quickly share a test build of an app amongst the team for feedback and iteration. No downloads, no installs - just a URL.

The second is the ability to market your app to your clients or fans via your website or through Facebook, to get instant engagement (vs a banner/screenshot) to drive downloads. We've found it to be highly effective and the average app play is about 1:30. Hope that helps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Demo?

<comment><USER22> Hi, co-founder/designer here. The iPhone on our home page is actually a live demo of Prismadrop (using App.io). Appreciate the feedback - I will work to make it clearer in the future so everyone is aware it's a live demo.

<comment><USER51> I thought it was simply an animation. It would help if the frontpage told you what was going on.

If iOS apps can run in a browser absolutely any application for ant platform could run from within a browser window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> ok it's nice

but why?

<comment><USER15> I wish i could embed pictures... but: [http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/289/9/1/why_not__by_r...](http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/289/9/1/why_not__by_rober_raik-d4czhw0.png)

<comment><USER53> At this moment, I rather wish you could as well - but I really don't wish that everybody could. Some of the meme heavy github issues threads I've seen have led me to the conclusion that it would just make me cry.</comment></comment></comment>


What the SATs Taught Us about Finding the Perfect Fit - <AUTHOR> http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/2017/12/13/latentsize/ <comment><USER2> One of the great joys of my bachelor's degree in psychology was being invited to take a graduate level course on Item Response Theory (with Professor Jack Vevea, now at UC Merced). I wouldn't have fallen in love with programming and become a software developer if I hadn't taken it. 1

The Rasch Model is a specifically simplified case of item response theory, but I'd argue that it may not be the best one for stitch fix. That's not to say that it can't be useful, but rather that the simplifications and assumptions of the Rasch model may lead to information that does not reflect the customer's measurements as well as a more sophisticated model could. Of course it very well may be good enough, but it serves as a somewhat useful exploration of the

The Rasch model is an attempt to differentiate two associated sets of information, the latent trait of the test taker/question answerer (in this case, their measurements) and the difficulty of the question (in this case, whether the item is too big, too small or just right). Basically the Rasch model treats the level of a latent trait of an individual as a function of the difficulty of a test question and what they answered.

But the model purposely ignores the question of the discrimination of the question, that is, how good is the question at differentiating between those who's latent trait differs, and just assumes that the discrimination (the slope of the line reflecting the model of the question's difficulty) is not relevant. Other models see this as relevant.

For example, if StitchFix offers a belt with a number of different holes, some people may feel the belt is too small if they are forced to use the last hole, some the second last hole. A question about such a belt that just asked if it was too large, too small, or just right might have low discrimination in terms of identifying an individuals underlying size. Likewise someone who has bigger thighs but a relatively slim torso might have different answers about a pair of slim fit pants of size x which are too small for their thighs, and a belt of size x. Thus questions about pants may have a higher discrimination then questions about a belt.

Item Response Theory outside of the Rasch also has a third factor to consider on a per question and per individual basis, which is basically the propensity to guess. Basically, how likely is someone to think carefully about the question as opposed to just putting down a random answer , and likewise are some questions more likely to have people answer blithely instead of earnestly.

The other thing to consider is that in most IRT tests, the latent trait is assessed at a single time for multiple questions. But weight/fit/measurements are here being assessed item by item, as they are tried, and the underlying fit may be changing if a person is gaining weight or bulk, retaining water, or recovering from thanksgiving dinner. While it's unlikely that someone's weight or size would change radically in a brief period, a model that weighed items that were tested more recently might better reflect the individual's measurements.

Of course it's been years and years since I took the class, so any screwup in this comment should reflect on me, and not my professor.

1 I was writing a function in R to speed up an IRT model fitting a curve in a way that let me do it in seconds instead of hours (It's been a while but I think it was identifying the point of the curve where the slope is maximized), in any case it was a time consuming computation if you check every possibility linearly to 6 decimals for hundreds of test takers, but I figured that there weren't local maximums and optimized with something like a binary search (but by decimal place), before I had ever heard of binary searches, and getting that sort of efficiency jump was deeply satisfying.

<comment><USER3> I didn't actually read the article, so maybe you're making a point specific to the article, but in response to

>For example, if StitchFix offers a belt with a number of different holes...

surely the solution is just to model belts shirts and pants separately. Just because there's a correlation between those things doesn't mean you have to use it, and it fucks with your convergence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Truly good sizing is a much more complex problem than can be solved through recommendation systems. You can get incrementally better at it, but nothing beats actually trying something on at the store. Problems that cannot be solved through recommendations alone include:

1) Body types that aren't average (all of our bodies are irregular, but some of us are more irregular than others). Clothes sizing are based on a average model of the human body.

2) Fabric interaction with body. Softer fabrics drape in different ways from more rigid fabrics. Also how loose or muscular your flesh is can affect fit if you're in the market for really slim fits (European style).

3) Non-representative snapshots: your measurements in the morning will differ from other times of day, and it will differ over the course of weeks and months, even if your diet is stable.

4) Shrinkage/expansion: depending on material, there is some shrinkage or expansion after the first wash/wear. Although this is mostly a known quantity and good clothiers account for this.

Really good bespoke tailors understand these principles, and make allowances for them as they build your clothing. Also they know to put elastic fabrics in the right places so the suit will still fit even after a large meal.

I think the one way we can get closer to a good fit while being remote is to have pop-up stations/kiosks where we can get multiple 3D scans of our body on separate occasions (kinda like how most bespoke tailors require at least 3 fittings). That still doesn't account for fabric-body interactions, but it gets us a lot closer than recommendation systems.

p.s. the other problem is cultural. Most Americans don't know or care quite as much about fit (because it's not as prized in the culture) as their European counterparts, so their data is going to be skewed slightly towards the left end of the competence curve.

<comment><USER5> I'd say the situation is even more complex than that, i.e. even trying it on at the store may be insufficient: I hypothesize that a non-small percentage of people, like me, have no good subjective function to assess apparel fit when they out it on. That's why (I'm a bit embarrassed to admit) I have to bring in in my wife with me for all non-trivial shopping to get her expert opinion.

<comment><USER4> > I have to bring in in my wife

Excellent point. :) What is the point of finding the perfect fit, after all?

It's so that the person (or persons) whose opinions you care about think you dress well and look well put together. That is an important piece of data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it surprising they do all this math since the model they seem to use is "Send everybody tent-like shirts that would fit a horse." After repeated requests for more fitted styles, I kept getting tents (although eventually smaller size tents).

I understand why they do this, because this style is likely to fit more people. But if the technique they describe in this post actually works, perhaps they could be more adventurous?

</comment><comment><USER7> Related: [http://sizes.darkgreener.com/](http://sizes.darkgreener.com/) recording the discrepancy between label size and actual fit for a lot of UK high street shopping.

The variance in label sizes is bad enough - and worse for women's clothing than mens - but when you get into "large/medium/small" it's just a lottery. Especially if you're a westerner ordering direct from China.

<comment><USER8> The variance in label sizes is definitely more extreme in women's sizes, but I'm particularly struck by how it happens with supposedly-objective men's clothing. As men's pants get larger, the waistband size becomes increasingly dishonest - despite supposedly being measured in "inches". I'll look for the study, but it can get up to an impressive 10%+ discrepancy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Stitchfix has done a good job learning my size, but I wish I actually could "shop" at stichfix. When you get a box, there's a foldout paper that shows you examples of what you could wear these new clothes with...but I don't own any of those thing.

I wish they had some sort of follow up experience that would let me "complete" the outfit.

They talk a bit about why they don't have any sort of online shopping here:

[http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/2015/07/07/personali...](http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/2015/07/07/personalizing- beyond-the-point-of-no-return/)

</comment><comment><USER10> They used Stan! [http://mc-stan.org/](http://mc-stan.org/)

Gelman and the rest of the crew at Columbia are doing great work. Check out [https://www.generable.com/](https://www.generable.com/) too.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice! Using IRT for clothes sizing is indeed innovative.

One factor that is difficult to account for is users not telling you the truth. Users may feel embarrassed to say something is too small, as that may have negative connotations for some. It's difficult of course to control for that, but I wonder how honest people might be in their feedback.

</comment><comment><USER12> The simple model didn't work for me. They sent me shirts and pants that did not fit.

<comment><USER13> This is the "cold start" problem, which they mention in the post ("What do we do about clients who recently signed up and have no past history on the service?") along with how they attempt to mitigate it. It's not surprising that their approach doesn't work for all users (as it would appear that it didn't in your case). I'm curious though, how much feedback does their system need in order to converge? E.g., how many ratings would you need to provide before receiving well-fitting clothes?

<comment><USER12> Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. Most of the clothes they sent are from their own brands which makes me wonder what is new about this model. Anybody retailer can ship their clothes if they are willing to process the returns for free.

<comment><USER14> I'm not in B2C or really any consumer play, and haven't looked at SF closely. But: I assume it's an execution play.

Anybody can sell their books and electronics online (well, they could before Amazon started, yet amazon exceeded). Anybody can make clothes, yet Inditex is a monster. And why is there more than one restaurant. SF's claim is that their tech is a differentiator, and they are a tech company (unlike, say, Target or Blue Nile).

There are a couple of thoughts about "in store brand": their business plan may have required tighter control and visibility into the dimensions and materials of their product (dimension for the reasons discussed in the article and its footnotes; material because stuff that is tried on not in store and returned may need to be more durable, I don't know). It makes the plan more complex, but perhaps improves execution enough that it's worth the expense.

In the long run, if they really have a tech advantage they have the option of expanding beyond just in-house product or simply splitting into sub brands, or both.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A six-part story of a PTA-president mother, framed for drug possession - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-framed/ <comment><USER3> This is a very good example of psychopaths taking advantage of government's irrational response to hurt others.

Irrationality here is the War on Drugs. I think that should be talked about in more details in this case. Granted, if it was shorty after a terrorist attack they said she was making bombs in her basement, maybe sprinkle some fertilizer residue on her car.

This always happens, it is a common pattern. I remember being told how during Stalin's time it wasn't uncommon for neighbors to rat on each other and say "so and so is against Stalin and making jokes", and magically the whole family disappears after an early morning visit from NKVD. Well they shouldn't have been letting the cows graze that close to the fence, that'll teach them.

If War On Drugs wasn't there and cops and society wasn't twitchy and irrational about it, the criminals would have a harder time. This just made it all too easy (and the real reason this is news is because she got way and by strange coincidence the detective wanted to look deeper into the story).

<comment><USER4> I've been thinking for a while now that police overresponse and internal surveillance and control are similar to immune disorders: a hyperactive defense mechanism turns against that which it ought be protecting in the first instance.

I'm suspecting this is a general systems problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is sort of tangential to the rest of the article, but I'm glad it was mentioned:

> Duff considered the possibilities. In so many places, he thought, it would > have gone differently. If the attempted frame-up had happened in one of the > gang neighborhoods of Los Angeles where he used to prosecute shootings, > rather than in a rich, placid city in Orange County ... if the cop who found > the stash of drugs in Kelli Peters' car had been a rookie, rather than a > sharp-eyed veteran ... if she had been slightly less believable ...

I know there's a lot of talk about inequality and such on HN lately, but if you're from the US and this paragraph doesn't catch you for a second, in my opinion you need to reexamine your values.

<comment><USER6> yes, for sure, totally agree. Which reminds me of the number one rule - don't talk. Shut up and ask for your attorney. She got lucky and is a prime example of an exception to the norm as many of us know what that means. Again, don't talk to cops. She was foolish to consent to the search without a warrant.

<comment><USER7> Refusing to talk wouldn't work if you were black or brown though. Either the cop would have looked in the car and found the drugs anyway, or they would have gotten the warrant and found the drugs.

At which point you would be threatened with a trial that might not even be that winnable by the prosecution, but that they'd use as a stick to bully you into taking some kind of plea bargain, maybe even without jail time, but now at least you're on probation and/or have a criminal record.

<comment><USER6> simply not true. refusing to talk removes the cop's ability to use what is said against you. Talking to them gives them ammunition. Don't take it from me. See what a lawyer and a cop both say:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Holy Shit.

This is the kind of reporting I grew up with from the LAT - normally I wouldn't think of Irvine as a place of righting wrongs, or even justice - <USER2> clearly more than just wealth prevailed here.

If more peoples interactions with the justice system went like this, we'd be better off.

(To be clear I'm an Orange County Native - one does not think of South Orange County as a place of great crime - largely speeding tickets, and minor violations.)

<comment><USER9> Yes, it was a brilliantly written article and very engaging right to the end. A great read and I had a real sense of justice done against those two by the end of the piece. That Easter woman was insane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The 911 call claimed his name was 'Chandraskhar' (I assume a vowel got dropped in there and they meant Chandrasekhar), which isn't a name I'd expect someone to produce at random. But it's a pretty notable one if you have a physics background; Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar won the 1983 Nobel Prize for physics and the 'Chandrasekhar limit' is a well known number in astrophysics. So, I was wondering if someone in all of this would have some connection to astrophysics and lo and behold the crazy wife's dad is an astrophysicist. Makes me guess who wrote the script for the 911 call.

<comment><USER11> It said at one point in the article that Easter had made the name up based on his Indian neighbor's name.

<comment><USER10> Oh, I must've missed that.

<comment><USER12> Well, it's not clear if they actually checked if he really had such neighbor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That PTA lady was fortunate. This kinda thing happens all the time with class divides, power struggles, etc.

The world ain't civil, and the US simply changed the methods people use. There is so much tit for tat, eye for an eye, you wouldn't be wrong to think it is still the old testament.

The story itself is exceptional because she was fortunate there were 20 detectives with nothing better to do. Try to tell a story like this in any other neighborhood. In most cases, police are just trying to prevent those kinds of people from getting violent, and that is if that department is even functional.

<comment><USER14> _> That PTA lady was fortunate._

That reminds of Orwell's account in "Homage to Catalonia" of being shot in the Spanish civil war:

 _"No one I met at this time -- doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow- patients-- failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it would be even luckier not to be hit at all."_

<comment><USER13> People can be selfish, delusional, and cruel. If you take the Western ideals of individualism, a person would be lucky not to have to deal with people like the easters. Matter of fact is, everyone will have to at one point in their life or another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Man this reads like something out of a TV drama. Some people I guess can go a bit overboard, maybe borderline delusional when their kids are involved.

<comment><USER16> _Man this reads like something out of a TV drama._

I don't think that's a coincidence. People copy what they see -- even if only unconsciously and because it's the first idea which comes to mind -- and for people who have no direct experience with crime, TV dramas make up most of what they have seen about it.

<comment><USER17> I'd guess it's the other way round. I see a lot of fiction which is ripped from the headlines. People are endlessly creatively crazy and ripping off real life is a lot easier than making stuff up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm struck by the following sentence...

"Duff was struck by how thoroughly the Irvine police had investigated a crime in which the victim had suffered no physical harm."

She definitely suffered the threat of physical harm. As we've seen over and over, contact with the police can have fatal consequences for the civilian. Furthermore, being jailed and incarcerated is a physical harm.

It's like the investigating police actually recognized this!

</comment><comment><USER19> I hope we'll find out if they are hiding any money and they'll have to pay eventually.

<comment><USER20> I'm not so sure that's justice in this case, or in general. If someone has already spent time in jail and has a felony on their record, erasing the possibility of utilizing their law degree, do we need to punish them further? What does "paying one's debt to society" mean?

<comment><USER19> The civil penalty would hopefully go to the woman they harmed and not to society in general. It's not about paying their debt to society in the abstract but rather about making their very concrete victim whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "The sociopath next door"

I read this, and I was honestly shocked anyone could be so petty.

That said, I have a weird story about a neighbor.

I'll keep it short, and change some of the details. I don't think they would ever be on this site, but who knows? They weren't bad people, but they just suprised me. Here goes--

Years ago a young couple moved in to a house adjacent to ours. Nice young couple. They even brought over a gift. I thanked them, and said, "If you need anything, I'm here a lot. I'm self-employed right now."

They seemed to want me to know they were both Architects.

They must have told me three times they were both Architects--in a few minute conversation?

They were definetly a differnt generation than mine, and I remember the "What do you do" introductory questions. I never liked them. I remember really tiring of them them in the bar scene. "And what do you do?" I once told a young lady, I was a Proof reader in the pornography industry. Another, "A professional Drinker." Her, "Ewe", or something like that.

Back to that first encounter, I figured they were just glad to be finished with school, and trying to network. They were proud of their professions, and that's fine.

I knew right away I had nothing in common with the male Architect. We were just two different people. I remember I was working on my car, and my hands were filthy. I knew he wasen't the type of guy who ever got his hands dirty. That's fine, I'm just one of those guys. I try not to pay people for stuffI can do myself, and I was always just getting by financially. I couldn't afford to hire anyone for anything.

There was just something about him, but I couldn't put a finger on it. Outwardly nice, but something seemed phoney. I was inwardly hoping they wouldn't invite me over for any socials. It turned out they weren't social.

Anyway, I never gave them much thought.

In my neighborhood, we don't know eachother. It might sound weird, but you get used to it, and kinda of begin to like it.

We shared a property line. One day he wanted to replace a fence, but he claimed I was encroaching on his property line--by a few inches. I was kinda shocked. I asked him, "How do you know?" Oh---I can just tell. You know, "I'm an Architect?" Yea--I was shocked. I felt like telling him, "I'm an inactive general contractor", but dummied up. He caught me off guard. (I knew new when these houses were built, the set back linewas 5 feet, and 6 feet for two story homes. He was in a one story ranch style home. If anything, he was on our property?)

I told him get a survey, and put the fence wherever the line is. I walked away thinking, that was kinda weird?

A few years went by. He got a survey. Never heard from him.

They had a kid.

Maybe five years went by, and I honestly forgot their names.

The then got another survey. I think it was a friend of his, because he was helping--holding the markers, etc.

I knew I wasen't on his property, but he seemed determined to get a survey proving me wrong.

A few more years went by.

They had another baby.

In all the years I lived next to them, we would wave, say hi on garbage day, but we really didn't know eachother.

I just knew his wife worked, and he took care of the kids. I thought that was great. I thought he was a great father. They were a great couple! They seemed so normal. Never a fight. Just a quiet couple. He liked to wear a tie though. Never got that one. Why wear a tie around the house?

One day, I was walking home from work, and saw a sign.

"Free baby monitor. It works."

I thought of my next door neighbors, and picked it up.

I knew I wasen't going to knock on their door, but I might just put the monitor on their driveway. Plus--I like to fix disgarded electronics, or see how they are made. I was thinking of taking it apart to see how it was built, or maybe scavage any caps, resistors, etc. They didn't seem the type to have anything used, and I get that, but this baby monitor still had the stickers on it. It didn't look used. Put shrink wrap on it, and it would be new. I decided to keep it. They probally would want it.

So, I'm at my workbench, and device this is just too nice to take apart. I decide to give it to my neighbors. I did want to test it before I put it one their property though.

It's about 6 in the afternoon. I turn it on, and I hear people talking. "Wow!!" I was startled. It literally scared me. Then it kicked it; they must have a baby monitor, and it's on the same channel? Horrid security though!

I immediately turned it off, but I couldn't help myself. It was just so clear. I was impressed with the radio's frequency power.

So---I turned it back on. I thought I will just listen a little bit. I then heard my name. I thought they couldn't be talking about me. We have talked maybe three times in 10 years?

But they were talking about me. I heard, "If he doesn't shut that dog up, I'm going to call the humane society." "Did you see his hair lately?" "Who's that new girl that comes over late?"

I was floored. I didn't think they knew my name.

I thought, what are the odds they just happened to be talking about me at that point in time? They must dislike me? Or, they are people I will never quite "get".

I honestly didn't want to know, or listen.

I turned that radio off. It really did hurt my feelings though. I actually thought they liked me.

Well--I threw the baby monitor away.

They ended up moving. They see me sometimes at Safeway, and both have huge smiles. I wave back--hoping my hair looked o.k.. I get in my car, and try to smooch down my poofy hair.

Crazy people--crazy world?

<comment><USER14> There's an episode of American Dad ( _I Can 't Stan You_) where he goes through the same experience, and like you, ends up thinking that others dislike him. Until he realizes that everyone talks smack about everyone else, and that it doesn't really mean anything except that people like to gossip.

Like him, you just happened to stumble upon something that happens every day, everywhere.</comment></comment>


Vertu Unveils Luxury, Android Smartphone for $10,000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2415342,00.asp

<comment><USER2> Just don't drop it in the toilet.</comment>


Communications device offers bandwidth potential - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-12-device-huge-bandwidth-potential.html <comment><AUTHOR> Excerpts:

"The key lies in creating a structure with spacing between the plasma and metal columns as small as the wavelength of radiation being manipulated."

"The group showed that rapid changes in the electromagnetic characteristics of these crystals—such as switching between reflecting or transmitting signals—could be achieved by simply turning on or off a few plasma columns. Such a capability shows the utility of such a dynamic and energy-efficient device for communications."

My thoughts: Or for building transistors... or devices that emit and/or detect high frequency waves...</comment>


US Navy destroyer and merchant ship collide near Singapore - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-navy-destroyer-merchant-ship-collide-near-singapore-001224335.html <comment><AUTHOR> Is it possible that someone is in fact utilizing GPS "hacking" that is assisting in the likelihood of these collisions? I believe there was a story here on hckrnews about GPS "hacking" last week, although most people said the issue was known and not that big of a deal.

EDIT: Here was the story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15003333](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15003333)

<comment><USER2> Probably not:

\---

The Fitzgerald's captain was relieved of command and other sailors would be punished after the Navy found poor seamanship and flaws in keeping watch contributed to the collision, the Navy announced last week.

\---

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A strange coincidence...let's hope Fleming's ;aw doesn't apply.</comment>


How investment bankers can be incentivised to create reckless products - <AUTHOR> http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/1197

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the rub: a divergence of incentives...

"The typical investment manager/financial innovator thinks: 'If I win, my profit will be proportional to the gross sales I have initiated. If I lose, I will be dismissed, and perhaps I will lose my reputation in the process.' Thinking even further, the manager realises that the downside is limited to being fired, but the upside is limitless. This asymmetry between profits and losses encourages audacity. Once a certain risk threshold is breached, the investment manager who places bets with other people's money ignores danger. From a social point of view, the problem stems from the divergence of incentives. Even though the intermediary knows that he may suffer a severe personal loss, it will never be proportional to the losses inflicted on investors."</comment>


Ask HN: What technologies do you use in your startup? - <AUTHOR>

I'm interested in all startups using linux and windows environments. What do you use to scale to app to millions of hits per day ? <comment><USER2> Scaling is more about sound architectural decisions than it is about stack.

(And it is more about "not a problem" than it is about architecture, because a gigantic proportion of all startups will never have any scaling problem to speak of, and the majority of the remainder will be able to solve theirs in fairly boring fashions.)

Almost all startups would be better served by playing around in their technology of choice looking for something that could possibly cause a scaling problem rather than planning for scaling problems.

<comment><USER3> Engineers sometimes remind me of the two guys that used to live next to me that spent every day tinkering with the engine of their Camaro out in the garage. I'm sure it was pretty tricked out but it also spent 9/10 of its life up on blocks instead of actually driving somewhere interesting.

<comment><USER4> Precisely why I stopped caring and focused on forward movement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can you name a single startup that failed because of their inability to scale?

Development speed is way more important than scalability. Like Paul Graham says, the vast majority of startups fail because they make a product no one wants or because they never launch a product in the first place. Faster software development means you figure out if your product is a dud faster, and you're less likely to run out of morale before you've got something substantial.

I've been working on my current (unreleased) project with Django and jQuery on Linux for about a month. Here's all of the stuff I've made use of from the Django, jQuery, and Python communities:

<http://code.google.com/p/django-command-extensions/>

<http://south.aeracode.org/>

<http://github.com/dcramer/django-ratings>

<http://github.com/pydanny/django-uni-form>

<http://github.com/robhudson/django-debug-toolbar>

<http://github.com/alex/django-ajax-validation>

<http://fabfile.org/>

<http://orkans-tmp.22web.net/star_rating/>

<http://jquery.malsup.com/form/>

<http://plugins.jquery.com/project/ScrollTo>

<http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/>

<http://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/>

There's no way I could ever use a niche framework after having drunk this reusable code kool-aid.

Even if Django weren't scalable, if I really was on the road to being the next Facebook or Youtube, there'd be plenty of time and money to rewrite in something that _could_ scale.

<comment><USER6> _Can you name a single startup that failed because of their inability to scale?_

yeah - friendster.

<comment><USER5> Friendster is actually in decent shape today. So inability to scale didn't kill them--it just dealt them a very substantial blow.

Twitter would be an example of a startup that experienced severe scaling issues and still ended up on top.

Know any others?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1\. caching

2\. prefer static content over dynamic, as much as possible

3\. lots of machines, with the requests distributed across all of them

these 3 strategies alone will buy lots of scale

<comment><USER8> That's the magic formula we use at work (200+ sites, many with 1 million+ unique visitors per month). I apply the same techniques to my own projects, even though it's unnecessary at this point.

Our sites run on a standard LAMP stack (load balanced across between 2 and 25 machines using an F5), memcached for object and query caching, caching at the application level, varnish and nginx for file caching, and limelight CDN for serving images, css, and javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rails, node.js, redis, resque, mysql, nginx, unicorn, monit, solr, ubuntu.

I don't think that the technology stack matters that much, though.

<comment><USER7> while I agree that some of the strongest techniques for scaling are available on many platforms/stacks, you will generally have the easiest time of it on a Linux stack rather than say Windows. Only at the thousand-foot perspective does the stack not matter. But on the ground, where the devil is in the details, the stack matters quite a bit when it comes to what toys are available to you, what resources, what options.

<comment><USER10> I would say your familiarity with the stack you're using is what matters, both Linux and Microsoft platforms have been shown to handle massive loads with enough massaging.

I would also say it's a massive and on-going trial and error process to see what actually works, the biggest sites are still learning and falling over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> java (jee, spring, struts), hadoop, hbase, nginx, fedora, solr, activemq, ehcache/terracotta and a bunch of other OSS.

</comment><comment><USER12> We use Django, Linux (Ubuntu for both servers and developer machies), PostGIS database, memcache, Apache, etc. and of course Eclipse, Trac, etc. etc.

Haven't reached 1M hits per day yet, but I'm about to experience a bit of preemptive load testing to find out where the initial problem spots may be.

</comment><comment><USER13> Rails, distributed erlang with a BERTRPC endpoint, memcache, redis, thin/sinatra/eventmachine. The key is the less work you have to do in the request response cycle and the more you can offload to better suited environments/servers, the easier time you will have adapting to new challenges.

</comment><comment><USER14> Rails on Heroku (Meaning, Postgresql database)

</comment><comment><USER15> grails: java, groovy, ajax, lucene, sitemesh, gorm, etc.</comment>


The Problem With 1,000 True Fans - <AUTHOR> http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=484

<comment><USER2> I would argue that as far as music goes, a fan that will spend 100 dollars a year on you is more of an Uber fan. The sort of fan who shoes up way out there on the front of your bell curve. Basically, I don't think you get "True Fans" like that without collecting lots of other fans to fill out that nice lookin' curve. Maybe the truth of the matter is that lots of "popular" artist ARE supported by a few thousand "True Fans" (Or lets just say, by a relative few fans who outspend the vast majority)</comment>


Gedit 3.14 for OS X (preview) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.gnome.org/jessevdk/2014/09/02/gedit-3-14-for-os-x-preview/

<comment><USER2> That's actually a pretty good idea although the competition in the editor space is pretty fierce.</comment>


Archaeological Fantasies and Hoaxes - <AUTHOR> http://ampersand.wustl.edu/archaeological-fantasies-and-hoaxes <comment><USER2> "My professor Gordon Willey at Harvard disliked Raiders of the Lost Ark intensely. The reason being that he was of that generation. He was actually an archeologist in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and so for him, it was not okay to be caricatured in this way. The film did not show what archaeologists did. They did not go out and find prized artifacts and take them and run away. That is looting, not archaeology."

Well, I don't know if all archeologists and museum directors subscribed to that view until quite recently. For example Russia is still holding on to the famous "Priam's Treasure" looted from Berlin in 1945 (which in turn was looted from the Tory dig by Schliemann) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priam%27s_Treasure#The_treasur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priam%27s_Treasure#The_treasure_as_an_art_collection). _Many_ other more recent examples can be given, for more information you can start with this Guardian article: [https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jun/29/museums- loot...](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jun/29/museums-looting-art- artefacts-world-culture)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's amusing that the controversy is about whether the treasure should be returned to _Germany_ , rather than to Turkey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great article. I visited Cahokia just a few months after visiting pyramids in Belize and Guatemala and commented on how some of the artifacts looked similar and the government workers in the visitor center were very adamant about saying that the Cahokians we unrelated to any known tribes.

I learned later that if linage was proved there are laws that would allow the decedents to claim rights to sacred lands.

</comment><comment><USER4> I thought that it would be an interesting read about misconceptions in archeology, but turned out to be white shaming.

<comment><USER5> It was accurate its not like the entire article was white shamming and the points were true.</comment></comment>