Physicians group labels obesity a disease - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/19/health/ama-obesity-disease-change/index.html <comment><USER3> I have lost quite a lot of weight recently, and went out of obese to normal weight range for now.

I do think that there is a clear difference between 'I should cut back on the cakes'-type overweight, and 'I have inadequate control over my eating'-type obesity.

It's not as simple as 'eat less', 'put the fork down chubby' or 'get out and run/lift/whatever'. I have trouble with controlling my appetite, and I have issues with knowing when I should stop eating (it's quite hard to hold back when every body signal indicates you are still very hungry).

In my view obesity is a disease, but it's false to think of it as being like the 'flu. It's a chronic issue, like high cholestorol, blood pressure or a peanut allergy. There are environmental factors and behavioural reasons why it is a health risk, but the underlying cause has a physiological source.

<comment><USER4> It seems like calorie counting would be a good first-line treatment for difficulty controlling one's appetite. This requires a fair amount of discipline, but it's also free of side effects and tools already exist to help you. Do you think at least knowing A) what your basal metabolic rate is, and B) knowing how many calories you're eating (and consuming via exercise) is effective in combating this misfire in a body's signals?

I think a lot of the resistance to this is people are worried that the first- line treatment will be things like drugs, which can be expensive (to society, since costs are largely socialized even in the U.S. through the mechanism of health insurance) and have side effects. Look at, say, jrs235's comment ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5912203](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5912203) ) elsewhere on this page. That's a valid concern. But obesity also comes with a lot of costs itself. If calorie counting is an effective approach, I think that it could address the problem in a cost-effective way. (And in a software way, too.)

<comment><USER3> I calorie count, that's how I get through the day. However, it's worth noting that calorie counting is a depressing thing to do. I've experienced very much the feelings that I read about for diabetics (type 1) and people who are severely impoverished. Every cost has to be counted, every extravagance planned for, every unexpected event has to be compensated for. I overate at the start of the week, so I need to cut back at the end. It's difficult to count calories when I don't have the figures, which means I can no longer be the spontaneous social eater I want to be. I miss that badly.

I like to say it's like going from never having to think about how much money you spent to having to count every.single.penny. It's not 'I should skip that holiday in the maldives this year', it's 'Can I afford that trivial expenditure (a single piece of fruit) today? will I be too hungry to sleep if I cut that out of tonight's dinner?'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great.

1\. So now they can prescribe more drugs to more people. 2\. Insurance providers will have to pay for more drugs continuing to drive health insurance prices up. (I'm sure the government will mandate that providers can't have plans that omit coverage for weight related services and drugs).

P.S. I'm trying not to be mean, just pointing out the harsh reality and truth. We as a populace have become lazy and complacent. Rome II is about to crumble unless we stop addressing the symptoms and focus on the disease.

<comment><USER6> That's quite a bit of hyperbole.

My view is quite different. The Human body evolved to survive in certain ecological niches. And, very quickly, those environments changed. So, it's not surprising that the body hasn't kept up.

Your moral angle has a good ring to it, but I think it's misguided. From a moral standpoint, I think it's much better to use our evolutionary strengths (big brains, etc.) to let us invent technology to overcome the slowness of evolution. What benefit is there in forcing people to tough it out when their biology simply wasn't made to cope?

Plus, it's actually probably cheaper to invent new drugs to treat obesity (curbing appetite) than the more intensive, invasive treatments for diabetes, heart disease, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My guess is that eventually we'll confirm something like the "fat virus" hypothesis and be able to immunize kids (to some degree) against becoming obese.

There exist human cold viruses such that if you give that particular cold to an animal, the animal gets fatter. We don't directly test these viruses on people due to ethical concerns - we're pretty sure they'd make people fat too, and there's no cure. But you can look at biomarkers for exposure and verify that people who've been exposed are more likely to be fat than those who haven't.

Here's a study: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17908526](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17908526)

Quote: "This review discusses the 5 animal viruses and 3 human viruses that have been shown to cause obesity and examines the evidence to date for virus- induced obesity. [...] Ad-36 causes obesity in chickens, mice, rats, and monkeys and was present in 30% of obese humans and 11% of nonobese humans. In twins discordant for infection with Ad-36, the infected twins were heavier and fatter than their cotwins."

</comment><comment><USER8> _On the other hand, AMA 's declaration could help increase funding for future obesity research. It could also lead to payment for doctors who want to simply talk to patients about nutrition or exercise -- time that's not currently reimbursed by insurance plans._

I don't know enough about medicine to discriminate well between a disease, condition, syndrome etc., but some of the points made in the article make it sound like this new designation of obesity as a disease is mainly to do with appearances.

<comment><USER9> Probably we're overthinking the whole thing. When I was a kid, obese people just ate too much.

<comment><USER7> Some obese people do eat a lot, but the causality direction is unclear. It's likely they eat a lot in large part _because_ they're obese.

The human body in general is amazingly good at calibrating how much you eat versus how active you are to stay within a pretty consistent weight range - <USER2> it weren't, we'd all starve or become morbidly obese in response to tiny inadvertent changes in diet or exercise. But in some people, that calibration mechanism is off - they feel hungrier than they should or their metabolism works slower than it should given their size, and the mismatch leads them to become obese. We don't yet know why and we don't yet know what can be done to reliably change or fix it.

We've almost certainly been underthinking the whole thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is huge and, regardless of what you think of its labeling, will forever change the way we treat obesity. It's become a real problem in the US and as much as we would like to blame obesity on an individual, the country as a whole is suffering bc of it. It impacts our health, our relationships, and even our economy, and it's time to step up to make some real changes here.

</comment><comment><USER11> My take - shouldn't be a disease.

Reasoning: most diseases have a direct "cause and effect" \- if you can't eat healthy because you weren't forced to eat anything other than chicken nuggets as a child, that may well be a disease. (My GF suffers from this; she says we will serve mini hamburgers and chicken fingers at our wedding...) But obesity in general, to me, is not a disease.

However, if labeling it as a disease can help people in any way to get on the path to a healthier lifestyle, then it doesn't bother me. Calling it a disease should not be a crutch, but hopefully a way to address the problem. I believe insurance companies will have to cover operations that can help people lower their weight.

I believe in Canada our health plan covers that, kind of bugs me though because it comes from my taxes rather than paid insurance.

<comment><USER3> There is something to suggest that obesity is more than simply having a bad diet. Obese people react differently to food, and it appears to have a genetic correlation.

One paper suggests that there is a dopamine response difference in the obese: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11210998](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11210998)

The causal direction is open to interpretation, but I still think that there is a difference between 'overweight' and 'obese'

<comment><USER12> "genetic correlation"

this probably plays a part in it for some, but only a small part if I would have to guess, there's way more to it.

First sign there's much more going on than just 'a disease' is the fact there are way more obese people in the US for instance than in most other countries. And also for instance that children where both parents are obese are more likely to develop obesity as well. First comes down to culture, second to lifestyle. Not two things I'd directly associate with words like 'genetic or 'disease'.

<comment><USER3> I can't say I agree with this analysis. In the first instance, the fact that both parents' obesity is a factor could be argued to point towards a stronger correlation. In a broad sense, it's also important to note that chronic diseases always have some behavioural and lifestyle component. For example, physical malformations can be caught early and given therapeutic redress -- Scoliosis correction might be a good example.

You're not condemned to be obese if your genetics give you the propensity for it, but it's also fair to say that the genetics mean that disease-like interventions are necessary. [http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention- source/obesit...](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention- source/obesity-causes/genes-and-obesity/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wholeheartedly look forward to the lavish dinners at doctor conferences where they discuss this malady.

</comment><comment><USER14> Joining alcoholism in the area of diseases you can get yelled at for having. Damn it Otto, you're obese!</comment>


How is the world's first solar powered airport faring? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34421419 <comment><USER2> TL;DR: It's ok, but expansion is tricky, as the initial installation (which was substantial) can only power the existing facilities. Also the dependability of the power grid is a concern as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Grid stability is obviously the big concern, but I'm intrigued by the prospects of a hydrogen powered airport.

Blue Planet Research in Hawaii has been demonstrating the ability to use solar energy to split water intro hydrogen, using the hydrogen as an energy storage device. The airport could use the hydrogen to power all the airport vehicles (baggage trollies, safety trucks, etc etc) saving money on fuel; that'd be a nice entry point.

Later other airport equipment/generators could be transitioned to hydrogen powered and more panels added.

<comment><USER4> Why would the airport vehicles not be more efficient battery vehicles? Charging infrastructure is then of no concern, and baggage trollies and safety trucks are all low speed/high torque applications electric vehicles we're designed for.

Most pushback tugs are already transitioning to all-electric, and have a very low duty cycle (push/pull a few aircraft, go plug in to charge).

The electricity->hydrogen->electricity cycle is terribly inefficient. Batteries are the answer.</comment></comment>


Scale Invariant Patterns - <AUTHOR> http://www.victusspiritus.com/2010/06/23/scale-invariant-patterns/ <comment><USER2> Anyone interested in this topic ought to take a look at Ron Eglash's TED talk on African Fractals:

<http://blog.ted.com/2007/11/ron_eglash.php></comment>


The Word "Hacker" (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html

<comment><USER2> Last night on 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl interviewed Vint Cerf and some security experts for a story on identity theft and malware. Cerf was on for maybe 20 seconds and the rest of the segment was your typical the-sky-is-falling doomsday report. What bugged me about Stahl's piece was how rotten she presumed hackers writ large to be. She said the word _at least_ 20 times with no consideration given for honest hackers.

I once used the h-word in a corporate setting in front of my boss. The benign context left no doubt as to my meaning but old pointy hair later assured me I had crossed a line. Memo: the safewords are "code" and "program."

Good to be working on a startup today. Essays like this continue to remind me why I left the establishment.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Hacker" may very well be (helpfully) keeping the size of HN down. The last time I sent someone a link to an HN discussion they took one look at the url and phoned to tell me that my email had a virus.

<comment><USER4> Well, the English language is defined by its usage, and if 99% of English speakers think that a hacker is someone who illegally tampers with computer systems, then that's what it means. I don't know why hackers are always fighting an impossible uphill battle to change public perception of the word rather than just coming up with a new word or phrase that defines the positive aspects of being a hacker. In fact, if done properly, the new phrase could even contain the word "hacker".

<comment><USER5> _the English language is defined by its usage_

Any language is, but not by simple majorities. In practice there is something like a pagerank for people for language usage, just as there is for most topics.

For example, it could be that 99% of people who use the phrase "begs the question" misuse it. But the 1% who don't are not merely a random 1% of the population. So in disputes about how to use the phrase, those who get it wrong tend to defer to those who get it right. You couldn't say the meaning of the phrase had changed till that stopped happening, because it implies by induction that everyone who misuses the phrase would change their usage if called on it.

<comment><USER4> That's not how it works, at least as explained by linguists. Those 1% do not exist to be the "pagerank 10" sources; they exist to analyze how language is being used, and adjust the official meanings of words to reflect that usage. That's how words and meanings get added to (English) dictionaries and grammar books.

Old meanings are not considered wrong of course, but are often pushed back to the higher-numbered definitions and eventually considered an old or archaic usage.

It doesn't work the same in all languages; for example, French has the l'Académie française which strongly attempts to regulate the meanings of French words, and is quite successful.

To prove my point: there are two official meanings of "begging the question," including the one you assume to be incorrect in your post:

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/begs>

Furthermore, I'm confident that with some research, we could find several words and phrases in your post which were considered "incorrect" several hundred years ago (despite being commonly used then) but are considered "correct" today.

<comment><USER5> The 1% of people (assuming it's that) "exist to analyze how language is being used?" What does that mean? I'm in the 1% who understand "begs the question." Do I exist to analyze how language is being used?

Nor is the shift of meaning in a word over time identical with people misunderstanding the previous meanings. That type of shift is quite rare. It's much more common for words to shift meaning the way "computer" has than the way "buxom" did.

There's nothing official about dictionaries, incidentally. They describe usage (as well as they can); they don't prescribe it. If dictionaries defined terms in the prescriptive sense, I could refute you by starting one.

<comment><USER4> Well, I suppose we're talking about a different 1%. Perhaps you feel that you are a "pagerank 10" person regarding "begs the question" because you understand the original meaning. I would argue that the "pagerank 10" would be the person who has studied its usage and has observed that "raises the question" has also become an acceptable use.

Assuming that a shift in a word's meaning due to "incorrect" usage is rare, what makes it any less valid of a change? And are you willing to have the same view regarding _all_ English words that turn out to have been formed as a result of misuse that you have toward "hacker" and "begs the question," even if you are forced to use an obsolete word?

You argue that dictionaries can't prescribe language, and I agree. I'm saying that there are limits to how much you can prescribe language _in general_ , including the attempt to prescribe the meaning of "hacker" and "beg the question." The "beg the question" of 2009 is no less valid than the one of 1600.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do we really need to go over this again? It's pretty simple: within the computer community 'hacker' has a positive context. For everyone else it's negative.

It's like 'fag'. Say that in the UK and you are talking about cigarettes. Say it in the US and it's offensive.

<comment><USER7> not to cut teeth here, but the 'fag' analogy doesn't really hold up. no matter how you swing it, the term 'hacker' relates to technology (hardware, software, wetware, whatever). in this case, 'fag' has two very different meanings. i'm reminded of the story posted a month (or so) ago on the linux hacker dad whose son received some flack from an ignorant teacher (anyone have a link?).

<comment><USER8> Perhaps not "hacker", but call something a "hack" and programmers will get a positive connotation, other people will see a negative one.

<comment><USER9> Well as a programmer, I'd say "a hack" has a mild negative connotation (something hastily thrown together and brittle).

But the terms "to hack" and "hacking" are both positive (to get stuff done).

I have no problem with the term 'hacker', but I don't call myself one. To me it feels the same as calling myself a 'player' or something... like I'm a poseur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe we need a story called "The Word 'News'"

<comment><USER8> That might make for an interesting story! There're arguments about the origin: there's the mindset that says it's slang for "the new things", using "news" as a plural for new. Then there's the one that says "NEWS" is an anagram of "North East West South." It leads to some interesting arguments in media class, when it comes to defining "What is News?" (That's an argument that Hacker News seems to have as well, so it's far from dead.)

<comment><USER11> [http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwordorigins/...](http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwordorigins/news?view=uk)

"The original sense of news was 'new things'; this is long obsolete. Since the 15th century it has been used to mean 'tidings, the report of recent events, new occurrences as a subject or report or talk.'"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is some interresting things for a non american guy in this article, although i think the way he bounds the fact of being a hacker, and the fact of being american is truely stereotypical, and a little bit sad also seen from outside.

I'd have prefered if he dug the intellectual property thing a bit more.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't agree that everyone in the tech world agrees on the term.

When I was in school (late 90s/2000), one of our professors made a clear distinction between "hacker mentality" and "software engineer mentality"–emphasizing that the latter was professional/preferred and the former was undesirable/rogue.

To him, a "hacker" didn't plan, didn't show an engineering thought-process, didn't think long-term, and wasn't a team player.

So, at least in academia, not everyone thinks "hackers" are good.

<comment><USER14> Even some of the people we would call "hackers" consider a "hack" to be a temporary fix they put in that's meant to work until they have the opportunity to do it right.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's a lot more to this post than semantic arguments. Get past the first three paragraphs and read about the profound connection between hacking and liberty. It's tied to our past, our present and our future innovations.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nuts. I thought it was a new one.</comment>


Ghost wants to retrofit your car so it can drive itself on highways in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/07/ghost-wants-to-retrofit-your-car-so-it-can-drive-itself-on-highways-by-2020/ <comment><USER2> How they plan to deliver this in that time frame? It would require chaining the laws and regulations. I would think that public testing and verification regulators want can take long time. You have to design standardized testing procedures etc.

If they ask money before they deliver (SoftBank, IPO, or deposit) I understand why they say what they say.

[https://www.gh.st/](https://www.gh.st/)

> Using a safety process typically reserved for the aerospace and defense > industries, Ghost will be the first self-driving technology that can't get > bugs or glitches.

Nobody in aerospace would have balls to say something like that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't say "your car".

I would say "your car if it already has all the tools preinstalled to be ready for remote control."

In other words, not really any cars currently on the road, at least not in any numbers.</comment>


Unbundle our archaic cable TV system - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2010/11/08/unbundleOurArchaicCableTvS.html <comment><USER2> I'm a bit unclear on this one. He wants cable unbundled but then ends up complaining about the bad Comcast UI.

If you want ala carte cable you can get most every show you want via Amazon or iTunes, maybe with a Netflix and or Hulu plus subscription. Don't complain too much about the cable co's not allowing ala carte subscriptions, the large networks don't want you doing this either. They negotiate their carriage deals with large cable operators across all their properties so if you want Scripps Food Network you're going to have to get HGTV and DIY too..

If you want a better UI then look at GoogleTV. It ads a new layer on top of your existing guide to enhance the experience.

Also look at Comcast's Fancast and TV Everywhere initiatives (TV Everywhere is not Comcast specific) they are allowing subscribers to stream a lot of TV over the web negating the need for a Slingbox.

<comment><USER3> Wow, did you actually just say "If you want a better UI then look at Google TV." as a sentence? Just...WOW.

<comment><USER2> Compared to Comcast's current guide? Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For many products which have zero marginal cost, bundling turns out to be _much_ more efficient from an economics perspective than a la carte selection. This link illustrate the idea with a very simple model of New York City parks:

[http://makeanysense.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-choice-is- less...](http://makeanysense.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-choice-is-less-choice- strange.html)

This is a very handy model to keep in mind when thinking about zero-marginal- cost economics.

</comment><comment><USER5> This issue has gone all the way to congress a couple times, but no real fix has ever come of it.

Fortunately the market has already solved it for us. With Itunes and Hulu and DVD season box sets, we've gone all the past a la carte per channel and straight to a la carte per show and per episode.

</comment><comment><USER6> I say that each person simply vote with cash and unbundle yourself from the system. As a consumer, use your power and control what you consume. So long as people just complain but still keep the system profitable by staying as customers, then we will get the economically efficient bundles that we dislike. You may miss a few shows, but you can catch them in a year or two. If you really love live sports, reconsider radio or even go see a game in person.

<comment><USER7> Excellent suggestion! And to extend that logic yet further, if you like using the Internet but don't want to pay for unwanted services bundled on top of Internet access (voice, etc.), you can simply dig your own trench from your home or business to the nearest neutral data center, drop a fiber pair in, light it on both ends, buy some routers, negotiate an arrangement with the data center and interconnection agreements with the other networks onsite, and then run the whole thing yourself forever! Hey, you might miss a few generations of programming and media formats completely, but that's the price of freedom! And there's always better to come... no need to weep if you end up missing HDTV or 3D altogether, because in the long run fully immersive holographic TV will be so much better anyway!

Alas,if only we could have always had the courage of your convictions! Back in the mid-1970s when the private corporation AT&T was the only national-scale provider of any kind of communications service in the US, a bunch of short- sighted whiners argued that forcing AT&T to unbundle was necessary to improve existing (voice) services, drive down extortionate pricing, and give the universe of non-AT&T employees a shot of their own at at innovating. But anyone who remembers those days knows that the complaints were LIES: everyone had access to a wide variety of alternatives, ranging from CB radios to postcards to tin cans interconnected with string! So what if that whining ultimately made it possible for the Internet grow beyond the confines of a few university campuses, and for the US to become the world leader and hub of Internet development? Now all of that growth and wealth and innovation will forevermore be tainted by by poisoned circumstances of its illegitimate origin. Ahh, if only we could turn back the clock so that we might do it right from the beginning.... Four decades later we might still look a bit like those countries in landlocked Africa or Central America that are still waiting for widespread consumer access the the Internet and other services, but at least our virtue would still be intact!

Given the fact that any Internet-based response would be inherently self- contradictory, please don't sully yourself any further by replying!</comment></comment>


N.W.A: American Gangstas - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/n-w-a-american-gangsters-20150827

<comment><USER2> I'm blown away by how much of modern American (urban and suburban) culture can be attributed to the rise of gangsta rap. I work as a software engineer at a large tech company, and I can regularly hear (and am certainly guilty of) people greeting in the hallways: "what's going on homeboy!"

I have been listening to "Straight Outta Compton" for about 9 years, and what surprises me is how simultaneously dated the album sounds along with how ahead of its time it is. As Dr. Dre says in the linked article...the choruses are mostly him scratching the record. At the same time, the lyrics are so unapologetically violent and degrading towards women, that it influenced literally every major rap record that came after. Even the conscious rap movement was a concerted effort to distinguish itself from some of the more ignorant, hardcore stuff.

"Fuck the Police" is somehow MORE relevant 27 years after it was released, and I'm not convinced a popular rap artist would release a song today with a warning about a "bloodbath of cops dying in LA." Even Eminem had lyrics about Columbine censored on the explicit version of his album.

<comment><USER3> 1989\. I was 14. For the previous several years, almost every week my friends and I would go to the mall's record shop and buy (or steal) cassette tapes (right after visiting the arcade). The cassettes were $14.99, and the best that you could find then was whatever junk was playing on the radio. Music was only the radio then, or maybe MTV (You have to remember that 'cable tv' had only recently become available, and the original 13 channels had exploded to a whopping 20-some channels). If you wanted to express yourself, maybe you were into hair rock. Otherwise, the top 40 was generally music that your parents would listen to.

My friends and I recently discovered skateboarding around that time, which had finally transcended the west coast. And, alternative music (via 120 minutes) was almost turning the corner.

I think I discovered N.W.A. from Thrasher (a skateboarding magazine) or maybe a skateboarding video. I can't remember. But, I remember having to special order the cassette from the record shop. I got the tape, and immediately went home to pop it into my boom box. It was amazing. It was like punk rock for the RnB genre. Before then, our world of 'hip hop' was Tone Loc, Fat Boys, JJ Cool J - all record company sanctioned, lifeless, commercialized, censored.

N.W.A. really spoke to us kids, who were feeling massive angst, ennui, despair, rage, and desperation. The lyrics were clever, memorable, and violent - but most importantly it was truly rebellious. We had grown up in a tough time - crime was almost at its peak in the US, inequality was rampant, we were forced to conform, against our will, and our parents (the baby boomers) were largely absent. The police were, in a way, much worse than they are today. To me, it was the voice of struggling youths talking to the struggling youths throughout the country.

I probably listened to that tape until the tape wore out. My boom box eventually shredded it into bits and pieces and the tape reeled itself out onto my counter. But, I loved that album. I'd memorized all of the lyrics. It wasn't the last 'rap' that I'd listen to, but it was incredibly influential. It was a time when rebellion was still truly rebellion, before the corporations had analyzed, optimized, and regurgitated rebellion into a billion dollar industry.

I recently listened to Straight Outta Compton, and it was pretty bad. But, at the time, it was amazing. So much nostalgia and memories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Straight Outa Compton is a thumping track, I still love it.

They had a few juvenile train wrecks too such as...

'A Bitch Iz A Bitch'...

"Bitch eat shit 'n die Ice cube comin' at you at crazy pitch (Why?) I think a bitch is a bitch" ...etc

<comment><USER5> Dr Dre's 'wall of sound' composed from 1000s of samples would be impossible now - licensing would be astronomical & unnatainable - only the underground could pull it off - it remains as a imperfect definitive milestone in American culture - as hard and raw as it needed to be and strong sweet, beat poised, & heartfelt like Coltrane. Unique.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I only had Eazy duz it, but man that album has hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER7> 'the most dangerous hip-hop group in the world' \- more like a bunch of upper middle class music industry insiders posturing as rappers to commercialize what had been a very dynamic musical art form...

Wrestlemania pr stunts to make it seem more real

<comment> semi-extrinsic Huh? All of them grew up and lived in Compton and/or South Central. When did that become upper middle class? And do you have any reference for them being music industry insiders?

<comment><USER8> I think the original poster was referencing recent events ie the movie and selling out. The wrestlemania portion I think was in relation to Suge Knight running over 2 dudes during filming of NWA and killing one of them. Ref: [http://newsrty.com/surveillance-video-suge-knight-running- ov...](http://newsrty.com/surveillance-video-suge-knight-running-over-2-men- killing-one-ford-raptor)

As far as upper middle class record industry insiders - Sure, Dr Dre net worth is projected to be $810 Million. He did Beats and Death Row Records etc.

[http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest- celebrities/richest...](http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest- celebrities/richest-rappers/dr-dre-net-worth/)

Ice Cube at $140 million [http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest- celebrities/richest...](http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest- celebrities/richest-rappers/ice-cube-net-worth/)

Easy E was estimated at around 8 million. [http://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/celeb/rappers/eazy-e...](http://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/celeb/rappers/eazy- e-net-worth/)

etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Criticize the Idiot, Praise the Idiocy - <AUTHOR> http://raganwald.posterous.com/criticize-the-idiot-praise-the-idiocy

<comment><USER2> Hmm, what about the fact that people generally react to criticism by strengthening their original belief? It's a horrible irrational behaviour that seems to be universal among humans.

</comment><comment><USER3> also called downvote the comment, upvote the post</comment>


Ask HN: Should I go to college? - <AUTHOR> I'm in my mid 30s. I've been working professionally as a web developer for the last 13~ years, 4~ of which have been fully remote as a contractor. I can program in multiple languages (including Javascript, Python, PHP... and i'm currently teaching myself c# and cg as video game dev is a hobby of mine).
Prior to becoming a contractor I had around 10 years of solid on the job work experience.
My goal for the immediate future is to continue working as a contractor and self educating, however I'm 34 years old and I want to make sure that I'm making the right moves for the future.
I went to college (for design) back when I was 19 - 21 and dropped out with one credit left and started working for a small web development shop (I had been programming on and off since I was 9 years old). I've never had a computer science course. Everything I know has been completely self taught or picked up from coworkers on the job.
I have been told by my grandfather that I should attend college for computer science, but I feel like this might slow me down. I'm hoping I can get some good feedback here. Is college a good idea for someone in my position? What benefits or drawbacks will it bring?
A bit more background:
* I have never been to school (100% homeschooled until my brief college years).
* I do have some gaps in my knowledge however I typically find myself surpassing others in certain areas (in other words, I feel the lack of college from time to time, but for the most part I have kept up or even passed other people).
* I want to make independent video games for a living (I have been teaching myself C#, CG, Unity, Pygame, 3d techniques, pixel art, and brushing up on my math for the last 2 years) - would going to college slow me down on my endeavours at this point or would it equip me with the skills I need to actually finish a game? <comment><USER2> You sound exactly like me - same age, same skill set, same people telling you to goto college.

I prefer a full time steady job (and have one) but if your happy with contract work - great!

Every programmer needs to continue to expand they're knowledge - it's a constant learning process. For the longest time I relied soly on systems administration and PHP - I've expanded into Objective C and AngularJS most recently - trying to teach myself React now as JS frameworks seam to be the "wave of the future"

An example I always give and especially remind my godson who's 16:

My wife is a very bright person - went to a private school for high school, full ride. She then went to a great college, full ride also graduated with a 3.9 and magna cum laude in Phycology. Wanna know the job she held after she graduated from college and for 9 years after that? Secretary.

That's not to put my wife down; it's to explain that regardless of your education, it's all about your drive and motivation. Some people goto college and don't do much with it. Some of us didn't goto college; work our asses off and succeed anyways (I make more then both my brother and sister who both went to college and got they're MBA's)

Work hard; focus on your goal and don't worry about the degree.

(my wife is now back in school for dental hygiene - still with a 3.9 gpa)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I didn't want to sway the question with too many of my own opinions but I have been feeling the same way.

The biggest hurdle I've faced is that of proving my worth to others. Have you faced similar issues?

<comment><USER2> Fortunately it hasn't been a problem in the last couple years, but I can absolutely remember a time when I had to "prove" myself.

A great resume is key as well as a portfolio site. I always bring my laptop to an interview incase they want to see code; I always make sure I have examples on my portfolio site that are up to date and have to do with the job I'm applying for, etc...

What was funny - my 2nd last job - they need a Wordpress developer and although I'm damn good with PHP, I hated Wordpress - so the weekend of the interview (interview was on monday) I spent about a day reading the WP docs and built a website on my portfolio site with a custom theme, custom plugin, made it responsive, etc... (stuff they would expect) - showed it to them during the interview and got the job (I like to think it helped) - it didn't come out until months later that I learned WP in a weekend (roughly) and everyone was pretty impressed.

My current job - they were looking for a very specific skill set (Rackspace Cloud administration) and actually were more impressed with one of my side projects then any job I held. So you never know what someone is looking for - could be professional experience, could be a side project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Things seem to have shifted on my end as of late. People are very skeptical when if I'm interviewing for a job, more than in the past (I tried recently a few times when work dried up bombed on the interview processes a few times... i have comments about it in my history).

I need to get my resume cleaned up and put together a new portfolio site.

I'm starting to become disinterested in full time gainful enslavement. Three reasons I keep contracting:

1\. freedom (i make my own hours and jump between contracts every 3 months or so, taking a short break between... usually around a week). When I do work, I only take on fully remote contracts.

2\. my "interviews" consist of asking how much I charge, asking what my availability is, asking a few simple tech questions, and then having me sign a contract. That's because I get my work through recommendations from other people so I no longer have a need to prove myself on this front.

3\. i make more money than when i was employed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I will take the point of view of someone who went to college. Actually I just graduated from my 5th year(I think it's master degree) and going to PhD in computer science. To understand what I want to explain, you need to know that I began college with 3 years of biology, and then switch to computer science. It is only in my 3rd year that I realised how much I loved computer science. I worked my ass off to get directly from 3rd year of biology to 4th year of computer science, so I basically learnt everything by myself too. In the end, I felt that every "practical" classes were pointless. I don't need someone to learn a new language, and it seems you don't either. But it is when I tried some theoretical courses that I realized how much I had to learn in this domain.

I never learnt anything about advanced algorithmic, or graph theory before, or language semantics. But in the end, by knowing all that I really look at a problem with a different point of view than before. I am able to imagine some new tricky algorithm etc.

All of that to say : It depends on what you seek going to college. You will be bored if it's just learning some new language, because you either know them already, or you will go faster than the course. But if you want to learn some more theoretical knowledge, you will learn some new stuff for sure. Then again, I don't know where you live, and college might be quite expensive in some country, so I can't tell if it's really worth the money (since you already have some years as a developper). But it is totally worth the time imo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for this feedback.

> . But it is when I tried some theoretical courses that I realized how much I > had to learn in this domain.

> I never learnt anything about advanced algorithmic, or graph theory before, > or language semantics. But in the end, by knowing all that I really look at > a problem with a different point of view than before. I am able to imagine > some new tricky algorithm etc.

This is exactly what I have found myself going through since making an attempt to switch to 3d video game development. Specifically with the game I'm currently building and some other things I've wanted to get involved with (I've taken an interest in AI lately... like everyone else). I can see how having more math in my past would help greatly.

That said I've been studying algorithms and supplementing my math with books from the library. I also have a list of bookmarks to various CS courses. I just need to block out time and watch them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like you are perfectly capable of learning technologies on your own, and that your primary concern is having a degree as opposed to an education.

Have you considered going for a bachelors in a non-technical field like economics, or business administration, or engineering management?

Any bachelors degree and your work experience would probably be enough to get your foot in the door of any company if you wanted to step away from contracting and go for a corporate job.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have a masters degree and have been a developer for more than 10 years now. I really don't see what a successful professionals with 13 years of experience could learn in college.

It s unclear from your post why you even feel the need to go back. Have you been denied position because you didn't have a degree? Is it because you want to learn more?

<comment><AUTHOR> It isn't that I do want to go back, its that I'm trying to determine if the advice of my grandfather (and a few other people) is something I should follow.

I don't really see what I will gain from it either, but like I said I've never had a computer science course so I'm not sure if I'm missing out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is no right answer. A college degree, in CS or anything else basically can provide three things: the college experience, vocational skills, social validation, and personal enrichment.[1]

Anyway, how these suss out for a particular individual at a particular point in their life varies. In the question, social validation and vocational skills are explicit. Personal enrichment feels implicit in the overall structure, by which I mean that there's a bit of "I wonder what I might learn if I took this risk" lurking breath the surface. If there weren't there would be little reason for a long question.

Your grandfather said what he said to give you permission to do something that is locally suboptimal and entails social risk. That's about as good as a grandfather can grandfather. Maybe you can talk some more with him. Probably worth doing regardless.

Good luck.

[1]: a college degree can provide FOUR things...

</comment><comment><USER7> Personal prejudice: I'd be very reluctant to give up earnings while in college, particularly as you're already very viable.

In tech, college is _mostly_ a learning experience and certificate program for entry level workers. You're not entry level.

</comment><comment><USER8> I did 3.5 years of Mechanical Engineering, but I realized that what I really love is programming...

So I changed to a CS course, but I did just 1 semester and dropped out... The educational model nowadays have countless problems.

For that reason, I created this list, for those (like me) that want to have the knowledge offered in a CS course, but without spending too much time/money.

[https://github.com/ericdouglas/computer-science-and- engineer...](https://github.com/ericdouglas/computer-science-and-engineering)

</comment><comment><USER9> Just to share: In my 20+ yr career no employer actually asked for any proof of degree. Whatever I have written on my resume was fine with 100% of employers.

They (rightfully so) care about my ability to deliver stuff vs. stuff printed on some paper.

Exclusions from this rule:

\- Really large enterprises usually hire some sort of background verification services that would annoy you to no end to provide all kinds of proofs.

\- US Immigration (to get TN or other working visa) does ask for proofs of your degrees.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think it's good advice to get a degree in general. I would think about testing out taking a CS course and see if you enjoy it and is something you like. You'll never regret having a degree. That said at this point in your career I'm not sure how many more doors it will open for you and you'll have to weigh the time spent vs knowledge gained. Another option is maybe a BS in Science in something other than CS that you could do online that would take less time/focus, but CS would probably be the best fit for your skill set and future employment.

Grandparents are great and have lots of knowledge. The employment landscape has changed though, previously a degree was a ticket to a secure corporate gig till retirement. Now you have companies laying off employees in their 40s to hire lower cost employees, benefits are being reduced, etc. So I don't see a corporate gig as more secure than contracting or freelancing. Another option is to focus on leveling up to increase your salary/savings. Your grandfather would probably feel a lot better if he knows you have the skills to obtain contract employment easily and are making $50+/hr as a contractor. So maybe share how much you're making and that you have multiple offers when you are ready for a new contract position.

I would recommend leveling up to increase your earning power vs. a CS degree, unless it's something you would enjoy/want to have personally.

I don't think you'll learn video game development at university. That's something you would learn on your own making games.

Check out the startups for the rest of us podcast. It has good information on planning for your own products/businesses while working your day/contractor job . . . most of this will apply to making the leap to independent video game developer.

I would say open your options up . . . success in independent video games (Notch/Minecraft) is a bit like a lottery ticket. So this might be something you strive for but realize it might turn in to a nice hobby or niche with a small following with a chance of a billion dollar payoff or maybe a fulltime income or maybe just something you do for fun/side income.

You probably don't want to do contract work forever. So plan to launch your own products, maybe a SaaS app, some type of recurring revenue so you don't have to chase contracts/projects full time. This could also help give you more time to learn/run your independent video game development studio.

Check out everything by patio11 (lots of great articles/advice), [http://startupsfortherestofus.com](http://startupsfortherestofus.com) podcast (and previous microconf videos) and Amy Hoy's stacking the bricks video.

Good luck with the direction you go.

Good luck sounds like you're on the right track.

<comment><AUTHOR> These comments are a big relief.

All except these:

> laying off employees in their 40s

> hire lower cost

which raises the question: what should a 34 year old developer be planning to do by time he is in his 40s? I'm realizing now that this might be the crux of my situation.

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't worry too much . . . just keep it in mind . . . the future is filled with all sorts of unknowns . . . not 100% of developers will get laid off/replaced by cheaper labor but it's a possibility (Disney, CA Power company, in the news recently).

I'd recommend exploring having your own product/app/business if that interests you vs. depending on a company long term.

But lots of changes are going to come about in the next 10 to 15 year. Automation . . . interstate trucking, uber cars, garbage trucks, restaurants, this will eliminate a lot of jobs and businesses that provide services (truck stops, etc). So being a developer your job is more secure than a lot of careers that are going to be going through major changes.

Don't fear, worry about change, just be prepared/ready.

If you're talented I expect you can be a contract developer for as long as you want. But explore other options/opportunities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a relatively new developer at 33, with about 2 years of experience now. I was in a different industry for 12 years, but always wanted to be a dev. I dropped out of CS about 13 years ago after I chose a bad (for profit) school that I didn't enjoy. I enrolled in a local state school a couple months before getting the job I have now. I'm half way through my degree, working full time and going to school about half time (6-9 credits per semester). I don't know if I would reccomend it or not. I only went back because I needed to take concrete steps to get myself on the career path I wanted. Now that I'm in it, it's a bit of a struggle to stay motivated for school.

Pros:

-I'll have a degree at some point and will no longer have to have awkward conversations about why I don't have a degree. This is probably the #1 reason I'm doing it.

-It removes a way for employers to filter me without seriously considering me as a candidate.

-I'll be proud of my accomplishment at some point and won't feel bad every time I think about my relationship with college.

Cons:

-Money. At a local state school, nothing crazy, I'll be about $35k in debt by the end of it with plenty of up front costs (books, etc).

-Time. It eats an incredible amount of time. Some classes require an hour or so of study time outside of class, but many require a ton. Depending on how polished your math skills are, you'll have a huge wall to climb here. I hadn't been in a math class in 13 years and then get tossed into calculus. Yowch. In addition to 5 or so hours of class time, I probably put in 10 hours a week of studying/homework just for that one course.

-Scheduling. Your scheduling needs might be different, but I work a pretty standard workday of 9-5. The university's latest CS courses start at 5:30 two days a week, which means if I am taking two CS courses simultaneously, I'm in class four nights a week. That means studying has to happen on virtually every off night. It also makes it very tough to take more than 2 classes at a time. Keeping a decent pace is key to actually finishing in a reasonable time. It'll probably take me 5 years total to get through it all.

-Content. The actual courses will drive you crazy. Professor's requirements are usually a clinic in what not to do in the real world. Your good habits will be punished in many circumstances. About half way through, I can't say I've learned anything invaluable that I couldn't have learned better on my own if I were sufficiently motivated. I'm hoping the upper class courses are more interesting, but so far it's been a bust.

-Bandwidth. You only have so many hours in a day. You'll be spending your time on things you have to learn instead of the things you WANT to learn. I'd love to spend my evenings getting more proficient with modern tech, but instead I find myself reading about anthropology or the like. My university is very Java/C/C++ heavy, which is not what I prefer. I'm happy to learn these things, but I don't see myself ever being a happy Java dev professionally.

So there are a lot more cons than there are pros for me, but I think the pros are still worth it. I'll let you know in a couple years. If you're looking to be indy dev, I doubt a college degree will help you get where you want to go. I'd spend that time and effort on a project of your own. By the end of it, you'll have demonstrable skills and a product you can show off.</comment>


Ask HN: Will real estate values push innovation away from Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR> After all, startups are built (or should be built) around thriftiness. <comment><USER2> Probably not because of thriftiness. As long as you get a yearly influx of new talent, the salaries are not so extreme to dissuade business. The density of startuptopia and other tech companies is likely also an advantage.

Will there be big startups from other/cheaper places? Yes for sure. We will also see some migration out of the valley if housing isn't addressed. It's hard to raise a family, mega-commutes not withstanding...</comment>


The real problem with the economy is that it doesn't need you anymore - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-real-problem-with-the-economy-is-that-it-doesnt-need-you-anymore-2009-9

<comment><USER2> I think that it's impossible to rationally ignore the fact that economies seem to contort to absorb however many workers are available to it. I have yet to hear a totally convincing explanation for this, but it seems to happen.

<comment><USER3> That's what's _supposed_ to happen. It's called Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage. For as long as people's labor has any value _whatsoever_ , they ought to be employed.

The real puzzle is why anyone is ever _un_ employed.

<comment><USER4> Minimum wages.

<comment><USER5> Unemployment existed before those; and whether minimum wages increase unemployment should be open to empirical study - anyone got any data?

<comment><USER6> Empirical study is a tad tricky in a field where experimentation would probably be considered wildly unethical and you wouldn't be able to set up a control anyway.

<comment><USER5> While presence of controls is admirable, it's still reasonable to simply look at countries that implemented a minimum wage and ask, what happened to the unemployment rate?

<comment><USER2> At the very least one would note that the effects don't seem to be predictable via the basic supply & demand theories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> interesting essay, but you could have made the exact same argument in the early years of the industrial revolution...as one example. 'The real problem with the economy is that it doesn't need you anymore' could have been said, and probably was said, many, many times throughout history, every time big technological changes appeared on the horizon.

agriculture? sorry hunter gatherer, the economy doesn't need you anymore :)

<comment><USER8> >but you could have made the exact same argument in the early years of the industrial revolution...as one example

Someone did make that argument, and his name was Marx. He argued that machinery could be thought of as 'disembodied labor.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure why we need to assume that we'll ride the curve all the way down before coming back up.

Its true that manufacturing jobs are going to poorer countries because wages are lowered there. For now, it seems like in richer countries the jobs are being (imperfectly) replaced by services. If this can't continue (and I'm not sure if it can or can't) than wouldn't we expect wages in (currently) richer countries to start dropping and manufacturing jobs to move back?

The above may sound like I'm assuming a frictionless economy and maybe some other pseudo-idealistic assumptions... but I don't think I am. I realize that the process will not be instantaneous, but that doesn't mean it won't happen (albeit with some pain along the way).

<comment><USER10> Aha! You, sir, have hit upon the greatest reason to be optimistic about globalisation; even though the evil soulless multinationals <warning, satire> are currently destroying good, well-paying jobs in developed nations and creating nasty, hellish, unsafe, penurrific jobs in the concrete slum- nightmares of the Third World, they have to move on to new concrete slum- nightmares every so often when the locals get too rich to endure slavery!

The key fact is this: There are a limited number of slum-nightmares to move on to! One day, the t-shirt manufacturers will find that Darfur has become too well-heeled, and look around, and curse the skies, because there's nowhere left to exploit!

And the world will be doomed to become more homogenous, more wealthy, and more high-standard-of-livingy every single day.

Mwahahahaha!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wealth is stuff people want, not what people need. True, if there's shortages of something people really need people will focus on spending their wealth on those things first as there are painful price hikes in basic necessities. But if it's really true that a few numbers of limited people can, using technology, produce everything "really needed" by all of society, the remaining people are then freed to work on whatever else people might want. The fact that people don't "really need" those things doesn't stop anyone from paying for them.

By this article's logic, at the point agriculture was developed and not everyone needed to hunt for food all day, a big chunk of the population should have sat idle and impoverished.

</comment><comment><USER12> The other side of this, that I rarely hear discussed, is "What happens when automation renders some people _permanently_ redundant?"

It's an easy platitude to say that technology obviates some jobs whilst creating others, but the new jobs tend progressively to more complex and/or creative work, that use the leverage of technology to do work that would have once needed many people (if possible at all).

Currently, the issue is cloaked in arguments over protectionism and trade, because Chinese workers are (for now) cheaper than robots for many things. What happens when automation is cheap and sophisticated enough that starting a manufacturing business is only slightly more difficult than a web startup is today? (Exhibit A: Projects such as Fab@Home and RepRap) It is, I suspect, not reasonable to expect even a significant percentage of people to handle the kinds of career that will remain.

While it's fun to imagine a world where one person can create enough wealth to support hundreds of people... what do you do with those hundreds, who can no longer create _any_ wealth a machine can't do better?

<comment><USER13> The guy who started how stuff works had small book on the subject <http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm>.

But what really happens is that stuff finally becomes so cheap that people will stop buying more than they need of it and will presumably spend the rest of the money on things that are hard to make by robots: books, movies, professional services.

The they the robots can do _that_? Well then we will finally have obliterated the concept of scarcity, at which point the entire concept of economies are obsolete.

<comment><USER14> That's a seriously great story. When I first read it, I wasn't sure whether to be afraid of Manna or to start a startup to create Manna. It seems so very real.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Consider the following EU definition of a free economy:

The freedom of movement for workers is a policy chapter of the acquis communautaire of the European Union. It is part of the free movement of persons and one of the four economic freedoms: free movement of goods, services, labour and capital.

But of course is only applied within the European Union. Foreign workers can actually expand an economy - not contract it (See US, Austalia, Canada). By restricting immigration, the jobs get exported rather than stay home. Would a more permissive immigration policy by the US have kept these jobs home? I believe it would. The world now has reached a stage where goods, services and capital almost move freely but not the last resource the labour. By slowly opening the gates the world will slowly adjust to a new Global Economy.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure about the proper etiquette here, but the original article is posted at [http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2009/09/problem-with- econom...](http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2009/09/problem-with-economy-you- arent-needed.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> > _When we create devices that individuals will be able to own that will be > able to produce everything that we need, the solution will be at hand. This > is not science fiction. We are starting to see that happen with energy with > things like rooftop solar panels and less expensive wind turbines. We are > nowhere near where we need to be, but it is obvious that eventually everyone > will be able to produce his or her own energy._

I don't think that's going to happen. Technological progress does make small- scale production cheaper, but it makes large-scale production cheaper _faster_.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, fine. But at a certain point, I can buy a replicator, print out some solar paint, and disconnect from the grid. All I need now is small amounts of raw materials to top up the inevitable losses from my recycling loop.

Your large-scale production will certainly be cheaper, but it will be possible for an individual to build, say, a fully automated chip-fab given enough raw materials. So large-scale production will be instantiated ad-hoc on a needs basis.

I'm assuming that the last bastion of human labour will be creative work, since that'll have sentimental value even when the robots get better at it.

<comment><USER14> It's entirely possible to bake your own bread or grow your own vegetables today, do you do that? Food independence!

I just don't see why division of labor would decrease. In the past it's pretty much always increased with growth of technology. As Robin Hanson said in "Dreams of Autarky" <http://hanson.gmu.edu/dreamautarky.html> :

 _I suspect that future software, manufacturing plants, and colonies will typically be much more dependent on everyone else than dreams of autonomy imagine. Yes, small isolated entities are getting more capable, but so are small non-isolated entities, and the later remain far more capable than the former. The riches that come from a worldwide division of labor have rightly seduced us away from many of our dreams of autarky. We may fantasize about dropping out of the rat race and living a life of ease on some tropical island. But very few of us ever do._

<comment><USER10> Grow your own vegetables? Bake bread? That takes HOURS. But with a replicator/food printer/reprap, it's a push-button process. No work involved. Makes a difference, eh?

Ever lived in the third world? You don't have washing machines, you get your clothes washed down the street. In the first world, you just chuck them in your washer/dryer, push a few buttons, wait an hour.

See the difference we're talking here?

One way requires someone to swoosh clothes around with a stick all day. The other requires a designer, a few supervisors at the factory, an assembly line, and a washing machine repairman, all of whom ADDED TOGETHER still don't work as many hours per washed knicker as the laundry people do in the third world.

Of course we'll still be dependent on others. Do you think the average schlub will be designing his own printer templates? Nah, he'll download them from the Internet like everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting, thought provoking, and most likely correct general premise - followed by a bunch of incorrect correlations and details.

> Clearly, more and more jobs will move from more developed nations to > countries like China, and it is difficult to see how, as this process > continues, the United States retains its leadership position. In fact, it > seems entirely possible that the U.S. will exchange places with less well- > developed nations.

The United States has _never_ been good at continuing dominance in a field they invent. Basically, it gets invented in the USA, and another part of the world gets better at it and takes over within 30-70 years. Historically, the US economy would've collapsed many times over had we not kept "inventing our way out of it". If it keeps up, USA keeps going. If not, starts to fall apart. Of course, the following isn't true:

> And the labor that _is_ needed can't be done in more developed nations > because there are people elsewhere who will happily provide that labor less > expensively.

"Can't" isn't the right word. There's certainly enough people that would be happy to work for the ever-increasing buying power of a modern day $5 to $20 per hour, and people would pay a premium to not have to ship things across seas and to be closer to their factories. The problem is that the labor laws in the USA has changed it from an economy with very many $15-per-hour jobs into one with a few $40 to $70 per hour jobs due to our laws.

> When we create devices that individuals will be able to own that will be > able to produce everything that we need, the solution will be at hand. This > is _not_ science fiction. We are starting to see that happen with energy > with things like rooftop solar panels and less expensive wind turbines. We > are nowhere near where we need to be, but it is obvious that eventually > everyone will be able to produce his or her own energy.

This is, of course, very false. It ignores economies of scale. Energy will eventually get closer to free, but it will most likely be because of giant nuclear fusion or hydrogen plants or something like that. The trend is towards even fewer institutions providing our basic needs, not spreading it out. What will happen is people will turn to more "intangible" sorts of work - sciences, philosophy, aesthetics, design, communication, and so on. There'll be lots more people working on things that would have been frilly or an unnecessary luxury in years past.

> This means that a small number of people, the people in control of the > creation of goods, get the benefit of the increased productivity.

False! The quality of life across everywhere has increased a lot faster than the quality of life has improved for the rich. Now, the barriers to entry into industry as all but disappeared, and the "American Dream" of rags to riches is more possible than ever. You can get the benefits of economy of scale without a lot of money by having Amazon host it for you or some such. I had dedicated warehouse and automated shipping for orders at a company I ran for $200 per month + $2.50 per package shipped at my small company. It's going to be possible to get wealthier than ever.

Now, the wages for unskilled labor will fall off a bit, even as the prices of things get cheaper. I don't know which will fall faster going forwards, but so far, prices of essential goods and luxuries have fallen faster than unskilled wages. But also, there's been a shift to skilled labor in the developed countries, and what Peter Drucker called "knowledge work". Yeah, gradually there will be less people needed to tar roofs and roof-tarring wages will fall, but nobody _really_ wants to do that anyway. As cheap, easily installed roofings improves more and more, there will be less roof tarrers, but kids that would've become roof tarrers will become computer programmers or writers or systems engineers or biochemists or whatever.

> Unfortunately, that wealth will be held by a very small number of people. > And their operations will need to employ very few people.

This is such old world thinking. Yes, there will be less traditional, unskilled jobs. No, those people won't die in the streets. People are resilient. They'll move into other, more necessary positions that fill the new needs, as the old needs get cheaper than ever to buy.

> In short you will have a few very wealthy folks, and a much larger majority > that will just not be needed for the most important things that the country > needs to do.

Author could've written this about cars too, and how it's going to kill all those horseshoeing and horsebreeding and carriage driving and carriagemaking operations, and how the world is going to be a mess, and it would've looked correct.

Again, interesting premise, hadn't thought about it, probably correct. The follow-on conclusions are way off base.

<comment><USER18> When robots are making robots that make our stuff, noone will be able to buy any of the cheap stuff, except the people that controls the goods.

Labor is the only good most people have, and it's worth is declining. The previous generation could maintain the same lifestyle, doing less work. For years the rich are getting richer and the poor get poorer, but the last years the middle class is shifting to poor as well.

The more "intangible" sorts of work are only getting paid, after the basics needs are paid, and thanks to the internet people are sharing those skills for free.

<comment><USER17> > When robots are making robots that make our stuff, noone will be able to buy > any of the cheap stuff, except the people that controls the goods.

I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but the rest of the comment looks serious. Here's the standard answer:

As long as any human needs or wants are unfilled, there's a capacity for an unlimited amount of work and labor. As robotics gets less expensive, it will progressively replace unskilled, repeatable, monotonous labor.

As of yet, we're nowhere near having quality enough robotics to do abstract, creative work. Thus, more (human) work will become abstract and creative. The more mechanical, automatic, less skilled work will gradually become streamlined, mechanized, and replaced as that becomes safer and more efficient than paying people to do that kind of work.

> Labor is the only good most people have, and it's worth is declining.

Completely unskilled labor - working at Taco Bell, pressing a button every 17 seconds, unloading crates from a truck - the worth of those is declining. Skilled labor - including servicing robotics or operating a complex crane - the worth of those is slightly increasing. Knowledge work - research, biochemistry, computer programming, genetics, engineering - the worth of those is greatly increasing.

There has been and will continue to be a general shift from completely unskilled labor to skilled labor, and skilled labor to knowledge work.

> The previous generation could maintain the same lifestyle, doing less work. > For years the rich are getting richer and the poor get poorer, but the last > years the middle class is shifting to poor as well.

This is patently false. The average person today has twice as many possessions as the person of forty years ago. The resources, necessities, and luxuries available to people has greatly increased on the low end and slightly increased on the high end. Look at technology - what do wealthy people use online? Google for search, Gmail for email, Facebook for networking, Amazon for books, Ebay for auctions. Those are all available to anyone of any social class in the developed world. Think about computers in general - you can get a totally functional computer for web browsing and word processing for dirt cheap, almost free. This is an incredible thing. You can get a Personal Transportation Device (aka a "car") for very cheap! My 1995 Infiniti J30 was $1900, and that was a luxury car 15 years ago. It still totally gets the job done. Even the poorest people in America can buy a nice enough car, outright, in cash, for less than a month's work in a bad job.

That's amazingly marvelous. The quality of life gap is closing tremendously. The difference in goods, services, availability, and access is getting closer all the time. The wealthier are getting slightly wealthier because it's possible to leverage your good works to more people to help the world. The poor and middle class are getting much wealthier because they can transact with the people doing the best job globally at everything. Google is the best in the business, and it's available to everyone that can get online.

> The more "intangible" sorts of work are only getting paid, after the basics > needs are paid, and thanks to the internet people are sharing those skills > for free.

Actually, that's a good point that people are grappling with. How can we convert our skills that other people want to money? I don't have the answers on that, but I'd feel confident wagering a lot of money that there's where there's going to be a lot of growth in those areas. Creative people will find creative solutions to monetizing their work.

We're going to be seeing more writers, artists, programmers, researchers, designers (yes, the demise of design has been greatly exaggerated), and so on. Short of a brutal WWIII, I feel pretty good that my children are going to live in a much more pleasant, clean, stimulating, enjoyable world, with meaningful and interesting work to do, inexpensive necessities, and ever improving design, experience, and aesthetics of the everyday world.

<comment><USER18> We have more stuff than 40 years ago, but less than 20. What also changed is that many single income households are double incomes now. Or that people are working 60-80 hours a week.

15 years ago you also could buy a second hand car for cheap, but since then the gas price quadrupled. You can have a DVD player for the same price as a VCR 20 years ago, but does it really mean the quality of life has improved? Over time we also lost quite a few things, like real food or personal service.

But still you are looking at now, and more specifically to your personal situation at the moment, and not on what's happening and what the future will bring.

If cheap labor disappears a part of that group will become competitors in an already overcrowded market. And as I mentioned before, the global marktplace and internet is going to work against us. We will end up fighting over breadcrumbs, and only a very few, those with a truly unique skillset, will manage to have a somewhat decent lifestyle.

What you also forget, a big part of our current wealth is based on air. On big loans we used to pay for cheap labor in far away countries. And one day those loans will have to be paid back.

But try to imagine what would happen to your life when the dollar would become complete worthless overnight. Do you have enough goods to buy your way around, or do you still have the right skills to make a decent earning?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Well! You can force everyone your economy doesn't need to go to military! This way, it's a win-win: you still retain your dominance and don't suffer from having no real jobs!

Sad.

</comment><comment><USER20> No, that's not it. Back to economics class.</comment>


Is there a future for simple things? - <AUTHOR> http://epsilonwiki.free.fr/lambdaway/?view=future <comment><AUTHOR> I'm afraid not!</comment>


IOS 5 Bugs - <AUTHOR> http://zerodistraction.com/blog/2011/10/14/ios-5-bugs.html

<comment><USER2> Not a bug per se, but the back button in iPad MobileSafari is now 6mm away from a tab close button. I've already lost my page several times. I think iPad-toting grandparents will fare even worse. Sloppy.

While I'm moaning, the 'linen' pattern is on course to be the new 'brushed metal'. The notifications sheet you can now pull down from the status bar has a harsh version that looks like worn denim and is completely incongruous.

<comment><AUTHOR> On the topic of usability, I agree with you about the changes made to mobile Safari on iPad. Also, those close tab buttons have tiny tap targets. I foresee this getting more annoying over time.</comment></comment>


Google wants driverless cars, but do we? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/google-wants-driverless-cars-but-do-we.html?mtrref=www.nytimes.com&gwh=7A974016FD99E172AB461FC5FFA1A287&gwt=pay&assetType=opinion&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Yes, yes we want them.

Idiotic things like this in the article miss the point:

> And yet this trend has never been voted on or discussed seriously by our > politicians

We already voted with our dollars and will continue to do so (and our politicians suck).

The article also has stupid shit like:

> The truth is, no one knows for sure how many lives could be saved by > driverless cars, because data on the role of human error in crashes is > incomplete and misleading

Human error is the cause for all accidents, barring freak accidents like sinkholes and tornadoes (both hitting my state recently :( ). This one is so simple to reason about. Think about the cause of any accident, even the ones where clearly some technology failed. Even a rear-end caused by brake failure is the fault of the driver for ignoring his dashboard and not fixing the car often enough.

A self-driving car can and will refuse to drive if the brakes go back (provided all the sensors don't go bad at the same time too). A self driving will have unlimited patience for slowness. A self driving car will never be drunk or drive tired.

<comment><USER2> I like how the article uses the economic argument:

> Yes, jobs will be created by these new cars, but many will be lost.

Every time a company, economy, nation or empire doesn't follow the route that saves more human effort they are outcompeted (or conquered) by those who do.

This is as much an argument against self driving cars as much as it is an argument against automation in principle. We need to figure how to handle 40% unemployment when all those truckers lose their jobs. Either Basic income, subsidized jobs, or some kind of discussion to figure out what happens next. Because self driving cars will be part of it unless there is an apocalypse.

Holy crap! I a cannot finish this unresearched technophic clickbait piece of drivel. It is making me dumber as I read it.

<comment><USER3> > Every time a company, economy, nation or empire doesn't follow the route > that saves more human effort they are outcompeted (or conquered) by those > who do.

The economics of slavery seem to be an effective rebuttal to your point, unless slaves are put in the role of automaton (and not human).

<comment><USER2> Really its not unless you somehow stop counting them as people. People have high maintanence costs whether or not they are a slave. Slaves also revolt. Beasts of burden and Robots (so far) cannot revolt.

Also you miss out on a large portion of the person's output if they are slave. There are very few slave inventors.

<comment><USER3> Slave inventors - 5 high-profile counterpoints: [http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/02/11/5-inventions-by- ensla...](http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/02/11/5-inventions-by-enslaved- black-men-blocked-by-us-patent-office/)

I'd say the only reason they were "missed out" is because of the politics of slavery.

The entire basis that efficiency of human effort is competitively dominant relies on a definition of human as only the "humans benefiting from automation" leaving out those who don't benefit out of the equation.

<comment><USER2> You must be trolling to seriously compare the creative disruption automation causes to real human loss slavery causes.

Compared to the non-slave inventors the list of slave inventors is disproportionately tiny. A few anecdotal people don't hold muster to waves of people innovating. I can point to single companies with hundreds of inventors.

In the long run automation benefits everyone, even the people who temporarily lose their jobs. Those people are encouraged to get back into the work force and to do the best they can even they have less work to do because of some new tool. Slaves were sometimes killed for not working hard enough. If slaves invented a labor saving device they got non of the benefit and instead any value increase was entirely given to the slave's owner. Employees can choose who to work for and choose their conditions, slaves cannot. Employees can try see their obsolescence coming and go to school, shift careers or fight it, slaves can only do as they are told.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Literally ever single one of his points could be made about any other technological innovation, ever. (Obviously a bit of a hyperbole, but it's not far off from the truth. Try replacing driverless cars with seatbelts, and it reads remarkably similarly.)

</comment><comment><USER5> > The types of accidents we'll face in this automated future, in which these > cars are meant to run together in proximity at high speed, may be fewer, but > they'll be new, different, unpredictable and, on occasion, larger and more > grisly than the ones we know today.

There's absolutely no evidence to support this, is there? How would self- driving cars result in larger and more grisly accidents?

<comment><USER6> Not defending the argument, but I suspect the author was referring to the reduction in safety equipment installed on autonomous vehicles leading to more grisly accidents.

From the article: "One of the claims made for autonomous cars is that they can be lighter, shedding heavy metal crash cells and expensive safety gear, like airbags, saving fuel."

<comment><USER2> I would hope we wouldn't do that until they have demonstrated years of safety.

We would also need to get most of the humans off the road. No amount of self- driving AI can dodge a human with intent (or stupidity), a similar performing vehicle and a headstart.

<comment><USER6> I agree. Additionally I cannot find any reference to the author's statement about autonomous vehicles without airbags, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In case you were wondering which hack wrote this hit piece.

> Jamie Lincoln Kitman, a lawyer, is the New York bureau chief for Automobile > Magazine.

So, no surprises here.

</comment><comment><USER8> I read this more as "Everything talking about driverless cars is the optimistic future" and not a real world understanding of the challenges of widespread culture change this would require.

Yes, the change is technological, but the biggest impact is cultural. You assume that everyone is going to love self driving cars, but has anyone studied people to see if they are accepting? Many people just want to jump in their cars and go.. they haven't figured out the destination yet. Or maybe they are just scared - they have been driving for a long time and don't want to give it up.

When I drive 10 hours to visit my parents, I don't like it. But do I mind driving to the train station every day? I get to feel the road under the wheels, drive a little bit fast in corners, etc. Do I put my car in sport mode so its fun? hell yeah. Maybe if you truly have no affinity for car culture all these things are irrelevant.

<comment><USER9> People look at me funny when I tell them I plan on getting the next gen Tesla Roadster with the Maximum Plaid option so I can get that ludicrous 0-60 time, but also plan on buying the full self-driving option.

My commute is 29 miles, with all except 3 miles being on the highway. The off- highway miles, you bet I'll be in manual mode and gunning the shit out of it. But once I hit the highway, I'll hit the auto-pilot and relax. Being a driving enthusiast while wanting to have autopilot are not mutually exclusive.

I wonder how easily you can drift a Tesla...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Every point made by this article made me angry.

Some of the points made by the article:

-We don't know exactly how many people will be saved each year!

-We might make fewer cars!

-Our politicians haven't decided whether or not we want them!

-We can just disable phones in moving cars so people don't drive distracted!

Jamie Lincoln Kitman, you make me angry.

[Edit: formatting]

<comment><USER10> Ah, I see the problem:

"A member of the Society of Automotive Historians, Jamie Lincoln Kitman drives a 1966 Lancia Fulvia and a 1969 Ford Lotus-Cortina, both of which run fine on unleaded."

He just wants to drive his crappy, unsafe, polluting cars around forever and make us do the same.

<comment><USER11> This is not the first time I have heard similar arguments from "car people" and I don't understand why any classic car collectors would be against self- driving cars (well, rhetorically I do not, I understand that a lot of classic car people tend to be sentimental curmudgeons with a lack of basic reasoning faculties).

The #1 danger to classic cars is collisions with distracted drivers of newer, less cool cars. A friend of mine lost a late 1960s Honda CVCC (precursor to Civic) in a front-end collision after putting a lot of work swapping over a bunch of period-correct NOS modifications from another late 1960s Honda CVCC that he obtained as a wreck from another collector who wanted to sell it as a parts car to a fellow enthusiast after it had been involved in a similar front-end collision. Two classic cars lost to distracted drivers of modern shitboxes who were too busy texting to realize that they should not have been making a left-hand turn.

Even California exempts pre-1975 cars from smog testing (and soon to be pre-1980s cars). Classic cars will have no trouble being grandfathered in. I have seen people drive Model Ts around on the streets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Personal anecdote: I've been living without a personal car for 4 years now thanks to my city's dedication to public transportation, choosing to live close to where I work, and using literally every car share service available when the need arises. The only part of driving itself I consistently enjoy is listening to my music louder than normal. If I buy a car in the future it will absolutely be entirely electric and have autonomous functionality.

</comment><comment><USER13> Author's byline clarifies why he's surfacing pretty unimaginative critiques:

> Jamie Lincoln Kitman, a lawyer, is the New York bureau chief for Automobile > Magazine.

</comment><comment><USER14> People hate losing control. We know how shit our answer machines are. Google says there algorithms are good but there is no open benchmark of various driving scenarios for which every self driving algorithm should pass.

Even openpilot gives a big Blob of binary that I should trust.

It's my goddamn life. I'm not going to let a company whose #1 goal is to make me click as many ads as they can run my car.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Jamie Lincoln Kitman, a lawyer, is the New York bureau chief for Automobile > Magazine.

for sure you're against it

when driverless car is out and everyone is adopt to it, the whole automobile industry together with oil & gas will be disrupted

but your company shouldn't be affected as you can review on all the driverless car :) :)

</comment><comment><USER16> Yes. One day, in the not too distant future people will look back aghast at how we tolerated the number of deaths on our roads.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's a matter of time before it happens.

</comment><comment><USER18> Mass automation is undermining our democracy in a very specific way: it's acting as the ultimate "resource curse." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse)

"Countries with an abundance of natural resources, specifically non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources."

Scholars debate the causes of the resource curse, but one popular theory has to do with the way autocrats fund themselves relative to democracies.

Autocrats, it turns out, need a lot of wealth to pay their cronies. No dictator rules alone; they need someone to run the military, someone to collect the taxes, and someone to enforce the laws. Those people have to be paid, and handsomely, or they'll overthrow the dictator (or just allow the dictator to be overthrown). This is called "selectorate theory" and this video is a great introduction. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)

Oil wealth, specifically, undermines democracy because when autocrats have access to oil wealth, they don't need to depend on their citizens very much. (Indeed, many autocratic countries rich with oil wealth just allow other countries to come in and drill it, keeping local labor entirely out of the loop.)

Resource-cursed autocracies tend to democratize when the oil wealth runs out and they need to rely on the people's productivity to deliver wealth to cronies. When autocrats are forced to allow people to educate themselves and communicate with one another, democracy ensues.

It can work the other way, too. In every democracy, there's a group of folks asking themselves a question: is now the time to try a coup, to replace democracy with an autocracy? As the value of capital increases and the value of human labor decreases, the advantages of staging a coup becomes more and more enticing.

For years we've thought of human labor as the "ultimate resource." But it turns out that human labor isn't the ultimate resource. Robot labor that's just as good if not better than human labor is a resource beyond any we've ever seen.

But that means that we're discovering/inventing the _ultimate resource curse._

We _might_ use automation to fund universal basic income, or a class of elites could use it to undermine "unnecessary" citizens (the "unnecessariat"), establishing a corporate fascism.

When we depend on human productivity for our tax base, we need to keep us all well educated and healthy. But soon, we won't depend on human labor.

"Is now the time?" they're asking. And, increasingly, the answer is "yes."

</comment><comment><USER19> Yes. Next question.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yes. Yes, I do.</comment>


Art-Theft Blogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06FOB-medium-t.html?ref=magazine <comment><USER2> Sounds eerily familiar to people who write about computer crime.</comment>


Twitter's Manhattan: A Real-time, Multi-tenant Distributed Database - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/05/twitters-manhattan

<comment><USER2> A dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7515995](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7515995).</comment>


Estimate: Top US Firms Have Over 700,000 Job Openings - <AUTHOR> http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/01/estimate-top-us-firms-have-over-700000.html <comment><USER2> The "100 companies is a representative sample" is a big assumption. The linked article says those 100 companies were all Fortune 500: that implies that there's a very large likelihood that they are bigger than the other companies in the Fortune 1000. Bigger companies naturally have more job openings.

Even if this is true, it doesn't necessarily mean the economy's doing better. It's pretty likely that the job openings require skills that the newly unemployed workers do not have. Otherwise, they'd be filled. You can't hire a former real estate agent at Google and expect him to be immediately productive. (Hell, you usually can't hire a software engineer at Google and expect him to be immediately productive, but at least you can hire him.)

The issue with recessions is misallocation of capital, and it can't be fixed with a magic wand. You generally have to wait for people to retrain in new, productive areas of the economy, and for capital to be liquidated and entrepreneurs to find new uses for it. That's why it takes ~4 years instead of ~4 months.

<comment><AUTHOR> The samples were taken from a random selection of 100 of the top 1000 firms. The real question is how to make that selection of 100 firms so that statistically the sample size is a representative sampling. The goal is not to determine whether or not the jobs are available to those folks who may have just been laid off. The goal is to determine just how many job opening do exist in the Fortune 1000 without needing to hit every single job board of every one of those 1000 companies... surely there is a statistician who can solve that one? ;-)

<comment><USER2> From the link on your page:

"Yesterday we embarked on a research project to find current job openings. We started with 21 firms (with 18,839 open positions) and now we're up to data from 100 of them. (All Fortune 500)"

The chance that a random sample of 100 firms are _all_ in the top half of the sample universe is 2^100 = about a decillion. Doesn't really look random to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, nice catch and that post needs to be changed... momentarily... The universe was truely from the Fortune 1000 from the list publish online... not the top 500 only...

<comment><AUTHOR> You can see my confusion is somewhat born out by hitting this link... it is labeled 500 when actually it lists the top 1000...

[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/full_...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/full_list/)

<comment><AUTHOR> So here is the methodology: 1\. Hit the site above. 2\. Randomly pick a company from the list... for instance: 3\. Pick Paychex Systems... company 921 on Fortunes list... 4\. On their site they list 137 job openings... 5\. Add that to the total... 6\. Repeat until you have a representative sample size

Question: Using an appropriate random number generation between 1 and 1000, what is the sample size required to then estimate the total job openings on the 1000 sites?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Job opening on a company's "career site" are a very poor predictor of the number of people that company would hire if could find suitable candidates.

In some cases, the listing is to satisfy an HR rule and the person to be hired has already been selected. In other cases, it's "maybe someone wonderful will wander in".

And then there are the hires that happen without a listing.

I'd guess that the actual uncertainty in the total is more a function of the uncertainty in the numbers than it is in the sampling.

<comment><AUTHOR> >I'd guess that the actual uncertainty >in the total is more a function of the >uncertainty in the numbers than it is in >the sampling.

totally agree. As with any indicator there is quite a bit of uncertainty. And as you suggest "there are the hires that happen without a listing..." Most career counselors would agree that there are actually more hidden jobs than what the boards suggest...

So... your argument might just boost the number if we add some multiplier into the model based on the jobs actually posted.

thanks! gne1963

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So here is the methodology: 1\. Hit [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/full_...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/full_list/) 2\. Randomly pick a company from the list... for instance: Pick Paychex Systems... company 921 on Fortunes list...On their career site they list 137 current job openings... 3\. Add that to your total... 4\. Repeat until you have a representative sample. 5\. Extrapolate to 1000...

Question: Using an appropriate random number generation between 1 and 1000, what is the sample size required to then estimate the total job openings on the 1000 sites?

<comment><USER4> Well here are a couple of things: you show 99 records on your excel spreadsheet, with an average of 709 and a standard deviation of 1073.

With that large of a standard deviation and that average you can't assume a normal distribution so you need to use the T distribution.

Using the T distribution at a 95% confidence level I come up with an estimated average of [495, 923] which results in a number of jobs in the top 1000 from 495,000 to 923,000 with a 95% certainty.

Just for kicks I wanted to see what would happen if you sampled 500 times but had that same standard deviation. At that point your spread would be about +/- 100 for the average value of X.

If you are looking for a singular number you'll need to check all 1,000 of them, otherwise it will be an estimated range.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

So what if I did another 100 random sample resulting a "better" (lower) std dev? At what level of std dev could one assume a normal distribution out to 1000?

gne</comment></comment></comment>


You Can Now Download the New Open Source Windows Terminal - <AUTHOR> https://www.hanselman.com/blog/YouCanNowDownloadTheNewOpenSourceWindowsTerminal.aspx <comment><USER2> I'm glad this is finally more easily available. I've been waiting for a decent windows terminal, and I hope this will be it.

<comment><USER3> I tried to install it, but you have to have the very brand new Windows 10 update release 1903.

So I tried to install 1903. 1903 is not available for my system, because I have a USB drive installed. [1]

All my spinning disk storage is an external enclosure, including my /user roots, so it's not something I can unplug.

Guess I'll be sticking with ConEmu for a while longer.

1\. [https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-m...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-may-2019-update- to-be-blocked-if-using-usb-drives/)

<comment><USER4> I was able to manually upgrade a Win 10 machine with a USB drive to 1903.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome, I've been looking forwards to this!

</comment><comment><USER6> Alternatively, here's an open source terminal for windows that I really enjoy:

[https://github.com/Eugeny/terminus/](https://github.com/Eugeny/terminus/)

<comment><USER7> I've used terminus and it is quite good, but like most Electron-based terminals, it is too resource-heavy for some people's tastes. Edit: Also, Windows Terminal is open-source too, surprisingly. Or maybe that's just my dated impression of Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Eh... Microsoft Store? So no new terminal for LTSB?

<comment><USER9> Wouldn't otherwise because it needs features in Windows currently not present in LTSB.

<comment><USER8> I see. Well I'll stick to other emulators.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some highly profitable small companies? - <AUTHOR>

E.g. AppSumo <comment><USER2> Humbled that you chose to mention AppSumo!

Some companies I like and that we've worked with recently at AppSumo: WP Engine (wpengine.com), Backblaze (backblaze.com), Treehouse (teamtreehouse.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> 37signals can be considered small</comment>