Industry spent millions selling recycling, to sell more plastic - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/822597631/plastic-wars-three-takeaways-from-the-fight-over-the-future-of-plastics <comment><USER2> Plastics in general make me nervous. I watched a talk from an endocrinologist that many plastics and their byproducts can bind to chemical receptors, throwing off the production and ratios of various hormones and neurotransmitters. We made a big push against BPA-free plastic years ago, but there may be other varieties that are just as harmful: [https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/tritan- certi...](https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/tritan-certichem- eastman-bpa-free-plastic-safe/)

(I'm also very nervous about "biodegradable" plastic which appears to break down granularly, but persists microscopically in the environment.)

As much as I applaud the effort to use cloth bags at the grocery store, the vast majority of the products we place in them are still wrapped in _huge_ quantities of single-use plastic. While metal cans and glass jars are at least somewhat more recyclable/reusable, I'm not even sure we _have_ a good replacement for the necessary evil of food-safe containers.

If someone more knowledgable than myself had suggestions on how to look for safer/greener plastic varieties, or general strategies to reduce their use, I'd love to hear them.

<comment><USER3> Metal cans are lined with plastic. You're basically limited to glass and wax paper.

<comment><USER4> Ouch. Even the classic aluminum coke/beer can? Or tuna/sardine can etc?

Always just assumed that was the only practical recyclable container. Apparently even those have plastic? Wow.

<comment><USER5> They use a thin plastic liner to prevent reaction with the Aluminum. These will burn off when the Al is melted for recycling.

Great video here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQHFQoFoxvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQHFQoFoxvQ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even if we had 100% recycling, most if not all forms of recyclable plastic can only be recycled once into the "Made from recycled materials" type of plastic which cannot be recycled again.

So the Oil industry will still have massive demand for new plastics if every piece of existing plastic got recycled only once. For recycling to work, we need a solution that makes it easy to re-use many many times.

This is why recycling really isn't the answer to solving the plastics crisis anyway

<comment><USER7> It's a bit more complicated I believe, because with each cycle the material loses some degree of quality, but there are several categories to begin with.

So the thin water bottles (PET) might be reused only once, but advanced plastic required by medicine containers, infant food packaging, or even thicker bottles, may get recycled multiple times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've heard a sentiment from people that it's ok to drink lots of bottle water, use plastic utensils, etc. because they can be recycled. Plastic won. Try to tell people that they're wasting their time trying to recycle and they'll freak out.

<comment><USER9> the same is true of compost. It's been shown people will use more disposable utensils if they're told they're compostable (like those corn ones).

"Reduce" comes before "recycle" in the old marketing adage, but unfortunately it seems they're genuinely at odds.

<comment><USER10> "Reduce" is at odds with people's desire to consume. Unfortunately, due to the way evolution optimized humans to select mating partners, it's going to be nigh impossible to address the cause of the problem.

<comment><USER11> There may be some evolutionary aspects, but mostly it's a consequence of our culture. When disposable one-use items and containers did not exist, society was fine (for the most part). We would be fine if they largely disappeared as well. What ultimately allowed the shift to occur was that the externalities of disposables were never correctly priced into their production and usage. We can certainly fix that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel like there is another side too, of "plastic replacement" industry that also doesn't particularly have our interests at heart either. Do I really think reusable aluminum drinking straws are the answer to humanity's next crisis? Are plastic straws even in a top 1000 list of humanity's problems? Is the change even a net positive if the average person uses an aluminum one three times and throws it out? Or is it just someone (maybe even well intentioned) looking to make a quick dollar?

<comment><USER13> > Is the change even a net positive if the average person uses one three times > and throws it out?

Well, the point of the aluminum drinking straws is that you don't throw them. What's the point if you're gonna throw them in the end anyways? Just wash it, like the rest of utensils that you use.

Anyways, I think we can all survive without straws. McDonals where I live has started just not giving you straws at all, and the cup has a message that if you want straws, ask the people working there for one. Looking around me when eating there, most people seems to be able to drink their sodas just fine without straws.

<comment><USER7> No straws??? What are they planning to do next, taking away our lids?!

<comment><USER13> Yeah, the same McDonalds are obviously not using the lids as the lids are only there for putting a straw in and you cannot drink from the cup with the lid on, so they are also served without lids.

Guess the next step is to replace the paper/plastic (not sure what material it is, guessing a mix) cups with actual glasses that gets washed instead of thrown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We need to ban most consumer uses of plastic. Plastic is much like nuclear waste, it's harmful to life, and takes thousands to millions of years to degrade. Outside of uses like medical devices or smaller electronic devices, plastic is just wasteful. At the supermarket, I just cringe when I see a single banana or apple wrapped in plastic wrap. And I shudder to imagine the future health effects all the microplastic beads in the water supply are doing to us.

<comment><USER15> The plastic-wrapped fruit lasts longer so there is less food waste (and less carbon wasted on shipping wasted fruit).

<comment><USER16> There would also be less food waste if the stores just, you know, gave away the products about to spoil to people who, you know, aren't rich enough to be picky about their bananas.

<comment><USER15> That does happen with bread at least. I grew up in a place where shopping at the "canned food store" and "bread store" was common. These were places that sold food that had expired off the shelves of other stores at steep discounts. Sometimes the food was just given away by grocery stores, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yep, industry promotes recycling to sell more plastic, and they also discouraged littering to reduce their responsibility to make biodegradable packaging. See [https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct- perspec...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec- indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> As everyone in the media wakes up to the fraud that is recycling I'm reminded that Penn and Teller looked into this in 2004.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0771119/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0771119/)

<comment><USER19> Penn and Teller are full of it as usual. Glass/metals recycling is perfectly beneficial. Paper recycling is generally beneficial if you can get people to recycle the correct paper. But in situations where paper waste is relatively uniform (such as printer paper in offices, schools, etc.) paper recycling can be very efficient and profitable.

It turns out that plastics recycling (at least at the consumer level) is not that beneficial and probably just an elaborate marketing campaign. If Penn and Teller dug in and did their research and outed plastics recycling as a marketing campaign I would say they are great public intellectuals and forward thinking visionaries. Instead they just recycled (get it?) some long refuted right wing lies about all recycling and thus ensured nobody would take them seriously. And if part of their argument was correct that was completely coincidental.

<comment><USER18> Did you actually watch it? They point out that at the very least aluminum recycling make sense. At the time glass and paper recycling seemed to have some questions around profitability. They mostly spent the episode dedicated to plastics.

They also admitted that despite their findings they found it very difficult to personally give up on recycling. That's what makes the lie so effective. We want to believe we are helping, that we are doing something effective that makes up for our wastefulness and excess consumption. We aren't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Something I've wondered about for a while is if we just decreased the variety of things we allow to be put into combined recycling if that would help.

For example, if we eliminate paper and glass entirely from recycling programs and all recycling was plastic and metal. Would this help?

I know a some amount of paper is carbon neutral at this point because planting is required which offsets use.

And a deposit could be charged for glass which would help that.

If we focused on metal, which is profitable and plastic which seems to be most problematic would we be better off?

<comment><USER21> Some single-stream systems have stopped taking glass. Paper/cardboard seems to be cost-effective so there isn't a real pressure to remove that. If anything it's one of the few things (along with metal) that the recycling systems actually get decent recovery rates from.

The reasons for removing glass in particular seem to be: 1) it's the heaviest component, so removing it decreases transportation/processing costs, 2) after China stopped accepting exported glass, there's a lack of processors who will take it, and 3) broken glass shards contaminate more valuable things in the stream, plus damage machinery.

Plastic isn't really cost-effective either and has low recovery rates, but it's at least lighter than glass and doesn't break into shards as easily, so a lot of places still take it, if only to make people feel good.

Links: [https://wamu.org/story/19/04/26/arlington-ends-curbside- glas...](https://wamu.org/story/19/04/26/arlington-ends-curbside-glass- recycling/), [https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news2/glass-containers-no- long...](https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news2/glass-containers-no-longer- required-in-curbside-recycling-program/), [https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/recycling-programs- ph...](https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/recycling-programs-phase-out- glass-2018/)

<comment><USER20> I was thinking paper not because it's not cost effective in itself, I just kind of assumed wet or soiled paper was a source of contamination for other things.

I think plastic should be a priority because it seems to be the most disasterous of recyclables when it comes to environmental contamination. Taxing plastic packaging to include externalities would probably fix this.

<comment><USER22> office paper & corrugated cardboard are some of the higher value recycled materials.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am afraid, that environmental topics will drown in current pandemic. There will be millions units of medical safety equipment disposed in coming months. Probably this will be incinerated since contaminated. It's basically all sorts of plastic. Maybe this will push forward recycling industry to deal with large amount of plastic waste. Maybe not.

I can speculate, that more and more products in the stores will be wrapped to create safety feeling for the buyers. "Buy here, our food is well packed and clean!"

<comment><USER24> Environmental issues always come down to scale. Disposing of excess medical equipment is a tiny issue relative to shutting down the economy.

<comment><USER25> Shutting down the economy and reduced pollution that resulted will far far outweigh increased medical supply disposal. Just go look at the skies in India and China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Reducing" takes discipline, "Recycling" maybe just delusions.

<comment> Iwan-Zotow Nonsense.

"Reducing" requires proper pricing, that is it

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> From the initial 3Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle, people have opted for recycling because it's the only one that does not actually require you to do much.

But the 3Rs are hierarchical, with the first one being the most important: reduce your waste output. Then: buy used instead of new, avoid single-use items.

You can start with a reusable shopping bag, mug, water bottle, bowl, utensils, cloth napkin.

<comment><USER28> That's is good, constructive advice.

Just to drive the point home, recycling bins are largely land-filled in the USA. They're only recycled if the municipality can strike a deal with private recycling contractors. Often they just say no, or ask to be paid to handle it. So off to the landfill.

The bins sure make people feel good, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This kind of dishonest dealing seems to be just absolutely everywhere. It is really depressing. How do you even fight it. It probably is all legal, but it is corrupt as hell and condemns everyone else to pay hugely for a small group's gain. Maybe we can support 7bn people on this earth, but not this way.

</comment><comment> Iwan-Zotow If it is 100% recyclable+degradable, I don't care how much they sell</comment>


If China Really Wants to Retaliate, It Will Target Apple - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/if-china-wants-retaliate-target-apple/ <comment><USER2> As this article and other similar articles has pointed out; If the Chinese dictatorship decides to attack Apple it will also cause unemployment and other economic issues for China considering how many people Foxconn/Jabil and their local suppliers hire. There are few solid options for the Chinese to effectively retaliate without also hurting themselves.

</comment><comment><USER3> They should be careful about shooting their own foot, we shoot our own foot better than anyone.</comment>


Scenic, the Fuchsia Graphics Engine - <AUTHOR> https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/garnet/+/master/docs/ui/scenic.md <comment><USER2> Is Scenic 2d or 3d?

Also, the bouncing ball example seems to have a ton of boilerplate code. Nobody is going to want to write stuff like that until they absolutely have to. So chances are that you'll only eber interact with that through some traditional widget library.

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is that library doesn't have to be Flutter or written in Dart at all.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the basics of cryptography with regards to cryptocoins? - <AUTHOR>

I am a CS grad but I didn't touch cryptography much at all because I thought it was a specialization that I didn't need. I think I might be proven wrong in the near future. I would like to build a solid foundation of understanding mostly in regards to cryptocoins but also covering the basics of the field, math  and theory included. Where do I start? <comment><USER2> Finding the prime factors of large numbers is hard. Cryptography is almost exclusively about picking two Large Primes, Multiplying them, and then using that very large, very hard to factor number as a key.

This is overly simple, but it is the very core of every modern crypto. So understanding it is the best place to start.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto](https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto)</comment>


Great Australian Software Developers: Nick Gammon and G-Pascal - <AUTHOR> http://supercoders.com.au/blog/nickgammongpascal.shtml <comment><USER2> This is another of those amazing examples of how the super-cramped (by today's standards) hardware of the late 70's and early 80's inspired some amazing efficiency and brilliant programming. Machines with 1,2,4, 8 or super-enormous 16k memories were standard but still managed to be turned into efficient workhorses for all sorts of uses (pleasure and business).

It's fantastic that many of these stories (and the source code) are starting to be told. I love them for both the memories and finding out how things came about and sometimes even seeing what they caused to evolve through till now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Love it.

"The Commodore 64 version had extra features to support the hardware on that PC. In particular, I added stuff to let you handle sprites, the colour screen, and the sound chip. This extra stuff took about another 4 Kb, so I think the whole G-Pascal took up 16 Kb."

kOS is my hope for a smaller and more efficient future: [http://kparc.com/o.htm](http://kparc.com/o.htm)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting I think Nick Gammon wrote this about the same time as Anders Hejlsberg wrote Turbo Pascal. In an alternate reality who knows how far G-Pascal might have gone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great write-up Andrew.

Having G-Pascal being developed locally would have been interesting, another example of software companies starting in Melbourne, just like Beam. Turbo Pascal was the second compiler [0] I used at uni. The stand out feature of TP was the tight integration of editor to compiler and debugger. It just made things faster to code than punching cards or remembering Edlin commands over VT100.

[0] First, FORTRAN.

<comment><USER4> Yes it was a very interesting read but Nick wrote it, I just top and tailed it.</comment></comment></comment>


How to recognise a good programmer - <AUTHOR> http://inter-sections.net/2007/11/13/how-to-recognise-a-good-programmer <comment><USER2> Perhaps most people reading HN would be able to recognize a good programmer. But there are still challenges when you need to hire someone with area of expertise that is outside of your own - if you're hiring someone to do your own job or your clone, it's straightforward.

For the last two start-ups in which I was involved (as a graphic designer), a co-worker and I were placed in the position of choosing developers to build our application. We were the most technologically savvy people on our start-up team of businessmen, attorney's, accountants, etc. (in many ways those startups followed the inverted timeline of most startups).

At first the only questions we could ask the applicants were... what languages do you know? what projects have you worked on? how would you solve this problem?... as if their answers would inspire some confidence regarding their abilities as a programmer - their answers inspired nothing because WE knew nothing. What I'm saying is that if you are going to hire people, you have to educate yourself to a conversational level+ in their area of expertise.

Nowadays my said co-worker and I both know RoR and are building our own startup apart from that original group. And when we decided to hire another developer we were in a MUCH better position not only to recognize a strong programmer but to leverage our own abilities.

Be wary of his point regarding PASSION. We met with some programmers who were passionate, but were obviously charlatans.

<comment><USER3> "We met with some programmers who were passionate, but were obviously charlatans."

And how did you tell the difference? (when it wasn't obvious... or was it always obvious?)

<comment><USER2> Well, we did hire one charlatan programmer, but we dropped him pretty quick when we realized that he couldn't produce the quality and quantity of work that he claimed possible. Like I said, this was when we didn't know diddly about programming / hiring programmers.

Regarding the ones that were obvious (as it seemed to me), they were lingo dropping high-horsers, and when we looked at their previous work and saw that they were producing crusty web applications while claiming that they were abreast of all the latest technologies, we knew something was up.

We chose at one point to work with a web development firm that promised great things and they had a strong team... but what I wish we would have payed more attention to was the fact that they were working on MANY other projects and were spread way too thin. In the end they were late on every deadline so we stopped working with them.

I feel fortunate to be working with two other great developers now. But I've worked with several doozies, and it has been through that process that I've learned more about who to hire, and I'm much more cautious now.

<comment><USER3> Thanks a lot for taking the time for writing such useful reply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The list of qualities here would indicate a good person in _any_ profession, not just programming. I think these challenges only exist because we (as a society) have learned to accept schooling as the indicator of qualification.

<comment><USER5> Schooling might not work so well as qualification, but take care not to trivialize the problem. You can't really figure out how good someone is until you've worked with them, unless they have a long string of accomplishments. Schooling might be a little above noise, but at least it functions as a fairly reliable minimum bar.

<comment><USER4> Based on the _deluge_ of resumes I've seen coming into tech shops lately, the bar set by college degrees is so low that you need to _dig_ to find it.

<comment><USER6> That is why there is the notion of league tables for colleges. My friends with MBAs say quite plainly that unless an MBA is from a "top 25" school, it simply isn't worth doing or having.

<comment><USER7> That leads me to believe it is a bullshit field of study altogether, if the only metric of worth is the school name.

<comment><USER6> CS graduate from MIT or Podunk U?

<comment><USER4> Well, can they code or not?

<comment><USER6> You've got a pile of a hundred CVs to sort through.

<comment><USER8> Then you've got other problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've got to say - In my experience, industry-based qualifications are more often than not a counter-indicator.

This was particularly true of the Java certifications during the dotcom boom - it was invariably the sign of someone who really just wanted to cash in... Out of the ten hires I was directly involved with, 6 were Java certified and 5 of those were absolutely terrible.

It might demonstrate a knowledge of Java, but at a very superficial level - even if you take someone with the best vocabulary in the world, it doesn't mean they'll be a good author.

A degree is a bit different. It at least demonstrates - a probable understanding of the fundamentals, the ability to stick at something and a certain level of exposure to broad ideas... Plenty of good programmers won't have degrees, but it's not a bad indicator none-the-less.

</comment><comment><USER10> Just coincidentally, these happen to be the _exact attributes_ the author believes he has! How fortunate!

</comment><comment><USER11> Unfortunately, there are programmers that you could recognize using these criteria who produce highly idiosyncratic code that's nearly impossible for someone else to maintain for the months it takes for them to come up to speed. There are also programmers who would be recognized by this criteria who are just as insightful and productive who produce beautiful intention revealing code.

How would we recognize the latter group?

<comment><USER12> Try asking them.

"Hey, do you find most of your colleagues are familiar with your code or do you find most of them have trouble getting up to speed with it?" You can ask this question in a very neutral tone, one that implies that the colleagues _may_ have been at fault.

And then, be very careful to determine whether the colleagues really weren't at fault. If you're trying to hire a very smart person, you may find someone who has chafed writing J2EE code in BigCo, and yes his code was inscrutable to his colleagues, that's why he wants to write Python code for you.

<comment><USER11> I've witnessed solo programmers writing brilliant but inscrutable code in Smalltalk. Bittorrent's code also fit this description for awhile. Someone who writes inscrutable code in J2EE in BigCo might do so because he's hobbled by their coding standards. But he might be one of those folks who is a brilliant coder but has no sense of what is intention revealing to those reading his code.

<comment><USER12> I agree. All I can say is... the OP mentions indicators. _It is absolutely correct that they are merely hints_. You still have to interview them and/or test them and/or check references from former employers and/or check references from former colleagues, and/or...

In this particular case I speak as someone who has received both praise for my ability to write code that my colleages find crystal clear _and_ vilification for writing code that my colleagues find inscrutible.

Did I mention code samples? I have code I can share. I like it when I'm interviewing and someone has code they can share.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Everytime I read these kind of articles I see the one glaring headline, how programmers love to work outside of their regular work day

Then I become sad because 80% of my week I come home and have to handle something and by the end of it all, I don't have any time to play around (aka, program) because I have to go to bed. Sigh, vicious cycle :(

(I know I can work on managing my time better and I am, like cooking more meals for the week, and time-boxing other tasks .. but it takes time!)

<comment><USER14> Freud was once asked what he though a normal person should be able to do well. The questioner probably expected a complicated, a "deep" answer. But Freud simply said, "Lieben und arbeiten" ("to love and to work"). It pays to ponder on this simple formula; it gets deeper as you think about it. For when Freud said "love", he meant the expansiveness of generosity as well as sexual love; when he said "love and work," he meant a general work productiveness which would not preoccupy the individual to the extent that his right or capacity to be a sexual or loving being would be lost.

(From "Identity and the Life Cycle", by Erik H. Erikson)

Yes, this is a repost of a comment but it _is_ relevant. Work can cut into life and life can cut into work...

<comment><USER15> On the other hand, someone said: "You can't be normal and expect abnormal results".

<comment><USER16> I like this philosophical quote:

Kant, "To be is to do"

Nietszche, "To do is to be"

Sinatra, "Do be do be do"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Problem is that many of the positive indicators are also present in bad programmers.

My experience is that it is extremely hard to recognize good programmers from bad programmers on the basis of personality traits.

The only think that seems to work is to actually investigate how well they read and write code.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm tired with people putting elite programmers on pedestals. I used to almost worship this one code guru at my company but I eventually moved on to just working on myself, taking up avocations outside of programming. I'm fortunate to be able to code/problem solve for a profession.

<comment><USER3> This is an article for recognizing good programmers, so you can hire them, not for other programmers to admire them.

<comment><USER12> Exactly.

Maybe you are _contemptuous_ of them, but you have a business plan that involves having them work back-breaking hours for some founder's equity you will dilute down to the strength of Budweiser beer.

That sounds like sarcasm, but consider the case of salespeople. Many people have trouble liking salespeople, and many people do not admire them. But many businesses would close without good salespeople. So you try to find and hire the best salespeople you can find.

Wanting to put someone to work in a manner advantageous to your business is entirely orthogonal to putting them on a pedestal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would look for the ability to think i.e., quickly and logically breaking a problem into its components and get to the essentials. Ask good questions along the way, and come up with a solution to the problem. Do this in an area outside their expertise.

Anyone who passes that test with flying colors and is interested and engaged while doing it has a first-rate mind. The rest is detail -- do they know this language? if not, do they want to learn it? can they work with other people? do other people want to work with them?

Valuing "passion" (in the 20-something hacker crowd) or a university degree (large software companies too numerous to name) over the ability to think clearly in the abstract are both unfortunately too common. It seems to me that either is more a tool for recognizing "people like us" than to actually identify a good programmer.

</comment><comment><USER19> If this article is correct: I should make a career change

</comment><comment><USER3> Aren't these instructions on "How to recognise an hypermind programmer"?

Edit: I agree that this way you can recognize good programmers, but are all good programmers supposed to be that way, or only hyperbrain/INTP/whatever?

<comment><USER15> Hia,

I wrote this article a long time ago, long before the whole hyperbrain thing. It was actually published here, although with "www" in the URL, which explains why it can be reposted :-/

This was actually the article via which I found HackerNews, since HN showed up as a large referrer in my logs so I came here to investigate and, finding it to my taste, stayed.

And to answer your question, no, I don't think these characteristics are in any way related to hyperbrains.

(initial post of this article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=97121> )

<comment><USER3> Hi, thanks for answering. I relate this to hyperbrains because it talks about programmers that: a) are intelligent, b) work in a lot of different projects, possibly unrelated, that are usually hidden, c) are passionate, and self- taught. Maybe not(hyperbrains<->your good programmers), but I'm sure a stable hyperbrain programmer would have all characteristics on your list.

Anyway, I don't like the hyperbrain word (sounds too powerful, as if being better than the other brains and I don't like it), though I really like your articles on the subject btw.

<comment><USER15> _I'm sure a stable hyperbrain programmer would have all characteristics on your list._

That's quite possible, actually. Someone with a hyperbrain who also happens to be a programmer will probably fit most of these criteria - but then, I would say that this is more an indication of hyperbrains being well adapted to programming than of good programmers being hyperbrains.

 _Anyway, I don't like the hyperbrain word (sounds too powerful, as if being better than the other brains and I don't like it), though I really like your articles on the subject btw._

Thanks. I came up with "hyperbrain" because I felt I had to call it something for it to stick out. Hyperbrain seems like a reasonable term because: a) it's not in use, b) it transmits the idea that this kind of person is "hyper", in the sense of being more extreme in their behaviour. Certainly it's not perfect, but oh well. If it sticks around, it'll stick around, if not, it won't ;-)

<comment><USER3> _Someone with a hyperbrain who also happens to be a programmer will probably fit most of these criteria - but then, I would say that this is more an indication of hyperbrains being well adapted to programming than of good programmers being hyperbrains._

Touché. If your criteria for good programmers is ok, then you are right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I only use one criteria: demonstrated performance.

<comment><USER15> You mentioned that in the previous posting of this article, but I wasn't around to reply back then :-)

I agree that demonstrated performance is the ideal, but there are two problems with it:

1) it's slow and expensive. Who do you ask to demonstrate performance? You need some initial filter to cut out most of the crud, otherwise you'll spend all your seed money getting people to demonstrate performance. These indicators allow you to perform some sort of preselection, at least. Also, if you're interviewing, you'll find that most good people get snapped up before you have a chance of seeing their performance, so you'll miss out on 90+% of good hires.

2) What if you don't know how to tell good performance from bad? You can't reply that "a non-technical guy has no business hiring a technical guy". This article is aimed at business guys, and they have the very real problem of needing to basically boot-strap their business's technical expertise starting from nothing. This article can help recognise a good cofounder too. At that point "demonstrated performance" is fairly irrelevant, since as a business guy you wouldn't be able to tell good performance from bad - however, you can still tell passion from lack of it, or hidden experience from purely on-the- job experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If I was hiring I'd say "point me at a public repo of some of your code."

</comment><comment><USER22> Introverts are generally good programmers.

<comment><USER17> That is a preposterous claim! Perhaps you meant that good programmers are often introverts?

I think programmers in general are often relatively introverted, however my anecdotal experience is that good programmers are not on average more introverted than bad programmers. So introversion is a really bad indicator.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the biggest mistake you have made on the job? - <AUTHOR> What is the most catastrophic, painful mistake you made while working? Did it teach you a valuable lesson and how did you deal with the fallout? <comment><USER2> Staying too long. If your goal is to grow in responsibility, title and compensation, the most important thing is to have a boss that has the inclination and authority to develop your career and promote you, when appropriate. If you don't have that, you need to make a move.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'll start. I had been chatting with a coworker online while at work — using a bit of coarse language. Shortly before leaving, I copied and pasted some marketing copy into the CMS for the page I was working on. I didn't check my work and went home for the weekend.

Got a text Saturday morning that something was off about our "For Prospective Students" landing page (I was working on the new website for a Private Catholic College). Navigated there, and stood staring in disbelief as I read my own words calling a certain friend of mine a certain derogatory name or 4 under the heading "Why Choose Us?" Turns out, I thought I had added the Marketing copy to the clipboard, but must've accidentally copied and pasted a fraction of my damning convo instead.

Lesson Learned: ALWAYS check your work, no matter how long you have been building websites or anything public-facing. It was such a dumb mistake. I didn't end up fired, but got a stern reprimand from my direct supervisor. Months later, the President of the school confided to me that he found the incident fairly hilarious, and somewhat troubling. Hoo boy.

<comment><USER3> What ended up happening? That sounds like one of the worst scenarios from a career standpoint.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing, shockingly. My supervisor just shook his head and went "man, I just...you can't..oh man." I felt like an idiot and had another serious talk with supervisor. Apparently, only a few members of our marketing team had seen it, and I had been doing good work so the damage was mitigated somewhat.

It helped that I was the only person on staff who really knew Javascript and Coffeescript well and that I was also well-versed in writing and editing. Had I lacked any of these, had another staff member been better at them, or had the project been further along I'm sure I would've been canned. The president didn't find out until weeks later, thank god.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> there was a tax issue in our shopping cart software that only occurred in florida. I googled for an address in florida and put in a few test purchases.

Long story short, I shipped a thousand dollars worth of networking equipment to Disney World.

</comment><comment><USER5> I once fell asleep at a customer facility. We had been doing 12hr days and it was a weekend. No one was there. Cafeteria was closed so no coffee. So I decided to find a quiet spot to nap. Needless to say I got a call from my boss's boss's boss. Also, I was told to not bill that day. Despite being salaried with no overtime and having reached 40hrs in the first few days.

It wasn't the same after that. Never let your boss or coworker discover how little you care about work.

<comment><USER6> > Never let your boss or coworker discover how little you care about work.

Or switch bosses. A boss that can't understand that after 12 hour days you need some rest can go fuck themselves.</comment></comment>


Hofstadter's law - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadters_law

<comment><USER2> I find this law only holds when you're doing something that is significantly new for you, and/or has many elements or individual components which can interact in complex ways and suffer from leaky abstraction effects.

But if you're doing just one thing. Or a few things. And/or it's a set of things/activities you've done almost exactly the same way previously, and knew how long that took, then no, this law does not hold, and sometimes things go faster or about what you expected.

Developing new software for clients and/or on top of new components, almost always is applicable however. Too many moving parts will bite you. Black boxes can bite you. Developing on the frontier, as opposed to walking along a well- trodden cow path, will bite you.

</comment><comment><USER3> And, in case anyone still hasn't read "Gödel, Escher, Bach," let this be a reminder to do so.

<comment><USER4> This was a perspective altering read for me, and I still have some 200 pages to go. It is extremely dense, in the sense that there is just so much packed into each page, chapter and dialogue that you have to pace yourself.

So many times have I noticed Hofstadter making a play on his own words to prove a point about recursion or indirection or some other fundamental concept. It's truly a wonderful piece of work.

<comment><USER3> I read it right after taking my first Discrete Math and Computation courses. My eyes were quickly opened to what computation and mathematics really are. The molecular biology stuff in the middle of the book got a bit long-toothed for my taste and I think the music part of his grand analogy was the weakest, but man was that a great book.

<comment><USER5> I too read this book shortly after doing my CompSci degree. His beautiful technique of explaining complex concepts through allegory made me finally understand a lot of stuff from my various Computation-related courses, that was opaque at the time.

If I had read that book before I took the courses, I would have understood the courses a lot better. However if I had tried to read the book before taking the courses, I may well have not understood parts of the book properly.

Deliciously, this kind of recursive, chicken-and-egg problem is an embodiment of some of the book's central concepts.

Go and buy it now!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought the standard for software engineering projects was to take the estimate, bump up a unit and multiply by 2:

      1 hour --> 2 days
      1 week --> 2 months
      . . .

so 10 years would have been 20 decades :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a huge believer in the 80/20 rule: no project takes less than 80 hours, and no matter how long you think it takes, multiply this amount by 20.

<comment><USER8> I think that 20 is a bit extreme, I always multiply by 3 and it proved to be quite accurate over the years.

<comment><USER9> So you get 97/3 rule!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Do not forget Ninety-ninety rule:

"The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time."

I'm a huge believer of this one, I tend to be a little bit (please read: TOO MUCH) optimistic when evaluating the remaining work/time/etc.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-ninety_rule>

</comment><comment><USER11> I always get big laughs when I tell people about this. It's great first week on the job joke material.

<comment><USER12> Even if you take into account that you've heard it before.

<comment><USER11> Sad thing is that I can always assume that my audience hasn't heard it before. Kids these days. They don't read anymore!

<comment><USER13> If you said planning fallacy, more people might understand.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> An infinite recursion doesn't imply an infinite amount of time - the series can have a bound, depending upon the coefficients.

</comment><comment><USER15> That's why I always estimate times extremely aggressively. That way, when they undoubtedly multiply, they'll still get done pretty fast.

</comment><comment><USER16> So true.

I remember telling my boss that some project would take two weeks... back in November. It's now March and I'm still not done.

It always surprises me how long things take, especially when I consider the amount of useful code I've written over the weekend or between talks at conferences...</comment>


Programming with people: Fancy Hands lets developers add human workers to apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/14/5103454/fancy-hands-developer-api-labor

<comment><USER2> Brilliant! MTurk was an interesting idea, but required too much effort by the customer to know and use. Building such a service into an application is a great idea, connecting user with human agent with no more effort than just another menu choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I like MTurk, but it's pretty impenetrable.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What if Elon Musk would be the new Microsoft CEO? - <AUTHOR>

I know that it's impossible but wouldn't it be amazing? What are your thoughts? <comment><USER2> I don't think Musk would like the Microsoft culture and environment, even as a CEO of it. Google might be a better fit, especially with Google X and self- driving cars, but he wouldn't be too excited about making apps and web apps anymore.</comment>


Going Public Caps Dream for a Maker of Software  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/technology/18netsuite.html?ex=1355634000&en=35e441f69f42f9cd&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> "On-demand software generated revenues of about $3.7 billion in 2006, with sales projected to rise about 32 percent annually for the next few years"

Once all of the excitement of Web 2.0 and social networking settles down, THIS is where the future will be. The market for good business software as a service will be virtually unlimited. Let the land rush begin.</comment>


Ask HN: Javascript / Ruby Refactoring Tools - <AUTHOR>

As a long time Java developer, and user of eclipse. I've come (possibly to my detriment) to become very dependant on the refactoring tools that come with Eclipse. Specifically extract method, extract variable, and rename though to a lesser extent I very much enjoy f3 to follow a method/function.
I was wondering if anyone in the HN community is aware of similar tools for the more webby type languages (JS, Ruby, etc etc etc.) I currently use TextMate but it doesn't really cut the mustard, and the only plugin I've seen for it is called RFactor and it appears to be dormant.
I've tried things like Aptana as well, and all in all was not impressed with the performance. <comment><USER2> JetBrains has refactoring tools for ruby: <http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby/documentation/index.html>

There's a video about half way down the page.</comment>


A Distributed Meeting Primer - <AUTHOR> https://randsinrepose.com/archives/a-distributed-meeting-primer/ <comment><USER2> One screen, One face

That's really the only way to do it. Any other situation where there are people looking face to face and someone else on a screen makes it not fully collaborative. People are naturally more inclined when there is someone they can look eye to eye.

My company is ~50% remote (or distributed) and our all hands are with every person on their own laptop. Some people in the office pushed back, but we went this direction with zoom where you can have up to 100 people on the screen at 1 time and it has been incredible. Plus, you don't have to set up any a/v equipment because the meeting link is in the calendar invite.

<comment><USER3> How do you avoid feedback and other audio issues for people in the same room?

<comment><USER4> We use headphones for everybody. Laptops do a good job avoiding feedback

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a neighbor that owns a consultancy. They've started shipping the Meeting Owl videoconference camera to all of their high profile clients.

I personally haven't used it, but he spoke highly of it. I think the intelligent focusing of whomever is talking looks interesting. Certainly looks better than those "cameras in the sky looking down" views that are typical to most office setups.

[https://www.owllabs.com/](https://www.owllabs.com/)

P.S. No I'm not an investor, owner, or anything. Just a product that seems to take a different approach to remote meeting presentations.

<comment><USER6> We have a couple owls in our office for the remote and wfh folks, I think they work really well!

They sound good, both in the room and on a call. The video quality is good and the whole focusing on the active speakers is pretty nifty.

It doesn't really help with whiteboard discussions, it can be hard to keep it focused on the whiteboard. We've ended up just tapping the whiteboard to get it to focus.

<comment><USER5> Apparently they just released a pro version with a better 360 camera and mics. In q2 there suppose to have better tech for focusing on the whiteboard. [https://www.owllabs.com/meeting-owl#smart-meeting- rooms](https://www.owllabs.com/meeting-owl#smart-meeting-rooms)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Remote (or distributed) worker at a company mostly in a single building. I wish I was worried about the stuff in this article. I'm just lucky when I don't have to beg for a call in number.

After a bunch of terrible calls with antiquated desk phones on speaker, I asked to have some of the conference phones in the main building upgraded just to the poly on conference phones (couple hundred dollars each). Was told no. So instead we waste way more money with expensive engineers trying to make out what is being said.

All video cameras on company equipment are disabled. By corporate policy, they previously only worked on skype, which is only internal to the company. When I asked why they were disabled, I was told that it was to protect proprietary information. Everyone carries around a personal cell phone capable of transmitting video to anywhere in the world and that is okay, but locked down company hardware that can only transmit in company is too much of a risk.

I asked for a few small surface hubs to do video conferencing on, and was told no. Then they spent more money to buy one big one and put it by the executives, with restrictions on who can use it, so it is never used.

I could keep going.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is very nice, and I've shared it with some colleagues.

I've dealt with distributed meetings my whole career, and it's ranged from "wall-pounding waste of time" to just "meh". My current job has a pretty great system, but the weak spot remains WebEx, with people not muting by default or forgetting that they're on mute.

This article is a good list for any host/moderator to enforce.

<comment><USER9> Lol WebEx is always the weakspot. Push to talk by default would be a nice add.

<comment><USER8> From what I've observed, a large proportion of my colleagues would fail even harder -_-

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Team can be distributed or not, every time someone is on outside they are missing non-verbal communications. What I read in the article are a bunch of crutches and to seriously fix this make everyone remote, even if in the same office. Or make meetings onsite. Everything else will seriously undermine good fabric of the meeting, so sit back at your machines and be remote. Granted, sometimes people are sick and can't attend of whatever reason meatspace meets - same holds, they will be excluded from some communication. my 2c.

</comment><comment><USER11> I work with a small team of 5 that is distributed all over the world (Vietnam, NYC, Abu Dhabi, Hungry). Every weekday, for the past year, we have a meeting using Zoom. This is by far the best software and we've standardized on it for all of our meetings, even with outside contacts.

One interesting thing we've taken to is not using video. I don't know why, but it works better to just hear voices. We are cautious to not talk over each other, even if it gets passionate.

We are very careful to mute ourselves after talking to prevent any sort of feedback as well as keep outside noise down. I've found that wearing headphones with my laptop mic works best.

We also have a policy of being on time. It is very rare for us to show up even one minute late. In fact, I just show up early and wait a few minutes on hold.

Out of band started with Slack and for some reason has moved to a whatsapp group... I don't really know why and haven't really bothered to figure it out.

</comment><comment><USER12> here's my suggestion: If anyone in a meeting is calling in, kill the conference room and everyone get on zoom. We are a mostly distributed company, so it makes obvious sense for us, but even early one when only some folks were not present, we switched to everyone being on zoom or no one being on zoom and it make everything better.

<comment><USER13> I'll also add that Zoom (even for just audio) is lot more reliable than Slack in my experience.</comment></comment>


What Is 'What Is Code?' - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/what-is-what-is-code <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I'm older than average. I can't help feeling nostalgic for the good old days before our thing went mainstream.

Price of success I suppose, but now we have proclamations like "The world belongs to people who code. Those who don't understand will be left behind". Another example in a daily stream of hyperbolic mass media reports, reminding us yet again that 'software is eating the world'.

I have to say I preferred when the whole thing was regarded more as an exciting hobby - mostly by and for those who took the time to study the craft - than a world dominating force. This article may have value, but in those days you knew you were free of the grand statements. Money backs this new world, not code.

<comment><USER3> old enough to remember byte magazine?

<comment><USER2> i loved computer shopper - PRINT version

<comment><USER4> Jason Scott visiting that memory lane:

[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1835](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1835)

[https://archive.org/details/computer_shopper](https://archive.org/details/computer_shopper)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's an absolutely amazing piece. I know, I'm on HN, I'm not allowed to appreciate anything, but hear me out.

A lot of people here seem to be criticizing it because it has something they don't think fits everyone: austenallred thinks most people won't like its brief explanation of classes, others seem to delight in picking out things they think most people wouldn't understand and writing snarky comments about them. But "fitting everyone" would be impossible due to the gigantic range of people reading the article. This article brought together everyone: old and young, the suits and the programmers, PHP script-kiddies and artisanal Haskell sculptors into one mass of enchanted readers.

The people I know that read this have almost nothing in common: wannabe teenage intellectuals, middle managers, a kind, witty man in his 70s, spouses of programmers, people learning to code. As another commenter said, this article is something new: an article as an event. [0] An article as art. [1] But instead of dividing people, as may be expected (news events all too often separate crowds into opposing mobs; modern art separates people faster than oil and water) it brought them all together to talk about code.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9738351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9738351)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9738706](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9738706)

</comment><comment><USER6> > _Tyrangiel says the piece is worth reading, not only because of the > herculean efforts behind programming the page, but because it truly does > bridge the gap between laypeople and programmers._

I'd like to see the proof in the pudding...in the original piece, Ford described how it was commissioned by the Bloomberg Businessweek editor who asked Ford, "Can you tell me what code is?"

It'd be interesting to hear from the editor -- after spending weeks (months?) editing all 38,000 words of Ford's piece -- can he/she now tell _everyone else_ what code is? I liked the piece (though I didn't finish all of it and skimmed a few parts)...but a lot of it struck me as reading that was very interesting/amusing because I was already a coder...I'm interested in what non-coders learned from it.

<comment><USER7> My impression reading the "code" parts of it was, "There's no way in hell I would understand this if I weren't a coder." You'd understand the culture, sure, but if you've never programmed would you grok this paragraph?

> So what if, whaaaat if, we made a little box called Customer (call it a > "class," as in the taxonomical sense, like a Customer is a subclass of the > species human, which is a subclass of mammal, etc.), and we put the data and > methods relating to customers into that box. (And by box, it's literally > just "public class Customer {}" and anything inside the {} relates to that > particular class.)

It's a solid effort, but for someone who isn't technical, jumping from,"ok we have a thing called a class" to "and that's object oriented programming!" is just not something you can do in one paragraph, no matter how well it's written.

<comment><USER8> The piece uses this bewildering-for-the-lay-person language sparingly, and I think it's intended to be bewildering. It seemed to me to be meant to confuse you at times, to then later make it clearer, or to provide an escape hatch, if the reader so desired to give it a try. It's meant to give an impression of, an emotional connection to, what it means to be a programmer. To be a programmer is to take on understanding that bewildering language. It's not just some magic that we can do because we "get" computers. It was hard work that got us here.

<comment><USER9> I agree with both of you. I think the piece is brilliantly done, and the writing is just jaw-droppingly good. But I said to myself, about half-way through reading it: there's just no way a non-coder is going to "get it".

But then, how much better a job could anyone do to explain it to a non-coder? Past a certain point, you either dive in, or you don't.

<comment><USER7> To be clear, I don't think it's the writer's fault. "Teach CS101 in one paragraph" is simply an impossible task

<comment><USER10> I think it's brilliant too - possibly the first ever piece of genuine digital journalism.

And I think it's worth making a distinction between two aims - understanding a little about code and the culture around it, and _learning how to write professional code._

Obviously you're not going to do the latter in 38,000 words.

But it's superb at the former.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> WIC seemed to me more like a self indulgent brain dump than a work of art or a useful piece of information. First of all, it treats code as being somehow uniquely impenetrable as a value proposition - when we have plenty of similar examples such as any kind of creative art (why is one script worth $100M and another $0 and how can you reliably create one and not the other?) or highly refined mass produced good (e.g. Silicon chips or soda cans) or valuable insight (e.g. Progress in physics can be very expensive and yet be represented as a few scribbles on a page).

You don't need to reduce a computer to a clock with benefits to explain code any more than you need to explain how a typewriter works to explain writing.

<comment><USER12> A typewriter is an optional tool for producing a written work. With programming the computer is a necessary object required for converting the intentions of a programmer into both information about the world and actions within it. I think it's fundamental to understanding code to grasp a meaningful model of what a computer is and how it turns key presses into code on the screen and in a file, how it turns the code in that file into a sequence of simple instructions and finally what those instructions do.

This article did a good job of that as well as many other aspects of software development.

<comment><USER11> A keyboard is just as optional as a typewriter. When I first learned to program the device I learned on did not have a keyboard in the sense described; many people have learned to program by, e.g. Flipping switches on a panel.

The first computer-like things (e.g. Jacquard looms) were programmed by physical objects — indeed one of the first gadgets I learned to program used punchcards you punched manually with a pencil.

The digression into keyboards exemplifies the "self indulgent brain dump" issue I am complaining about. It reminds me of "Mathematics made difficult" except that the book in question was humorous and not pretending to make its subject more accessible.

<comment><USER12> I didn't mention keyboards in my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Joshua Topolsky and Paul Ford discussed the piece here: [https://soundcloud.com/tomorrowpodcast/episode-10-paul- ford-...](https://soundcloud.com/tomorrowpodcast/episode-10-paul-ford-and- josh-whip-the-dip)

One part of the podcast that stuck with me was the idea of an article as an event. It really was quite a while ago people talked about a text as an event. I mean, like a new book or something.

I guess Buzzfeed (and the like, which is everyone nowadays) is sort of trying to pay for their real journalism with "aww"-clicks and "omg!"-clicks, it wouldn't surprise me if cool articles like this became more of a commonplace thing.

<comment><USER14> Lots of websites have been attempting to turn their long online feature articles into events. This goes back at least to when New York Times did Snowfall, and probably earlier. I assume that's why Paul Ford got the job on this one.

But they don't appear every day. Or maybe they do, but not always as successfully?

I agree that another success means that we'll probably see more attempts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article mentions 'What is Code?' was open-sourced. Where is the repo?

Edit: Found it. [https://github.com/BloombergMedia/whatiscode](https://github.com/BloombergMedia/whatiscode)

Damn, the network graph looks like the devil's hot kitchen.

<comment><USER6> edit: via Ford's twitter account: [https://twitter.com/ftrain/status/609705511651528704](https://twitter.com/ftrain/status/609705511651528704)

> the original was org-mode but it had to become word

I'm surprised -- almost _annoyed_ , honestly -- to see that the story body is just one giant honking HTML file:

[https://github.com/BloombergMedia/whatiscode/blob/master/ind...](https://github.com/BloombergMedia/whatiscode/blob/master/index.html)

Maybe it started life as separate files that were assembled, and is now only being edited ad hoc after the first public commit [1]? Maybe...but there's no reason why the repo couldn't contain the component pieces (by that, I mean the individual sections of the page), and rebuild them via grunt. In fact, that would make it far easier to do ad-hoc fixes...as fixing HTML by hand is always a pain in the ass...nevermind working within a 3,000+ line file.

I guess I'm just "annoyed" because mitigating the problems of working with large, raw HTML -- and other parts of the textfile-to-publishing process -- is one of those things that is so wonderfully the domain of the programmer. For non-programming journalists, there's just no concept of being able to create a one-command deterministic "build" of a story...so separating the story into multiple files is very impractical...because it means you have to reassemble them by copying-pasting when it's publication time. Also, since the average writer tends to work in Word or some other proprietary document format (I've spent a lot of my web production career translating .docx files to HTML to be pasted into a Wordpress body field)...jumping into different files is not as easy as it is when you're working with Markdown and Sublime Text. Also, much harder to do a article-wide search-and-replace across multiple .docx files.

After learning Markdown (specifically, Kramdown) and static content systems like Jekyll and Middleman...I honestly could not be paid to go into a job where I had to build/publish content a non-automated process...e.g. a rich text editor, whether Word or WordPress. Being able to produce good writing means, well, first being a good writer, of course...but it's far easier to focus on being a good writer when the production process is made frictionless.

[1] [https://github.com/BloombergMedia/whatiscode/commit/837bc712...](https://github.com/BloombergMedia/whatiscode/commit/837bc712583afa43af92c310f1e3a85817c9585e#diff- eacf331f0ffc35d4b482f1d15a887d3b)

<comment><USER8> > as fixing HTML by hand is always a pain in the ass

you have a really low bar for what constitutes a pain in the ass.

<comment><USER6> You have no idea :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This kind of thing is a shame:

        > You expect your staff to speak in plain language.
        > This policy has served you well in many facets of
        > operations, but it hasn't worked at all when it
        > comes to overseeing software development.

I totally agree you should aim for a lay understanding of things outside your specialty. Programming is technical, but so are business, law, accounting, and medicine. I feel like explaining tech to non-tech people is something I'm really good at, and I see how hard it is for other programmers. I suspect that if our profession can learn to communicate better it will profit us all---but then on the other hand I don't see my own ability making me rich. Maybe I just haven't figured out how to make the most of it.

And this statement makes me mad:

        > All of the computer code that keeps the website
        > running must be replaced. At one time, it was
        > very valuable and was keeping the company
        > running, but the new CTO thinks it's garbage.

A project manager said to me once that he'd never heard one programmer praise another's code. It's always "This is crap!" Another thing I think I'm good at is coming on to a new project and adopting the style, patterns, and architecture without wanting to reinvent everything. It takes patience to read and understand, and not start too quickly to write. I feel like that behavior sets me apart from even other good programmers, but I don't know how to take advantage of it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Great read for someone on the business side of the coding community. Very in depth and relevant to those with no coding experience and experts at the same time, curious to see how this sparks coverage on coding and its application to those who haven't ventured into it yet

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow, that's meta. I find the original article truly a piece of art. It explains code to laypersons but in a way that's also interesting for seasoned programmers. Being able to bridge that gap requires more than just knowing what code is.

</comment><comment><USER19> The real "piece of art" is the discussion going on here about such topic. (It is no sarcasm, it's a really good/deep/insightful discussion, guys)

</comment><comment><USER20> I thought it was summer filler for the magazine. Lot of the weeklies turn into semi-weeklies during the summer vacation months.

P.S. Filler doesnt mean its fluff. it was very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER21> I am an "early" programmer. I'm on Chapter 7 of Hartl's Rails Tutorial, took a step back to learn Ruby early on and continued. This was all supplementing my knowledge of HTML, CSS and some basic JS.

I recently decided to start the "From NAND to Tetris" Coursera course which led me to starting Petzold's "Code" and then this article comes along.

There are people like my wife who have zero knowledge of coding, and likely won't ever care enough about it to make it through this article (I tried, she didn't get very far). They just have no interest, and I can respect that.

However for people like myself, I've realized that the more layers of the onion I peel back, the more intrigued I become. When I think about it, I was fascinated by fantasy-based magic systems when I was younger. I'm talking things like D&D, Mage: The Ascension, etc. Then I read "The Wiz Biz" by Rick Cook and realized that I was sucked in at the end when he realized how he could harness the basic "first principles" of this fantasy magic system to build abstractions that allowed for modern day coding principles.

My mind was blown, but I didn't realize just how much at the time.

Harry Potter interested me from the standpoint of "wow, I'd love to learn magic in an academic environment--how cool would that be?" And then I found myself hooked on the Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman which got as deep as I'd ever seen a book get on some of the mechanics of the actual magic system.

Finally, I put two and two together and realized that what appealed to me about all of this was the gradual understanding/building of a complex system based on its simple component parts, and the deep knowledge that was needed to master it. Then I realized that this was why I'm currently geeking out on going under the hood of modern day abstractions and working up from First Principles.

Again, I'm an "early" programmer. I don't fully grok half the crap I read. But I've realized that learning software development on my own is about as close as I'll ever get to working real, modern day magic. Clarke's 3rd law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." is very much top of mind lately. The fact that I can twiddle my fingers on a couple buttons and conjure up pictures, video, any information I want, etc. is pure magic.

There are many people out there like me who are amazed by the raw scope of how far we've come, and this article did an amazing job at reminding me of that, even though I may not have been the target audience, and that is why I enjoyed it immensely.

Some people are scared and overwhelmed by complexity, while others seek to understand it and tear it apart. I firmly believe the latter would have much more interest in this article than the former.

<comment><USER22> ^that said it really well.

New to hacker news. Loving the discussion that goes on here.

First off, I love that the article we're discussing compares WIC to Snowfall. An apt comparison to be sure.

[http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow- fall/#/?part=tunne...](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow- fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek)

So now, about What Is Code, not about the commentary on it:

I got into this article today not knowing it was ~40k words. I was tired by the time I got to the silly certificate at the bottom, but I stayed intrigued the whole way. It was well paced and had a fascinating amount of depth.

I admire the authors' ability to write unapologetically from his own perspective. The sheer scope of this piece was a delight to dive into.

So same here. Not the target audience and enjoyed it immensely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It is _really_ about teaching Bloomberg readers how to commoditize expensive programmers.

<comment><USER24> Business has been trying to do that for 50 years, but it doesn't really work because the scope of software systems too broad and varied. In a way software is an anti-commodity in its diversity. As much as "real" engineers rightfully decry software as easy and less rigorous than physical engineering disciplines, at the same time, the potential scope of software is greater than physics itself—it is math incarnate. The only way to commodify programmers would be to willingly limit software's scope to some established domain that is well understood by the powers that be.

I don't see one article, no matter how brilliant, providing the tools make any meaningful progress on that little management wet dream.

<comment><USER25> > it is math incarnate.

I learned how to write functions and subroutines a _long_ time before learning algebra. The way that functions were taught in my math class were so confusing. Eventually I realized they were the same as what I learned coding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I like how one of the pictures for the article is a color swatch for 'taupe'.

</comment><comment><USER27> Iḿ a non-coder and I felt light I already knew all he said in the piece. I guess it's useful for some CEOs, now they kinda understand what their employees are talking about.</comment>


Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars  - <AUTHOR> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-147&cid=release_2011-147

<comment><USER2> IANA astronomer, but I believe that the typical method of planet detection relies on the assumption that planets revolve around stars. They can detect planets by measuring the tiny wobble of stars caused by the gravity of revolving planets. So I was wondering how the hell they detect free-floating (orphan) planets. The article explains that they use gravitational microlensing, which is a pretty cool technique. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing>

From the article:

 _> A 5.9-foot (1.8-meter) telescope at Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand is used to regularly scan the copious stars at the center of our galaxy for gravitational microlensing events. These occur when something, such as a star or planet, passes in front of another, more distant star. The passing body's gravity warps the light of the background star, causing it to magnify and brighten. Heftier passing bodies, like massive stars, will warp the light of the background star to a greater extent, resulting in brightening events that can last weeks. Small planet-size bodies will cause less of a distortion, and brighten a star for only a few days or less._

</comment><comment><USER3> This is far from my areas of expertise, I was hoping someone more knowledgeable might be willing to comment on whether or not this is a feasible explanation for dark matter? Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not my area of expertise either, but I don't believe so. The dark matter (and energy) comes from very very large aggregate gravitational forces that are observed from galactic movement as a whole, but I think you already are aware of that, so I'm not saying anything new there, but I would certainly imagine that there would have to be a whole hell of a lot of extra-solar planets in order to account for what they're seeing, and it makes more sense (and they have presumably produced the stuff for a brief period in the lab) that there is an antithesis to matter (or energy) that is out there causing this behavior.</comment></comment>


Why is Middle School so hard? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/10/why-middle-school-and-preteens-are-so-challenging/599542/ <comment><USER2> In most US school systems, middle school marks a transition from students having one teacher and classroom for most of the day to having multiple (6 to 8) different teachers and classrooms during the day. So that is potentially a 5X multiplier on the number of different social interactions that each student will have to deal with each day. On top of that they have to learn each teacher's style and expectations in order to do well.

I used to think the difficulty was due to the onset of adolescence but I think if you forced most working adults through such a transition for a year they would not fare well. This is why most people hate service jobs.

<comment><USER3> I taught science in grades 3-8 in low income US schools. The main difference between 3-5 and 6-8 is puberty. These humans are undergoing the most radical shift in their hormones and behavioral regime in their entire life. They go from caring what their teacher thinks to caring what their peers think; the kids get louder, stronger, less respectful of authority, more likely to join gangs or do drugs. Everyone gets a lot more talkative and disruptive. Middle schoolers are simply the hardest age group to teach.

<comment><USER4> > Middle schoolers are simply the hardest age group to teach.

But how much of that might be structural?

Under ideal circumstances, a K-5 student has one teacher each year, in a class largely composed of students they were in a class with the previous year.

We throw them into 6th grade, now they have what, 5-6 teachers for 40-50 minutes each? In my district, two elementary schools feed each middle, so their grade size has doubled and even many of the students they shared an elementary school with will be unfamiliar.

That's a whole lot of social upheaval to subject 11 y/o kids to. Puberty is just icing on the cake.

<comment><USER4> I'll add, my partner's children enter middle school next year and thinking about all of this is concerning.

My partner points out that this is where children start to "slip through the cracks" \-- teachers' ability to provide individualized attention is greatly reduced by the reduction in class time and increased number of students to educate. The difference in structure has a big impact on both sides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you considered not combining "a place of learning" with "a violent, over controlled, over policed, oppressive bureaucratic autocracy, that replicates all the usual dynamics found in prisons"?

<comment><USER6> As somebody who's attended a North American public school in my life, this is roughly the slap in the face I feel when politicians talk about abolishing vouchers or charter schools, with _no mention of the appalling baseline quality of public education_ , despite _dramatically higher spending than most or all other developed nations_. Meanwhile, those voucher systems and charter schools have been the thrust of almost all improvement of education in America.

At the end of the day, it is rich to hear from politicians who have literally never attended a public school about how we should send our kids to schools they've avoided. A greater proportion of public educators send their own kids to private schools than the general public, by a long shot.

<comment><USER7> Most politicians come from the middle class, so I'd wager most of them attended public school.

The most predictive stat for educational attainment is household income and parental educational attainment, so if you want to fix education, you need to fix income inequality.

<comment><USER8> Depends on how you view fixing income inequality, I would imagine. For example, I don't think you could simply give the poor loads of money and suddenly their kids do well in school.

Personally, I view it as an education problem first and foremost. I think the incoming inequality is a red herring, and people are focusing on the wrong problem.

Yes, fixing income inequality is required. Yes, fixing income inequality would improve education to a degree - but my contention is that people merely having money won't help the broken education system. Not everyone can go to private schools. Furthermore, "giving people money" in college tuition has been part of the problem in driving prices unrealistically high and reinforcing predatory systems.

In my view, focus on education first. More educated people make smart financial decisions. Educated people make better decisions about their life, risk assessment, and quality of life. Educated people raise better children. Educated people are more difficult to fool in blind party politics and do- nothing politicians/systems.

Luckily we can do both, education and inequality, but I don't think we can or should expect to ever fix income inequality without at least in tandem fixing education. We need capable humans, and education is the only way to do it; I think.

<comment><USER9> Reducing income inequality has direct effects on education quality. Much of the public school budget is drawn from local funding. In short, impoverished areas beget impoverished schools and wealthier areas have well-funded schools. Parents working in precarious positions - part time jobs with shifting schedules, or _multiple_ part time jobs with shifting schedules - can struggle to find time to provide support like homework help or supervision to their children. Reducing income inequality increases the tax base & school funding while granting parents more opportunities to engage with their children's education. Many of these poor people are already making the best decisions anyone can in their position: taking the job(s) they can get for the paycheck(s) they can get so they can put food on the table and eke out another two weeks.

<comment><USER10> I was in a public school district that made public the funding received by each school. Because it was a large metro district, we had wealthy areas and impoverished ones.

The schools in worse areas were getting about 30% more money from the district, per student, than the wealthier ones. This was to balance out the superior amount of parental funding in the richer neighborhoods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Weirdly, middle school was one of the high-points of grade school for me. It saw the initiation of nearly every important interest and passion that I have (mostly by coincidence, but still):

\- Middle school band introduced me to music - both listening and playing - which was life-changing for me. Band remained the best thing in my life through the rest of gradeschool, and music still is.

\- I learned to play guitar for the first time, joining a wonderful freeform after-school club for it

\- I discovered Tolkien, JRPGs, and Morrowind (and their respective music), all of which seeded my imaginative life in ways that are still felt today

\- I tried programming for the first time (over a summer), awakening another passion and putting me on a trajectory for my future career

Socially, middle-school was rough. But that was true for pretty much all of grade school. And inwardly, middle school was amazing. I still look back on it fondly.

<comment><USER12> Weirdly I relate to some of your experiences in a lot of ways.

\- Middle school was really the only time in my life i had the free time to learn instruments. I played a lot of guitar and even played with friends. Never had the time after.

\- Morrowind. I loved this game even though I was too young to really know what I was doing.

\- My passion for math and science was ignited at this time which led me on the great path of focusing on math/physic in High school. Double majoring CS math in College and programming today.

\- Was able to compete in chess tournaments regularly, never have had time since.

Socially, I had some friends, but they were nerds too. Honestly I'm glad I wasn't "popular". The kids I know who were became just boring popular people who started drinking and doing drugs way too early, obsessing about sports that they'll never play again, and never advanced their lives in fulfilling ways (in my opinion, though i think getting distracted by over socializing early in school [ie partying] distracts one from the good grades/drive needed to achieve good a good career).

Being popular and good at sports in middle school is a curse! Nerds ftw!!

<comment><USER11> It seemed like it was an interesting mid-point between elementary and high school: they start giving you some real extracurricular activities and electives and such to start exploring, but you don't yet have the highschool pressures of more difficult classes and preparation for college. Maybe that sweet spot is why it's a renaissance for some people.

It's even analogous to college, a midpoint between grade school and adult life; a sudden increase in experiences without a proportionate increase in responsibilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Middle school is hard because it's the point at which parents are cut out of the educational system, either by virtue of their not being able to be helpful (e.g., they can't do algebra or speak French either!), or by the child (through mis-directed rebellion or overzealous DIYishness).

<comment><USER14> At some point, parents have to be cut out. A child wanting to handle things more independently from parents is not a bad thing - learning to do it independently is important. What you call "mis-directed rebellion or overzealous DIYishness" is them reaching developmental milestones.

A school system that requires extensive parental help is bad system.

<comment><USER15> Most 7-12 grade teachers I know would be much happier if the parents weren't involved at all in the kids education. All of the dozen or so secondary teachers I've talked to who left the educational field gave the exact same reason: "The parents."

<comment><USER16> You are making an unwarranted conclusion from this comment. Is it merely that the parents are there or not there? Could the parents be there in a more helpful capacity? Clearly just "the parents" is not a reason for anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> People who have been out of the school system for a while should watch Bo Burnham's "Eighth Grade". It's an incredibly accurate take on what being in middle school is like, especially today where your self-worth can fluctuate based on the amount of likes your last Instagram post got.

<comment><USER18> > especially today where your self-worth can fluctuate based on the amount of > likes your last Instagram post got.

Simple solution: delete your Instagram account.

<comment><USER19> That's indistinguishable from the number of likes being zero.

<comment><USER20> It certainly isn't. If you are active on social media and post something you care about only for it to get no likes the majority of people would feel significantly worse than simply enjoying something and not posting it on the internet for praise/approval from strangers and acquaintances. I'm very happy to have not had instagram, twitter, facebook, etc. for the majority of my early education

<comment><USER19> Me too, but for that to be possible requires friends who don't demand that one uses them to voluntarily associate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> All I remember in middle school was the sheer amount of bullying. There was almost no bullying in my high school.

<comment> non-entity Yeah it was pretty similar for me. Unfortunately, there were times in middle school, where I was the bully as well. Once I got to high school though, everyone was mostly cool, never had any of the issues I had in the past years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bullying was not prevalent in my school. But I did notice an abrupt change from elementary school. Before middle school grades were meaningless. Middle school was when kids started to be grouped into advanced and not advanced groups and your grades started to matter (not really but it felt like they did at the time). A large problem for me was the sudden collective understanding from kids and parents that most of them weren't as special, smart, or talented as they thought. Middle school was the first time kids had to internalize that they were not particularly good at things and likely never would be.

<comment><USER23> Agreed. I remember waiting outside a middle school, for my son's elementary- school orchestra practice to end (they met at the middle school). Every middle school student that walked by, had a recognizable emotional/psychological problem. Tics, staring at the ground and not looking anyone in the eye, startling at the approach of other students, and on and on. It was shocking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Apart from the US, where else has middle schools? Here in Scotland there is (Optionally) nursery, primary school (5-12) and then secondary school (12-16/18), no middle.

<comment><USER25> In Germany it's worse. We don't have a distinct middle school as such, but we have three parallel tiers after four years of elementary school. One is only until grade 9, one until grade 10, the third is up to 13 years.

I'm leaving out a lot of details here, but basically students have to choose one track after elementary school. And upgrading is hard, especially because the lower tracks are "optimized for slower learners". Side-Note: As you might have guessed, the track selection has become more and more based on ethnicity.

Studies have shown that such a tracked system is worse in every imaginable way. But it is extremely attractive to conservative academics.

<comment><USER26> After a long discussion with little alternatives, my little cousin went to a Realschule mit Förderstufe. The problem with the school has less to do with ethnicity as i can see it but the fact that large parts of her class dont speak German good enough to be educated in it. And that they are not grouped up by language to help them catch up in their first language. Pair that with the "slower learner" approach and all of those kids are simply left behind. I dont think its an issue of racism but simply abandoning anyone who, for what ever reason, cant hold the pace. Simply no parent wants their kid to be in such a class with two multilingual teachers to at least partially cover multiple languages to try to communicate with the kids in their class. They have to deal with the consequences of not thought trough political maneuvers. And the kids who suffer from that are generally those that already live in precarious situations. Painting it as a problem of racism, misses the point entirely from what i have seen and I think framing it this way is deeply counterproductive when it comes to these fundamental issues of our education system.

<comment><USER27> It's not so much intentionally racist as it is classist.

When I was ready for secondary education, it was clear to me that _Gymnasium_ or ("at least") _Gesamtschule_ was where you went if you were later going to study in a university, _Realschule_ was for trades and _Hauptschule_ was for "stupid" (or "troubled") kids. Needless to say, it was clear to me that I had to go to _Gymnasium_ and then university because both of my parents had attended university.

Of course those were unfair generalisations but when I was in university I met many people who retained exactly the same perception of those differences.

<comment><USER25> You are kidding yourself if you think that system isn't also driven by racism. A few decades ago it was virtually impossible for Turkish children to attend Gymnasium, regardless of the grades.

It is hard to quantify, but the attitudes of teachers, in elementary school and beyond, does shape this process. If they don't believe those children can catch up, they won't...

<comment><USER27> The point is that the division pre-dates the racist impact it has now. Racism and classism go hand in hand in this case the same way they do in many others.

I don't think the multi-tiered system would be salvageable even if there was no racism involved. Whether you doom children to economic failure based on their ethnicity (or lack of fluency in German, which is often abused as a shorthand for "low intelligence") or because of their social status (manifesting in various ways that ultimately lead to "poor performance") doesn't make this system any fairer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm in high school. The education system's only saving grace is the small group of exceptional teachers and administrators that dare to defy what's expected of them by the government-approved programs and curricula.

It seems inherently wrong to place energetic, lively people like teachers and curious, high-potential kids in such a strangely restricting and oppressive environment.

<comment><USER29> Unfortunately it's also daycare for the unwashed masses and unmotivated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Public schools are literal prisons for children and for most people is the only place they'll experience violence first hand. Middle school is the age in which children's awareness of these facts start to become more clear in their minds, even if they lack the ability to articulate them so clearly.

</comment><comment><USER31> Almost everyone is going through puberty at the same time for one thing.

<comment><USER32> That seems to be the only basis this article presents at all for the claim that "middle school is hard".

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > _After all, middle schoolers are "kind of the best people on Earth," says > Mayra Cruz, the principal of Oyster-Adams Bilingual School, a public middle > school in Washington, D.C._

She appears to be at a _very_ different middle school than I went to. Or is painfully oblivious as to how cruel children of that age can be to each other.

<comment><USER34> I hear this on the Internet all the time but in middle school everyone was nice to me and I was nice to everyone. There was some banter and we sometimes accidentally injured each other because we're clumsy and sometimes we fought, but 'cruel'? I don't recall anyone being cruel.

In fact, I remember seeing this right after I finished high school too. The Internet was always "Kids are so cruel to each other" and now I wonder to myself if this isn't just the culture you guys have built where you live.

Of course we had uniforms and nearly everyone came in on public buses unless they were rich or lived close to the rich kids.

<comment><USER35> Not cruel, but self-centered. Infancy seems to me like a progression from complete self-centerness (if I'm not pleased, I'll cry until I turn blue) to become functional, socially. Adolescence is part of that process of gauging how much to conform to society vs stand up for yourself, until (ideally) you reach a mature state in which the interaction with other human beings is healthy.

I'm no psychologist so please take my input with a grain of salt.

My point is, kids aren't cruel in the sense that we use to refer to adults. They, instead, are socially inept, and can't fully grasp the consequence of their actions.

It's always helpful to keep Hanlon's razor in mind: assume stupidity before malice.

<comment><USER36> If you spend time with babies you will find they are actually very sociable and giving. Indeed when they are worms they can only scream. But once they can interact they often love sharing and contributing.

They don't develop a theory of self until they are 3 or 4 so they can't anticipate what your needs are and that they are different than their needs, but they will try to share what they like with you.

<comment><USER14> They also go out of way to help when you do house work. They are not really useful, but really wants to be. They will "clean", "wash" and what not and are super happy when you thank them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Until late high school, grades were pretty isolated from each other. There were some really awkward structured mentorship programs, and some extracurriculars like theater that had less of a Varsity / JV bifurcation, but your social circle was still pretty much grade level peers. Sometimes their siblings. I can't imagine the set of grade levels sharing an institution being a major part of the story.

<comment><USER38> In primary school, most American students have one main teacher and one class. In middle school, most American students walk from class to class, each less than 1 hour long and with a different teacher, and are with different students in each class. Often many primary schools feed into one middle school, so the school can be bigger and has less familiar students. The students and teachers don't know each-other and have a harder time getting to know each-other. The school is often more formal and the schoolwork is often less enjoyable. There is significantly more homework.

Students (often strangers to each-other) end up very quickly establishing a new social hierarchy in a context with less oversight and less adult support. It can get pretty brutal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It can simply be that, the middle school aggregates several elementary school populations under one roof.

Wherever you were on the spectrum in your (small) elementary school, put you in a bigger population and you will likely move toward the mean. Which is humbling for many.

</comment><comment><USER39> Disclosure: I did not read the article.

It's because middle school-aged kids are awful, evil people.

Every bad social trait comes out at that age without any of the adult filters.

</comment><comment><USER40> From my experience part of what sucked about middle school was all of the responsibilities with none of the privledges and a seeming determination to make things suck as much as possible.

Also exacerbated by things like overcrowded halls, air conditioning only in the library the faculty office, and a goddamn obsession with collective punishment.

</comment><comment><USER41> From my personal experience, it's hard because of all the hormones.

<comment><USER25> Also the prefrontal cortex is not yet developed enough to keep the hormones in check.

<comment><USER42> (for those that don't know, the prefrontal cortex is one of the centers of the brain. It's responsible for 'planning'. Think about the last middle schooler you saw that had a cunning plan and I'm sure you'll agree their brain wasn't fully formed either.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I also think Middle School is hard because elementary school is so easy.

<comment><USER44> Middle school (well, Junior High) was the first time I couldn't understand a concept the first time it was explained. I'd had almost no experience of that K-6 so I had no idea what to do and thought something had gone wrong with my brain. Seriously. It was especially bad in math where "understanding concepts" plus some memorization is basically the whole deal, at least for most of K-12 education. I'd gone from among the best at math (with zero effort, because I probably should have been moving through the curriculum 2-3x as fast as I had been) to barely holding on somewhere in the middle, in a matter of months.

<comment><USER45> you were lucky to hit that point in middle school. i am in high school currently and am struggling due to not ever learning proper study skills. everything before was too easy for me which ended up hurting me in the long run.

<comment><USER43> Looking back, can you please think of somethings that could have helped you and share here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > Why is Middle School so hard?

Because it's mandatory, and you are forced to be around lots of people you don't really want to be with. You are forced to learn things you are not interested in at all, while being punished for not performing well. And all that, while your body goes through a major transformation sexually. There can only be very few people enjoying that. For most it is a horrible way to end their childhood.

And we (parents, governments) think it is beneficial, until the kids come from middle school and cannot find a job that easily, often ending up doing completely stupid work like cashier or whatever else for the rest of their lives.

<comment><USER47> "until the kids come from middle school and cannot find a job that easily, often ending up doing completely stupid work like cashier or whatever else for the rest of their lives."

Your comment took a strange turn there at the end. I don't know even a single person that went from middle school to the job market. And if someone does, the job market probably won't be very good, that's common sense.

<comment><USER48> Isn't that illegal in most places? In the US, High School is compulsory until you're 18 (so most people at least get 3 full years).

<comment><USER49> Nah, definitely not illegal in the US, like 30%-40%+ of my high school dropped out at the day they turned 16 (or maybe 15... forgot exactly which one they let you drop out at).

Also... I graduated before I was 18.

EDIT: I was in high school two decades ago, so it might have changed since then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> There's nothing wrong with the average American middle school that can't be fixed with evacuation and controlled demolition.

<comment><USER51> Please don't do this here.

<comment><USER50> OK. How about I suggest scrapping mandatory attendance instead?</comment></comment></comment>