Ideas That Changed My Life - <AUTHOR> https://www.perell.com/blog/50-ideas-that-changed-my-life <comment><USER2> I've noticed there's been a trend of people capitalizing on teaching others about "thinking how to think", more or less.

But does it really work, or does this stuff just make you better at winning an argument?

My concern is that people are going to go around collecting mental models and they're going to use them to justify their stupid decisions.

Some examples that come to mind:

[https://fs.blog/](https://fs.blog/)

[https://jamesclear.com/feynman-mental-models](https://jamesclear.com/feynman- mental-models)

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

<comment><USER3> > they're going to use them to justify their stupid decisions

I'm sorry, but isn't this the whole point of using mental models for your decisions? What's stupid is all up to you, but if I reasoned together some decision based on some model that I think works for me, it's hardy stupid for me.

I always saw the point of these mental models is to use them to justify my "stupid" decisions, and have some structured way of reaching that decision instead of just "because I wanted to".

Disclaimer: I don't really follow any mental models myself, except the model my organic brain comes up with on the fly, so don't let me tell you how others use these mental modals.

<comment><USER4> The argument is that it is a facade, that the structure isn't really guiding the decision.

<comment><USER5> It doesn't have to. As long as it provides reasonable justification for a decision, that's better than no justification at all, eg. Like the OP said, "because I wanted to".

<comment><USER4> How is a false justification reasonable or better than admitting that the choice is arbitrary?

(especially in the framework of the comment I replied to, where they are talking about the process being internally useful. Of course it may be useful to bullshit someone else, but that's a different thing.)

<comment><USER5> Because at least you put some thought was put into it, which again, is better than no thought at all.

Consider your question applied to math: how is a false mathematical argument for believing a theorem better than just believing it for no reason at all? It's clearly better because you can actually point out the flaw in the specific argument.

If someone accepts a mental framework and is faced with a choice they want to make, either:

1\. They can find no justification for a choice they want to make, at which point they are more likely to question whether their choice is justifiable, or their mental framework is sufficient. Either outcome should be encouraged.

2\. If they find a justification that's valid in the framework, then they have an explicable basis from which to convince others they made the right choice.

3\. If they find a justification that's fallacious, then pointing out either how the framework is incomplete, or their argument within the framework is incorrect is far more likely to change their minds than simply claiming their choice was wrong and trying to explain why from _your own framework_ , which they haven't accepted (and likely won't without a lot more convincing).

Ultimately, applying thought to a problem is always better than no thought.

<comment><USER4> I think admitting a choice is arbitrary will often require more thought than a specious conclusion arrived at by a faulty process.

<comment><USER5> Doubtful. Like the OP said, "because I want to" is all the thought it requires. It's the answer children instinctively give. How much thought do they give their justifications?

Finally, if you're giving credence to a process, even a faulty one, then at least it's possible to erode confidence in the process or your application of it. To see its effectiveness, you need only browse the countless posts on reddit written by former Christians about how they came to question and ultimately give up their religion after a discussion with an atheist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > 12\. Demand Curves Slope Down: The harder something is to do, the fewer > people will do it. For example, raise the price of a product and fewer > people will buy it. Lower the price and more people will buy it. Economics > 101.

Not always as true as you might think. There are Veblen goods [0], luxury status symbols for which the high price is part of the attraction.

More controversially, there _may_ be Giffen goods [1]. Imagine a poor part of the world, where an average family spends half of its food budget on some cheap staple -- bread or rice or whatever -- and half on meat and fresh fruit and vegetables, but the staple part of the diet provides three-quarters of their calories. If the price of the staple rises , then their food budget will no longer provide enough calories. The only way they can make up the deficit is by buying less meat/fruit/veg and more of the staple: in other words, as the price of the staple rises, so demand for it goes _up_.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good)

<comment><USER7> >as the price of the staple rises, so demand for it goes up.

in $ terms, sure, but only because the price went up. In absolute units? No.

<comment><USER6> Yes, in absolute units (according to the theory).

If you buy exactly the same amount of kg of staple as before, you won't have enough money to buy the same amount of other food stuffs as before, so you'll be short of calories. Assuming you can't spend more money on food, your only options are to go without or to buy more of the staple (and even less of the other foodstuffs).

Some made-up figures:

* Staple costs $1/kg, and provides 1500 calories/kg

* Other stuff costs $2/kg and provides 1000 calories/kg

Out of every dollar in your food budget, you spend:

* $0.50 on 0.5kg of staple for 750 calories

* $0.50 on 0.25kg of other stuff for 250 calories

for a total of 1000 calories for every dollar spent on food.

Then the price of staple goes up to, say, $1.20/kg.

If you stick to buying the same absolute amount of staple as before, your spending looks like this:

* $0.60 on 0.5kg of staple for 750 calories

* $0.40 on 0.2kg of other stuff for 200 calories.

You're 50 calories short.

You can get back up to 1000 calories per dollar by spending like this:

* $0.67 on ~0.56kg of staple for 833 calories

* $0.33 on ~0.17kg of other stuff for 167 calories

That's an absolute increase in staple consumption from 0.5kg to 0.56kg for every dollar spent on food -- a bit more than an 11% rise.

<comment><USER7> you're right. thanks for the informative explanation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Overall interesting ideas, but I think he did a disservice to this one.

> 47\. The Medium Is the Message: We pay too much attention to what is being > said. But the medium of communication is more impactful. For example, the > Internet's impact on humanity has a bigger influence than anything that's > said on the Internet.

The concept here is that the character of the medium defines the types of ideas that can be transmitted through it. An example is how writing promotes logical and structures ideas, where television invokes emotion.

For more info, check out the wiki: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message)

EDIT: a relevant example is comparing HN and fb. The are both internet-based and have high-speed responses. However, HK is text based and all ideas must be written in a way that is clear to the reader. FB has text, but also has the like/heart/laugh/hate button. I think this encourages "a response", whether you can articulate it or not. Also fb has images. Memes can be used, which are quite ambiguous and not a structured, logical statement. The different environments are a consequence of the rules that define the medium.

<comment><USER9> It's not just a disservice, he flatly got the concept wrong (or misrepresented it).

<comment><USER8> It's a very subtle concept. I do a pretty poor job explaining it to friends all the time. I think of it as an extension of "to a person with a hammer, everything is a nail". There's only so many ways to use a hammer. There's only so many ways to use smoke signals, or twitter or a picket sign or a sitcom to convey an idea. The main takeaway is that they are all tools, each with their specific use.

Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan [0] is where the phrase is first seen, but it's a dense book and tough to read at times. It's quite theoretical, kinda like he's developing an information theory of communication mediums.

Amusing ourselves to death by Neil Postman[1] is more specific to written text and tv, but is a much easier read and very eye-opening.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't mean to be too cynical, but I would like to know HOW these 50 buzz- phrases changed the author's life.

Perhaps the key to change is actually this blog post. If it generates enough traffic.

<comment><USER11> Yes. Title should be more like "fortune cookies that I've read" or "collected quotes" or something.

<comment><USER12> I have a text file I've been keeping since 2003 full of "things other people said."

One day, maybe, I'll get around to tizzy it up and start a blog with some witty as fuck domain name and retire on the shoulders of every else's hard work.

<comment><USER13> You've caught my attention. Care to share it? I promise I won't host it. If you put the source quotes on github it could be a cool project that you accept pull requests to. And that does not preclude you from still making a good website out of it.

<comment><USER12> Naaah, it needs cleaning up before it makes it in to the wild.

I'll probably get on to it this winter (Southern Hemisphere), just after I do my taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >40\. Penny Problem Gap: Economists assume demand is linear, but people's behavior totally changes once an action costs money. If the inventors of the Internet had known about it, spam wouldn't be such a problem. If sending an email cost you $0.001, there'd be way less spam.

Or, more likely, the internet as we know it would not exist and it'd just be some crappy failed commercial venture where everything cost money and it never took off. Building commerce into protocols is a terrible idea.

<comment><USER15> And yet, we desperately want to find a better model so we can stop feeding the ad demon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Regarding 8, cultivating talent vs. genius - I'd argue an increasing majority of what we call genius nets out when we control for the effect of crazy meeting survivor bias.

As someone familiar with all of the listed ideas, I get the sense these contrarian proverbs form a kind of modern hacker subculture tribal knowledge. What I've noticed is that none of the most (or least) successful people I know think this way, it's like a view from the outside or the middle.

Maybe the co-incidence of financial success and a mind full of gnomic aphorisms is no better than random too?

</comment><comment><USER17> From the page source:

        <!-- This site is converting visitors
             into subscribers and customers
             with OptinMonster -
             https://optinmonster.com
             -->

Well, maybe not.

<comment><USER18> What does this have to do with this post?

<comment><USER17> It gives the sense that the whole thing is click-bait, designed to draw in the reader and then get them to sign up for for his mailing list. As I read the list I was thinking "This feels pretty content-free ... there are a few nuggets, but mostly it feels really fluffy."

Then there's the sign-up form, and everything became clearer. Colour me cynical[0], but it's the reaction the post provoked in me, so I thought I'd share it with other readers here in case they felt the same way.

I guess you didn't.

[0] The power of accurate observations is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it. -- George Bernard Shaw

<comment><USER19> It's fair & fine to come to the conclusion that the content is fluffy (plus I happen to agree with that conclusion here.) On the other hand, does being cynical automatically make an observation accurate? I think the question by @chance_state above is legitimate, inclusion of a cloud service in the page source is not strong evidence of your conclusion. The problem is that the online services in the page source are not created by the author and cannot be assumed to reflect directly on the content, and that all pages on the internet are intentionally designed to draw traffic. How many pages do you read that don't have a signup form, don't invite the reader to subscribe, aren't offering a value exchange of some kind?

<comment><USER17> > _... does being cynical automatically make an observation accurate?_

Not at all, and that's not the claim made by GBS. It's the converse, that things that are accurate and true are often incorrectly dismissed under the umbrella of "cynicism".

> _I think the question by @chance_state above is legitimate, inclusion of a > cloud service in the page source is not strong evidence of your conclusion._

Agreed, but it did serve to crystallise the feeling that had been developing.

> _... all pages on the internet are intentionally designed to draw traffic._

Actually, that's not true. It' might be true in the world you inhabit, but most of the content that's directly relevant to my work is provided "as is", information and ideas, offered without a follow-up "Sign up for my weekly email".

> _How many pages do you read that don 't have a signup form, don't invite the > reader to subscribe, ..._

For me, most of them. I suspect we inhabit different circles, mine isn't full of people trying to develop a following. This isn't a criticism, it's an observation. I do, however, feel that when I read many of the more popular items linked from HN and other tech forums that I'm walking through a carnival and being beset by hawkers and barkers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not sure why some commenters have been put off by this. I actually learned a few things (and was reminded of a few other things I had forgotten) while going through this list. The stuff I disagreed with, I just skipped over.

What I liked:

19\. Planck's Principle

20\. Bike-Shed Effect (had almost forgotten this)

21\. Table Selection

23\. Gall's Law (worth a reminder)

24\. Hock Principle

39\. The Paradox of Consensus

49\. The Paradox of Abundance

<comment><USER21> > The stuff I disagreed with, I just skipped over.

Guaranteed a podium spot in this year's HN Accidental Slogan contest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Mental models are useful when you use them. Not so much when you talk about them.

The idea of having a favorite mental model is fine if you are talking about them abstractly.

But I envision a whole bunch of people using the wrong models in loads of situations simple because they like the idea of them.

Your brain more often than not picks a pretty good one without having to even think about it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Interestingly I was reading Charlie Munger's Biography - Poor Charlie's Almanac - over the weekend. My recollection is that it took Munger almost a couple of decades of living, reading and contemplating to start formulating his system of models and it did not gell for another 10-20 years.

He uses them not on the spur of the moment but in analyzing investments and this process can take a while (think weeks or months and not days).

These systems of mental models sound fascinating but I fear that unless the model has come from _lived experience_ it will just be intellectual junk found - eaten, digested and out the rear rather fast with the only effect being intellectual blubber in your cerebral cortex. What one needs is a system of tutelage that might take a few years during which you can try out and codify these models one-by-one. Your list might be different than Munger or whomever but it will be tailored to your context and enable you to draw upon it with fluidity akin to a muscle reflex.

On a related note, I recall, from a Buddhist class on ethics, that Buddhist monastics have hundreds of rules that they have to observe. The story goes that when the historical Buddha formulated the order of monastics - there were no rules. Overtime in response to various incidents the rules were formulated and those incidents are recorded. The monastics are taught those stories that lie behind each rule to inculcate some notion of lived experience and a guideline for when/why that rule is to be used.

A list of rules is useless sans lived experience or a tradition that creates them is rather useless. You are better of throwing away the list and trying on your own supplemented by good reading. Charlie Munger His speeches and his reading recommendations are a good place to start.

<comment><USER24> You may also like Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger. Pretty much same ideas but aligned in more memorable way. Liked it way better than Poor Charlie's Almanac.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Great. Yet another online psuedo-intellectual "guru" with pretentious posts full of meaningless, vague trueisms. Why are posts like these so popular on Hacker News?

<comment><USER24> People are attracted with articles with pseudo-intellectual discussions, especially if they are filled with well-sounding buzz-terms like faustian bargain or overton window.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> 48 is wrong without qualification. A resource-rich country indeed _can_ become both economically powerful and it's people empowered -- look at the US.

48 _is_ true only when two more constraints apply: 1) when the natural resources are few (like only oil or diamonds), and 2) when the resource is dominated by monopoly, especially when abetted by the gov't, like Saudi Arabia or Russia, or 1970's South Africa.

<comment><USER27> They say "tend to have less economic growth", not "always have less economic growth".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > The Second Law of Thermodynamics: The world tends towards disorder. That's > why your room becomes messier and messier over time

That's not how the second law works.

<comment><USER29> This seems like a reasonable analogy. What about it do you feel is wrong?

<comment><USER30> You can tidy your room and the mess (that they mistake for entropy) would be reduced. The 2nd law of thermodynamics states that in an isolated system the entropy is always increasing (or at best constant), so the room analogy does not work.

<comment><USER31> Tidying your room would be adding energy to the system, to make it tidy. This is still in line woth thermodynamics where adding energy can decrease entropy

<comment><USER32> You have to add energy to make it messy as well

<comment><USER33> "Tidy" is a subjective quality, not an objective physical one. It does take mental energy to tidy a room, and without that effort it will tend to get messy through use. As long as you don't confuse mental energy for physical energy and tidiness for entropy in the literal sense, then the analogy works surprisingly well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > For example, raise the price of a product and fewer people will buy it. > Lower the price and more people will buy it. Economics 101.

There are of course exceptions, and knowing your demographic is important. I worked for a company that released a skincare product at an affordable price point, and no-one bought it. They raised the price, and people started buying. It was because they were in a premium product niche, so being affordable made the product look bad in comparison to other products on the shelf, and people looking to buy that product used price to qualify the products quality.

<comment><USER35> > 50\. The Map Is Not the Territory: Reality will never match the elegance of > theory. All models have inconsistencies, but some are still useful. Some > maps are useful because they're inaccurate. If you want to find an edge, > look for what the map leaves out.

This applies to all these 51 points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> >> The world always makes sense. But it can be confusing. When it is, your model of the world is wrong.

That was my mistake when I first heard about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

I was assuming that the economy was efficient and relatively fair and that made me see Bitcoin as a bubble. My assumption about economic efficiency was very wrong... Then I took the time to learn everything I could about the Federal Reserve Bank and money printing. I'm not going to make that mistake again.

<comment><USER37> Something I've noticed: There's been some things that I initially thought were bubbles. But they seemed to work - I even started doubting myself. Turns out they were just longer lasting bubbles.

<comment><USER36> This is definitely something that I keep at the back of my mind. That said, my current world view is that the entire fiat monetary system itself is a bubble. In that context, cryptocurrencies are a lesser bubble and by virtue of their limited supply, they will continue going up in value as they are constantly propped up by an infinite supply of newly printed credit from banks. The cryptocurrency community's ability to continuously buy politicians and journalists also helps ensure continued dominance.

Everything that's happening around the world now perfectly aligns with my world view. Guess who is going to benefit from the Fed's massive covid-19 fiat injections?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've been slowly working my way through understanding a tiny fraction of systems that reveal the world. Doing it partly from a humanities perspective, where I look into examples from history and art as much as tech and business. It's incredibly overwhelming and wonderful. This is the way I spend my early mornings and walks. I know what you mean about the "how to think" blogs though. I'm just trying to teach myself how to think or at least notice underlying systems. (This is what I've been writing: [https://unintendedconsequenc.es/blog/](https://unintendedconsequenc.es/blog/))

</comment><comment><USER39> __The Pareto Principle __is key for scaling a business.

80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the customers.

Segment your customers to shift low revenue customers to low cost channels.

And it scales, depending on your unique Pareto Curve.

4% of your customers generate 64% of your profits.

</comment><comment><USER40> >>> Robustness Principle: Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. It's a design guideline for software and a good rule for life:

My understanding is this is flat out wrong and bad for software development. Design software that is rigid in both what it accepts and sends. Loose standards lead to incompatiblities and chaos. Tightly define. This is not to say that your design should be inflexible, but for example a specification for data interchange should not accommodate loosely or incorrectly structured data.

<comment><USER41> This is also called Postel's Law after Jon Postel who worked on designing TCP. I think it has merit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> > _" 36\. Creativity Begins at the Edge: Change starts away from the > spotlight. Then, it moves towards the center. That's why the most > interesting ideas at a conference never come from the main stage. They come > from the hallways and the bar after sunset"_

Made me think that, when in times of Corona lock-down where most conferences have gone online, there is no real place away from the spotlight anymore, no hallway talk and no meeting at the bar after sunset. We should have a replacement for that, but Discord chatter isn't it.

</comment><comment><USER43> I read some stuff about how various cognitive biases produce poor investment decisions, like "fear of loss" and "sunk cost". I recognized that I fell prey to them.

I thought "how would I invest if I was investing Monopoly money just to win a board game?" and realized that my decisions would be completely different. With that gedanken experiment I was able to make better investment decisions, though I still can't entirely overcome the biases.

<comment><USER44> That's an interesting paradigm shift, thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > 20\. Bike-Shed Effect: A group of people working on a project will fight > over the most trivial ideas. They'll ignore what's complicated. They'll > focus too much on easy-to-understand ideas at the expense of important, but > hard to talk about ideas. For example, instead of approving plans for a > complicated spaceship, the team would argue over the color of the > astronaut's uniforms.

That's not quite what I understood by the bike-shed effect. In the version I heard, although the approval committee would indeed descend into endless arguments over the colour of the astronauts' uniforms, the complicated spaceship would get passed through on the nod: no one on the committee understands the technical details of the latter, so they defer to the experts, while they all grasp, and can make a contribution to, a decision on the former (or at least think they can).

<comment><USER45> Your explanation seems to agree.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> > 48\. Resource Curse

I've seen this at work in people (including myself) as well. Wherever people have a natural, unusual strength that starts at a young age, they often have many underdeveloped abilities due to relying on their strength. (ex: smart kids never learn how to study and hit a wall in college)

</comment><comment><USER47> Can somebody elaborate on the "go-for-it window"? > . The Go-For-It Window: Large gaps between accelerating technologies and stagnating social norms create lucrative new business opportunities. But they are only available for a short time when people can capitalize on the difference between the real and perceived state of the world. For example, 2007 was the perfect time to launch the iPhone, but Google Glasses launched too early.

What was the "stagnantig social norms" in that benefited the iPhone era, yet left Google Glasses in the dustbin?

<comment><USER48> They're two different norms.

The iPhone capitalized on the public's willingness to spend $500 on a fragile slab of glass with no keyboard.

Google Glass ran into the social norm of not looking like a creep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> >> Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time available. People don't want to look like they're lazy, so they find extra tasks to tackle, even if they're trivial.

This can easily be fixed with the right project management approach and incentives. This problem is mostly relevant in corporate settings where there are no clear individual incentives for delivering results.

<comment><USER2> Also, at least at the places I've been, finishing a task early just means you're "rewarded" with more work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> "8\. Talent vs. Genius: Society is good at training talent but terrible at cultivating genius. Talented people are good at hitting targets others can't hit, but geniuses find targets others can't see."

If you can find targets others can't see, you may be a genius. Or delusional. Check your prescription interactions for clues.

<comment><USER50> "Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer)

See also blog post on this (talent vs genius) at [https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/06/29/schopenhauer- genius...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/06/29/schopenhauer-genius/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> 50 is too much. Reading about yoga these days. Seems like following 5 Yamas & 5 Niyamas or noble eightfold path may keep clear from most of the troubles.

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

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path#The_Eight...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path#The_Eightfold_Path)

</comment><comment><USER52> Weird how many times I've heard people mention the overton window in the past week. Don't recall ever hearing about it before

<comment><USER46> All of a sudden, I've been seeing people mentioning the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon everywhere

</comment></comment><comment> jose-cl I think not all people do Preference Falsification and Doublespeak, and they just happen on toxic environments (edit: grammar)

</comment><comment><USER53> I like most of the ideas. But unsure which are pragmatic. Like avoiding competition. I don't get it. ELI5 anyone?

<comment><USER54> It reminds me of Thiel's "Zero to One" that competition is for suckers, aim for true monopoly power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The concept of Differend -> A wrong or injustice that arises because the discourse in which the wrong might be expressed does not exist. This technology of Western Civilization retains coherence via a white supremacist patriarchal order based economic system. Racism is deciding what dies, guaranteeing profits. All meaning has been surgically drained over centuries of enmity leaving only the calculable.

</comment><comment><USER56> >If sending an email cost you $0.001, there'd be way less spam.

Less spam, probably. More elaborated spam, definitely.

</comment><comment><USER57> Peter Thiel's Zero to One makes a good case for #10</comment>


Fedora 20 released - <AUTHOR> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/20/html/Release_Notes/index.html Download: https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/20/
More mirrors here, but not all servers are synced with 20 yet: https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/20/
No announcement yet, link in title leads to release notes. <comment><USER2> Here are the torrents: [http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/](http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/)

x86_64 DVD: [http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents/Fedora-20-x86_64-D...](http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents/Fedora-20-x86_64-DVD.torrent)

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:724bcc8a53b854daa844e6bc204b95124a1074d6&dn=Fedora-20-x86%5F64-DVD&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftorrent.fedoraproject.org%3A6969%2Fannounce

i386 DVD: [http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents/Fedora-20-i386-DVD...](http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents/Fedora-20-i386-DVD.torrent)

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:d6d123d9a9b108971ecb09ca6593d2593cd564a4&dn=Fedora-20-i386-DVD&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftorrent.fedoraproject.org%3A6969%2Fannounce

</comment><comment><USER3> Seeing the removal of syslogd, getting more than a bit grumpy here at the continuing direction Redhat is dragging the Linux world. Journald may serve the basic user well, it can't do half the stuff a good syslogd configuration can do; it can't pipe messages to other processes, it can't send messages to remote servers, it can't send messages to multiple places. If redhat had put in services to let journald do the things syslogd's been able to do since forever, I'd be more ok with its direction, but as it stands, it's proprietary in all but name.

<comment><USER4> It's not a direct replacement. Journald does stuff that syslog can't do, but it doesn't reimplement everything. Instead, you can pipe to syslog if you want syslog features.

\- Journald logs the whole boot process

\- Journald can make sure that an item really came from some process. It also tries to seal the journal so that it can't be tempered with.

\- It's built into the other systemd tools. For example, when you notice a daemon doesn't start through systemctl, it'll show you the error messages in systemctl status.

<comment><USER5> Note that the second point is quite important -- it provides a rolling hash of the journal contents that you can send to another machine, so that in the event of a break-in, you can detect any tampering with the syslogs. As I recall, this was inspired by the break-in to the kernel.org servers, where the attacker tampered with the log files. That would be impossible with journald.

<comment><USER3> There are syslog daemons that can provide cryptographic security as well. Alternatively, they can also log directly to an SQL database, use SSL client certificates, etc. Modern syslog daemons are quite powerful.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, but journald works even on plain stdout, stderr. It's hard to beat that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> With Gnome 3.10. Nice. Even nicer with the Phosphene theme: [http://hdni.github.io/rice/assets/phosphene_preview.png](http://hdni.github.io/rice/assets/phosphene_preview.png) \- [https://github.com/hdni/Phosphene](https://github.com/hdni/Phosphene)

<comment><USER8> Looks really nice! How jarring are non flat designed windows such as chrome/evolution etc? Do they look a bit "too" ill fitting?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ruby Devs, Take note, Fedora 20 has ruby 2 & rails 4 available. to get started with rails, all you need to do is:

       yum install rubygem-rails

and Bam, it will install latest ruby, rails & other dependencies. That's not all, they have more than 2thousand ruby related packages(all recent versions).

Fedora seems to have one of best ruby support. Way to go!

[https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/s/ruby](https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/s/ruby)

<comment><USER10> How does one decide whether to install from a package repository, or directly via gems?

What's the typical time lag before a package get updated after a gem does?

<comment><USER11> I avoid package gems like the plague. It makes dependency management a gigantic pain in the ass and forces you to target your code to a specific version of an operating system. You can't take a system that works just fine in Fedora and move it to Debian without making sure the gem version differences don't break anything.

In today's cloud-based hosting environment, you want to preserve mobility whenever possible, and Bundler does a better job of managing Ruby dependencies than dpkg/yum does. You can then use configuration management to get a system bootstrapped to a base where all your Ruby projects can run, then Bundler can take care of project-specific dependencies. It's not perfect, a lot of times a project gem will require system dependencies, like MySQL, but the separation of concerns does help a bit.

You should, however, use system Ruby because using RVM / Rbenv in production vastly increases complexity, and because the system dependencies that your gems have will be the right versions. It's much easier now that the latest Ubuntu packages Ruby 2. It took me all of an afternoon to redo the configuration management and provisioning and migrate my projects when Ubuntu 13.10 came out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ''syslog is no longer included in default installations. journald logging serves most use cases as well as, or better than, syslogd.''

I think it has lots in common with this:

"Fedora 20 includes the WildFly 8 Application Server, formerly known as the JBoss Application Server, a very popular Java EE platform. WildFly is a very fast, modular and lightweight server."

keep producing more and more bloatware, without any other reasons than "because we have done it".

I think that blindly allowing freedesktop guys to mess up all the traditional Unix startup and now logging tools with some MS-inspired crap for a very questionable reasons is quite a step back.

It is also an example of an over-engineering bias (which comes from OO-only approach) - building up an unnecessary complexity. syslog and shell script based startup procedure are good-enough (and still good enough for sane systems such as BSDs or Plan9), while those who need a specialized logging (or startup) service could create it for themselves, as so many do.

Changing reasonable defaults just because someone is cocksure that we need more xxxxctl and xxxxx-bridge instead of plain old text-files looks like ignorant over-confidence. Those who cannot live without journald could install it manually, why to cause a headache to the rest of us.

I do remember that commercial variant of Suse Linux have tried "an innovative approach" to what a Linux server is. They introduced a set of some in-house made utilities (inspired by Netware I suppose) with non-intuitive logic and millions of command line options no one knows (which cannot be googled). Why, it is a way to success, now you could teach courses, do certification, issue meaningless titles, etc. Thank god its dead. ESX servers, btw, were (or still are) even bigger mess.

I doubt that Fedora is going this way, but the signs are bad.)

<comment><USER13> What the fuck are you going on about? WildFly is now included as an _available package for install in the repositories_. This is why it is in the release notes.

This is like complaining that any disto is "bloatware" because their repositories include software that you happen to dislike and think is "bloat". $distro is bloated because KDE/GNOME/whatever is an option, right?

Get a grip.

<comment><USER12> Please, let's not discuss Java EE.)

<comment><USER14> I don't know what experience you have with modern Java EE, but it's incredibly modular these days and is no more than a collection of components that can operate independent of each other.

<comment><USER12> Of course, I am nobody to criticize the sacred things, so there are few links to the people who are worth of paying attention to (and who gave us golang).

[http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/java](http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/java) [http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/OO_programming](http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/OO_programming)

<comment><USER15> So with a handful of out of context citations and some rather retarded points of view (Greenspun WTF?) you are trying to convince people? Really? At least give it _some_ effort. This way it is rather boring...

<comment><USER14> I just gathered that he's a PL design and theory zealot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just for the record:

\- I've been using Fedora (VM, test, production server) since release 4 or 5. \- I have a VM that has been updated without full reinstall since release 11. It will be destroyed soon, as I'm reinstalling the host. \- I've been using Fedora as my main desktop since Fedora 16.

My experience varies, depending on the sh*t they decide to push (like Gnome 3 or systemd). It takes time so that things get stable (or I get more used to them).

As a full stack developer, I almost never use distro packages like gems or python libs or java libs. Even tools like Eclipse I prefer to install them separated.

Overall, I'm satisfied.

</comment><comment><USER17> What excellent docs, I don't think I've ever read all the release notes like that. I'm wooed, gonna install this on something.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Syslog removed from default installation" and "Users accustomed to checking /var/log/messages for system logs should instead use journalctl."

I'm sure I'm going to forget about that... I can't wait for the first WTF :)

<comment><USER19> It's quite an audacious release note. As if millions of users are suddenly going to forget about cat, head, tail, more, less, grep, awk, sed, fmt, etc. etc. that are only still useful if you learn how to journalctl and convert those binary logs back into plain text.

I'd like to install Fedora 20 and use it as my main desktop, but both systemd and journald will somehow have to be avoided and worked around because I don't want to touch those with a ten foot pole.

As far as mainstream Linux distributions go, it's like choosing between 2 evils nowadays:

* Ubuntu: decent base system, lousy desktop

* Fedora: lousy base system, decent desktop

The former is almost fixed by Elementary OS, but the latter I'm still looking for a spin or derivative that fixes it. What attracts me most to these mainstream distributions is the vast amount of available packages and their ease of maintenance.

<comment><USER18> I don't usually have the need to check syslog in my desktop, unless I'm doing development, and in that case I will install syslog-ng (and systemctl enable syslog-ng). Not a big deal.

As for servers, I wouldn't use Fedora. Each release is supported for only 13 months and upgrades are not as seamless as in Debian.

So for me Fedora is a very decent desktop if you want the new shinies with ease of use. Most of the time works and it's great (even with the "Gnome 3 surprise factor", that keep _breaking_ things every now and then).

<comment><USER8> > As for servers, I wouldn't use Fedora.

That's what RedHat (or CentOS) is for...

<comment><USER19> Or Scientific Linux.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Also note, this is the first Distro (that I know of) that is resolution- independent out of the box -- thanks to Gnome 3.10.

Retina and retina-like users rejoice!

<comment><USER21> OpenSUSE 13.1 released with GNOME 3.10 already :P

<comment><USER22> OpenSUSE renders the fonts horrible, I don't know why is that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Download: [https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/20/](https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/20/)

More mirrors here, but not all servers are synced with 20 yet: [https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/20/](https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/20/)

No announcement yet, link in title leads to release notes.

</comment><comment><USER22> Quick question:

Anyone has succeeded dual botting Fedora 20 with Windows 8.1 in a UEFI system with secure boot?

When I tried the beta it made Windows 8.1 unbootable.

<comment><USER23> Are you sure it didn't just replace the UEFI default boot entry? You should still be able to boot Windows after getting into GRUB, but if it messed up your EFI partition, that's a bug.

<comment><USER22> That's what it did, it messed with my EFI partition, so, that's why Im askin if someone has succeded with the latest reléase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Direct link to ISO:

[http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/...](http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/20/Live/x86_64/Fedora- Live-Desktop-x86_64-20-1.iso)

(Might still give a 404 until your mirror is in sync.)

</comment><comment><USER24> Alternative Mirror; [http://fedora.mirror.nexicom.net/linux/releases/20/](http://fedora.mirror.nexicom.net/linux/releases/20/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Better update, I am behind. I run Fedora on my powerpc machine (Mac Pro) as it is the only distro (well and RH itself) with decent ppc64 support, as IBM pays Redhat still.

</comment><comment><USER26> While on the topic, does any one have a good strategy for building the gstreamer-bad/ugly plugins on Fedora? I don't like the rpmfusion repository as it always seems to mess up the system sooner or later.

<comment><USER27> I always have rpmfusion ([http://rpmfusion.org/](http://rpmfusion.org/)) enabled, and I've never seen it mess up anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is great. :-) This is still in beta.</comment>


Statement Regarding the Accusations of Ted Hill - <AUTHOR> https://www.math.uchicago.edu/~farb/statement <comment><AUTHOR> Amie Wilkinson has also released a statement: [https://math.uchicago.edu/~wilkinso/Statement.html](https://math.uchicago.edu/~wilkinso/Statement.html).</comment>


Show HN: JSX a faster, safer, easier JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://jsx.github.io/

<comment><USER2> Questions:

1) Is this feature-complete and stable?

2) How do you do inheritance safely in compiled JS? Because of the way prototyping and scoping are handled in JS, I'm curious how a large, object- oriented structure would perform when compiled to JS.</comment>


Microsoft Character Riddle - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.technet.com/b/inside_microsoft_research/archive/2015/03/05/chinese-tradition-inspires-machine-learning-advancements-product-contributions.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> the actual page [http://duilian.msra.cn/zimi/](http://duilian.msra.cn/zimi/)</comment>


JVM on steroids: deterministic execution through dynamic byte code rewriting - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tlil/djvm-behind-the-scenes-2ba7f5cb9275 <comment><USER2> This piece is written in terms of blockchain platforms (where determinism of execution is important - and why some platforms hence implemented entirely new VMs and associated toolchains to achieve determinism)

But I thought it would also be interesting to share with HN because I learned a ton about the JVM from the team as they were building this and thought the write-up would be more broadly interesting. Java isn't always fashionable but what you're able to achieve with the platform surprised me. The associated PR shows the full implementation and the bottom of Tommy's post also gives the highlights.

(Disclosure: I'm the CTO of R3 - the firm behind this work)</comment>


100,000 apps published to Windows Phone Marketplace - <AUTHOR> http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/news/item/14960_100000_apps_published_to_Windo.php

<comment><USER2> That's neat and all I guess, and as an avid WP7 user I'm glad to see the market continuing to grow, but I have some serious issues with the number of _published apps_ including... _unpublished apps_. Of those 100k "published" apps, 10.32% are unpublished. So the number of actual published apps is closer to 90k than 100k, and that's not even considering the 1.51% of apps that are otherwise not available on the store. That's pretty deceptive to me, not that the absolute numbers really matter here.

<comment><USER3> They do explain it:

 _In common with other application stores, the total number of published items is not the same as the number of items available to consumers. Of the 100,145 items published to the Marketplace, 10,357 are no longer available (withdrawn by Microsoft or unpublished by the developer), a further 1,492 items are in staging (awaiting an update, in beta or not live for some other reason). That means there are 88,371 apps currently available for download (live) on the Windows Phone Marketplace._

Seems like every other store does that as well. It's no more deceptive than the common "units shipped" metric done by brick and mortar stores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that this whole native app market is going to implode in the next few years. Even the "high quality" iOS app store is stuffed to the gills with junk apps now and the majority of the few apps that are making real money are trading on gimmicks that are bound to exhaust their novelty soon enough.

I'm actually rooting for Windows phone though because if it gains any real traction and people have to start maintaining _three_ separate code bases for every app the balance is going to tip decisively to the mobile web.

<comment><AUTHOR> Take a look at MonoDroid (<http://xamarin.com/monoforandroid>) and MonoTouch (<http://xamarin.com/monotouch>). C# for 3 platforms: WP7, Android, iOS.

Mobile web will never have the same benefits that a native app has: high performance, less data to transfer, nicely integrated in the OS (live tiles, etc.).

<comment><USER4> I actually have dabbled with it and I think Xamarin has done some very impressive work there. But most of the work in the typical app is in the UI and you still have to essentially rewrite that for every platform with Mono. For some apps it could still be a net win.

Native has the same advantages on the desktop but that hasn't stopped it from being pushed out of mainstream app development and into a few select niches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > 1,492 items are in staging (awaiting an update, in beta or not live for some > other reason)

So only 1,492 apps have been created on student competitions (or some similar challenges)? (I guess that's why they have been submitted and haven't seen a single update, kudos to those students who continued developing the apps).

My point is: I expected a higher number after all that heavy campaigning on universities and faculties (Windows Phone Camps and etc etc).

</comment><comment><USER6> The real problem is that many apps _that matter_ aren't available as first party apps. No Pandora, no Instagram, No Pinterest, no Path, etc...

While Angry Birds is available, the Angry Birds in Space(?) is not.

High numbers are needed for marketing, but there's still a big hole in the market place. I think windows8 and wp8 will greatly improve the situation though.

<comment><USER7> I think you are right, but I don't think Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 will help this situation. The fact is, users like to assume that if a company builds an app, it will be available on their phone. This is true for users of iPhones and, to a lesser extent, Android phones. This is far form true for users of Windows Phone. Regardless of all the bells and whistles added to WP8, this platform will remain an also-ran to the duopoly established between iOS and Android.

<comment><USER3> If Windows 8 gains traction (which let's be honest, it will just by virtue of being Windows), apps will follow. This might not translate into more WP sales, but it can't hurt the Windows Phone Marketplace. Some developers will go the extra 10% required to move their app to Windows Phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Proportion of quality apps (rated five or more times) stable at 8% (UK > rating) 12% (US ratings)

So, really 10K apps that people are actually using. That's still a lot of apps.

</comment><comment><USER9> I just wish they stopped with the "we have fewer apps, but are higher quality". I very much doubt that is true. In fact, if anyone did a survey, they'd probably find out that on average WP7 apps are poorer than on iOS or Android.

There are a lot of developers that just "rushed into it" and patched something together just to say they have an app on WP7, and maybe even get paid by Microsoft or get freebies from them.

<comment><USER10> [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870355420457611...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703554204576112723686094898.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEADSecond)

<comment><USER11> Interestingly, that article is from January 2011. Off the top of my head, at least, I can't think of any apps that seem related to Google's reported mobile-app hiring spree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Related: TechCrunch had an article a while ago about the dubious nature of many apps in that marketplace: [http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/09/windows- phone-has-a-nasty-p...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/09/windows-phone-has-a- nasty-porn-addiction/)</comment>


Reflections of a "Book Pirate" - <AUTHOR> http://doalchemy.org/2011/12/reflections-of-a-book-pirate/ <comment><USER2> Businesses with microscopic margins and high fraud losses (hello, eBay / Amazon Marketplace / etc vendors) sometimes get a little peevish about it. It is less commentary about you than commentary about the ten thieves they dealt with this week whose visible actions were indistinguishable from your own.

That said, I get to deal with the occasional "OK, now that our event is over I don't need this anymore, how do I get a refund" email. I eat all the costs on those and don't argue because there is no profit in arguing, but one can understand if I don't have those folks in my Favorite Customers Hall of Fame. You bought a book from a mom-and-pop business, got exactly what you were promised, and then -- because it was convenient -- reversed the transaction and stuck them with all costs. You're a textbook pathological customer. Do you understand why people might not want to work with you?

[Edit: Oh, the economics of the "dispose of it how you want" are fairly straightforward. It simply isn't worth restocking/shipping/admin overhead to take the item back. We had a similar canned line at the office supply store I worked at: if you complained your paper was "Made out of trees!!!" and that prevented you from using it, I would tell you to "Donate it to a local charity or otherwise dispose of it in any way convenient to you." Same thing with BCC disks: they're cheaper to print than to ship and if you hypothetically sent one back to the factory they would just destroy it and charge me for wasting their time.]

<comment><USER3> I can understand why it might be cheaper to not to restock it, but doesn't it provide an incentive to the customer to keep the item?

<comment><USER2> Customers are generally unaware of the policy prior to making the decision to return it and, if it provides adverse incentives, that is a "cost of doing business." I won't give you numbers for ex-employers, but returns for BCC were less than .9% of sales last year. Even if every last one was fraudulent, whee, it cost me less than hamburgers and milkshakes at one particular restaurant in Mountain View that I happened to be at a lot. (Steak something, on Castro Street. Two thumbs up.)

<comment><USER4> Sounds like you are referring to the SteakOut:

<http://www.steakout.us/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think that the vendor should have kept his cool, but he was probably pissed that someone expected him to eat $8 worth of shipping to return a book he was only trying to get $6 from. What is especially frustrating is that the customer got exactly what they wanted, in the advertised condition, yet still returned it.

If this wasn't bad enough, the author also brings up the time that they asked for a refund from a 16 cent book.

I also try to save money however I can, but the person who wrote this article is exceptionally unreasonable.

<comment><USER6> Yet, in my mind it becomes part of being on the Amazon.com storefront. Customers have the expectation (and aren't told any differently by Amazon) that they'll be able to treat purchases just like any other on Amazon.

On Amazon if I get something (a shirt) and when I get it I realize that I simply don't really like it, I can return it and they are more than happy to take the return. Same with Zappos or other companies that are generally excellent with returns from customers. But the reason they are cool with it, is because there is a large chance you'll deal with them again. A small loss in trade of happiness for likely future purchases.

But being one of the thousands of vendors on Amazon, I'm guessing you don't have this outlook. I personally can't remember the name of a single Amazon vendor I've bought from. I only buy from them if there's either no other options, or if they are offerring significantly cheaper (even when factoring in Prime shipping, which few of them do) than Amazon themselves.

Another thing it brings up is why these companies sell books for 16 cents, or even less to begin with. Clearly, that can't be a way to make for successful business, so like sellers on eBay tried many years ago (and still some today) they are trying to make up for it on shipping fees, in order to beat out competition and likely to avoid giving Amazon a cut.

I don't think Alex is being unreasonable, given that the standards of the Amazon storefront are such that allow for such. On other storefronts, it would be less acceptable. I don't think trying to return an item in an eBay auction for example that is in perfect condition and as-described in acceptable. Yet on Amazon, it would seem to be an ok thing to do. Just as there are social norms, there are corporate norms, and being in a storefront like this carries those norms.

<comment><USER7> I think buying a shirt is different from buying a book. The author got _exactly_ what he wanted. He wasn't expecting a different book, or even one with a slightly different colour, or a different fit.

The real problem is that merchants can't state that they don't accept refunds in cases where people bought and received what they asked for but they didn't actually want the think they bought. Kind of a corner case I'd think, but one that led to the disappointment of both people in this transaction.

<comment><AUTHOR> But I see an interesting parallel between clothing and media, in terms of "trying them out," if you will. Over the years, Amazon has (at least anecdotally -- would be interesting to confirm this empirically) adopted a try-and-return policy on a lot of clothing, taking a hit on the shipping so that people can retain the "in-store experience" of making sure everything fits. Why does that necessarily have to be different for books and other media? Is it just a question of physical weight + price?

<comment><USER6> I think the difference between Amazon Inc and Amazon Marketplace sellers is that Amazon knows you'll come back if you're happy. Marketplace sellers will probably/likely never see you again, happy or not. So Amazon sees it as an investment in the future, but the Marketplace sellers just see it as a loss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Forget piracy, the blogger also had time to _read_ the book and then try to sell it back - for full price. That is still, in the words of the seller "...taking advantage of the system… at my expense."

There is an issue (with Amazon) if there is no "Other" option for the reason of returning the book, but telling the seller "I no longer want/need this" book after (reasonably assumed to be) using the book for three weeks seems disingenuous at best. This implies that you did want the book at one time, you've gotten all the use you can out of it, and now you want a full refund.

Imagine if you go to the car dealership at the end of the life of your car and did the same thing...

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you even return a car after you purchase it? That's a poor metaphor.

Sorry, but your response sounded a lot like <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dude gets a book for free, vendor pays out-of-pocket to ship merchandise he oesn't get paid for, and vendor's reward is snarky comments on social media because he had the temerity to complain about the situation.

And the book ends up on the shelf next to some expensive new hardbacks. Gotta get that $6.16 back from the used sellers so it can be spent on the worst deal in publishing, meant for those buyers who don't mind spending money unneccessarily.

</comment><comment><USER10> I remember selling some used textbooks on Amazon back in my student days, and for the ones that needed returning, I remember that having the buyer eat both send and return shipping charges STRONGLY deters frivolous returns.

"In cases where you are not responsible for the return, the return shipping costs should be borne by the buyer. Upon receipt, please issue a refund to the buyer. Learn how to Issue a Refund."

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=xm_1...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=xm_1161246_cont_home?nodeId=1161246)

Seems like the seller could have just asked the guy to send it back (at his own cost) before giving him a PARTIAL refund (book cost sans shipping fees) and just avoided this all. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> (It'd probably be less than $1 via media mail anyway.)

<comment><USER10> The primary cost of return is time, TBH. $1 mail fee + 15 minutes of your time (at $1/min just to be simple) is not really worth it for a $15 book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What a peculiar incident. While its helped expand the inventory of Amazon considerably, it does seem that their storefront model ends up exposing consumers to thousands of potentially less than great sellers who, while they might do the right thing in the end, don't end up acting with the proper decorum that Amazon themselves would. Yet, I still "feel" like I am trusting them initially as I would trust Amazon. Yet, I don't know if I really should.

I'm shocked at the tone of the accusations, as they could have just said, "I'm sorry the book didn't work out for you, it will end up costing us more in shipping and reinventory costs than its worth, so you can just keep and it and have a refund". Yet for some reason, I'm not terribly surprised.

Perhaps they have them, but Amazon should perhaps have better guidelines for communicating with customers for 3rd party vendors?</comment>


SSL Image proxy and Resizing API for Web Images  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.embed.ly/post/50497413300/display-an-image-proxy-and-resizing-api-for-web-images

<comment><USER2> That feature is sweet. And tight.</comment>


Secret Knowledge – or a Hoax? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/20/voynich-manuscript-secret-knowledge-or-hoax/ <comment><USER3> The definite way it talks about the herbal section towards the end of the article is unfounded. Some of the herbal has in fact been the key to an attempt to translate a few words in recent years.

It may be hoax, it may not. But declaring "the plants in the book's herbal section never did and never could exist in nature" is nonsense.

Not all pages depict impossible plants and the drawings themselves may be highly derived, second or third hand illustrations.

IMHO it's unlikely to be a hoax due to the expense of such a hoax at the time, and I understand language patterm analysis looks about right - i.e. if it's a hoax it is a damn clever one and seems to defeat methods of analysis far ahead of its time.

Either way I doubt it contains the secret knowledge of the ancients.

\--edit-- In fact inconsistency and weirdness in medieval manuscripts is really not evidence of a hoax to me - evidence they got things wrong, evidence of magical and mythical thinking, sure. But not specifically of a hoax.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that "hoax" is the right word for it. The vellum's been radiocarbon dated to early 15th century, and the illustrations suggest a similar time period. So that rules out a hoax.

The question is whether the text contains any meaningful encoded information, or is completely meaningless.

<comment><USER3> Well, it rules out a more recent hoax. I would consider a book produced in the early 15th century that deliberately contained.nothing of use to be something of a hoax. A magician's prop, for instance.

There's another question of whether, even if information was once encoded in there, it is recoverable. Either because of some sort of hash-like function applied to the data, or just because there's not enough to go on.

It's certainly intriguing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've recently carried out a through statistical analysis of the text and concluded that it's almost certainly meaningless, and have figured out how the text could have been generated.

I'll start a new thread ... ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14091216](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14091216))

<comment><USER3> On a brief scan that looks hideously complicated and more than a little like extracting a property of some text and the being surprised that when you replay you get something similar. Can you say that your technique, when applied to any and all natural languages, absolutely does not do something similar?

I'm not sure many people are going to buy it.

<comment><USER4> I had that thought myself. Briefly, my theory is that the different parts of the text were generated using state transition tables. The actual weights on the transitions are arbitrary, and can only be determined by reverse engineering the original manuscript.

Only one (physical) table needs to be generated at first, but the values of the transition weights do need to be changed as the scribe proceeds through the manuscript.

Could it be used for English? I doubt it. The morphology of English and other Indo-European languages is too complex to for a reasonably-sized state machine to realistically generate.

Maybe for something more regular such as Pinyin Mandarin or Yale Cantonese BUT the output wouldn't fool anyone who knows those languages, and a linguist who had never seen them before would very quickly become suspicious - <USER2> discernable word order, common words repeated several times in a row.

<comment><USER5> Some people with schizophrenia invent their own languages and alphabets, and their speech can seem randomly generated in severe cases. Or an alchemist might have been exposed to chemicals that caused schizophrenic symptoms. I wonder if the statistics would be similar.

<comment><USER4> While it's still worth testing that, my understanding is that it's very difficult for _anyone_ to think up values indistinguishable from random, and this appears to be what we're dealing with here.

What I'm proposing is that the words we see are the _output_ of a random process, but that their _order_ appears to be random, in the statistical sense. However, everyone who's studied the text agrees that the glyph distribution within words conforms to a well-defined syntax, and there are significant differences between different parts of the text. My theory explains these.

Of course, a well-designed cipher will appear to be random, and the input to the text generation process appears to be just that, but the problem is that there's no way of subsequently decrypting the text, as information (in the mathematical sense, as well as the everyday sense) would be lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you are familiar with the Voynich Manuscript, there is no new information in this article. My lay theory is that it was an art project by some bored monk, or someone who wrote those types of books had dementia or something that allowed his motor skills to operate, but the mind was gone. Either that or aliens.

<comment><USER7> did you see this? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtZc- nFNt0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtZc-nFNt0) (watch part 1 and 2 for the details)

He convinced me at least :)

He kinda takes off where Stephen Bax left it, but also uncovers some methodical errors of Bax.

<comment><USER6> Fantastic. I believe it really is a language. I hope it gets translated soon.

His linguistic analysis shows that the book was written in a dialect of the language of the Gypsies, aka the Roma People, nomads who slowly migrated from India, through the Middle East, to Europe starting 1500 years ago. This is why the language contains elements from so many language groups, and no one can figure it out. It is probably some sort of reference book they kept with them as it contains star charts and plant descriptions.

<comment><USER7> I'm surprised though, that no old roma stumbled upon it and recognised the language or anything. It sounds like someone speaking their language could speed up translations tremedously :).

<comment><USER6> I read up on the Roma on Wikipedia after seeing the video, and apparently, they branched off during their migration into several groups. Their language branched off as well, taking on characteristics of their home countries. Wikipedia said the various dialects probably become so distinct, they likely could not understand each other. Eventually, some died out or were assimilated, which could explain your point.

I can't wait until they actually translate it to find out what it is. Maybe they should start with a Roma translator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure this guy solved (part of) it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cRlqE3D3RQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cRlqE3D3RQ)

if you want to skip the basics jump right in to part 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nHbImkFKE4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nHbImkFKE4)

He kinda takes off where Stephen Bax left it, but also uncovers some methodical errors of Bax.

I'd be very interested in what someone who knows a bit more about this than me thinks of this.

edit: short version in his update: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtZc- nFNt0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtZc-nFNt0)

</comment><comment><USER8> The Internet self publishing phenomenon informs us that there is no shortage of lunatics in the world willing to crank out pages and pages of gibberish.

This is just the old school version of someone's rambling blog or kooky Usenet postings.

Or it could be a _Lorem ipsum_ intended to demonstrate someone's typesetting services. "I can take your manuscript and make these types of illustrations with this style of text flowing around them for this kind of general look. Oh, don't try to read the text, it's just gibberish for illustrative purposes."

<comment><USER3> Inventing a whole new alphabet for your typesetting demo is going a bit far...

Also it's not typeset, it's handwritten.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looking at the example page they provided (slight NSFW warning, there's crudely drawn nudes present):

[http://www.nybooks.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/03/duffy_2-04...](http://www.nybooks.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/03/duffy_2-042017.jpg)

That's the first time I've ever looked at the pages closely, and man does that just look like a couple of nonsense words repeated fairly frequently, with slight variations.

<comment><USER10> Looks like a lorem ipsum web mockup to me. Maybe was an early equivalent of a sales pitch for the author's skills. Just seems like odd features like the fold-out pages, sketches of plants and nudes to combine in one unless the sole purpose was basically marketing.

Can't wait for 100 years from now people trying to read meaning into all the various lorem variations combined with kitten placeholder images out there. "This culture revolved around mysterious repeated verses praising the juvenile feline in all its forms."

<comment><USER11> This would be a completely impractical way of "marketing", though. Surely an author could use real words (or at least real characters like Lorem Ipsum) for that. And why would he fill a whole manuscript?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You might try to see if it's come kind of contextual speedwriting. I learned a version of speedwriting in college in which the letter "e" and the letter "i" are exactly the same and deduced later by context; likewise, the letter "h" and the letters "la" appear to be the same. In other words, it might be more of a crude symbolic code. Just a thought.

</comment><comment><USER13> For those interested in Terence McKenna, I highly recommend his lecture on the Voynich Manuscript:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTBOaaeTxm8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTBOaaeTxm8)

<comment><USER14> Terence McKenna, he of the DMT induced Machine elves :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THa7kpuVwO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THa7kpuVwO4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The Voynich Manuscript!

Here it is for your perusal : [https://archive.org/details/TheVoynichManuscript](https://archive.org/details/TheVoynichManuscript)

</comment><comment><USER16> Mandatory XKCD: [1]

[1] [https://xkcd.com/593/](https://xkcd.com/593/)

</comment><comment><USER17> this article is really rambling. I don't need to know the entire history of the manuscript and all the characters involved in its movement to pick up on the intrigue of the story.

<comment><USER18> Compared to some articles about the book it's not the worst.

It's also an interest piece, rather than normal news. So the editor will let things slide.</comment></comment>


Anchor Modeling - A Technique for Information under Evolution [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.anchormodeling.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Anchor-Modeling-Open-AMW.pdf

<comment><USER2> Well, this is awesome. A database specifically for AI and evolution. Upvoted.</comment>


The fastest way to 1k$/month - <AUTHOR>

For someone who can code and familiar with SEO and online marketing stuff,what is the fastest way to 1k$/month. UPDATE : I can code webapps in python and php.I can code .net stuff in c# and I can do some java too.My experience with online marketing is small : I played with some landing pages to increase conversion rate.I am 18 and in north africa. <comment><USER2> Jobs.

Or I could have said 'freelance'. Short questions tend to lead to short answers. Seriously, your question lacks some information. Where are you based? What can you code? What exactly do you know of "online marketing stuff"?

I'm assuming you're young and/or just starting out. 1K a month isn't even minimum wage where I live, so the upside is that it shouldn't be too hard.

Whether you go the job route or freelance route: showing what you have done or what you can do is often more important than formal education. Having a Github account to show off your work, a StackOverflow profile (with answers, of course), a personal blog, that kind of things.

For freelance work, look at Elance or Odesk. You can do a couple of cheaper gigs to gain experience and good reviews, after that you can go for the slightly higher paid ones.

For jobs, I'm sure there is some sort of job aggregator where you live. Or ask around your network, I got most of my jobs/gigs from people I know. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> PHP is good to develop and sell your own stuff, like plugins, themes and extensions to popular CMS'es like Wordpress. You can be anywhere.

C# is good to make money as a consultant for big corps - but if you're not on client's site - it likely be a problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> The advice in this thread seems relevant:

Ask HN: Shortest path to $1 million? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5885922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5885922)

</comment><comment><USER5> Create some nice themeforest themes or plugins, easy to get more that 1k$ per month there.

</comment><comment><USER6> Freelance. $1K/month should be easy enough to make.

</comment><comment><USER7> Do you really mean $1k/month?

<comment> workhere-io Depending on where OP is located, $1,000 might actually be enough to make a decent living.

<comment><AUTHOR> in my country the top software engineers get 1000$.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> \- Freelancing. $1k/Month (30 Days) = $33.33/Day</comment>


White House "looking at" idea to regulate Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-news-on-google-is-rigged-against-him/ <comment><USER2> Ignore the political landscape for a second because that's a rabbit hole that will make you go mad.

Does a person have a reasonable expectation that Google is providing them unbiased results? Do people use Google for curated content or as a tool?

Would you be upset if Gmail search was paid to push Pizza Hut's email marketing at the top of any search that that it could be a result for?

Would you be upset if Gmail's spam filter had a lower bar for flagging their competitors products as spam?

Would you be upset if every time you tpyed Writer into Windows Search and Word was always the first result?

Would you be upset if you typed Firefox into Bing and a full page ad for Edge was the first result?

Would you be upset if you searched for Chromecast on Amazon and the first page of results were Fire sticks?

If you searched Messenger in Google play and Allo and Hangouts were the first results?

If you searched for channels in Twitch and all the Twitch partners were forced to the top?

If you search for a video in YouTube and YT Red results and monetized videos were forced to the top?

If you searched for reviews of the new Pixel phone and Google manually gave positive reviews a higher rank?

Regardless of what you think about the relity of this specific situation I think its hard to argue that having search be biased twoard/against anything other than what the user is looking for is a dark pattern that deserves to be regulated out of existence since companies clearly can't help themselves. And if any company is providing unbiased results then there's nothing to worry about.</comment>


How much should you pay developers? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/how-much-should-you-pay-developers/ <comment><USER2> Experience = Full Time Work Experience.

That's the only measure that they accept (and this is a _formula_ dammit! We cannot go against that!).

This seems to me to be a complete lack of understanding about what makes a good programmer (Assumption: We pay people according to merit.). I have a friend who was in another industry for several years. She taught herself Ruby and Rails and became very, very good at doing so. It was all done as a personal project. She never was fully employed as a "Full Time Developer" until last year. At the point of her being hired last year, she could write web applications better than most seasoned programmers.

Yes, yes. Anecdote does not make data. But they are proposing that they have come up with The Algorithm with How to Pay Programmers. If that was true, then they could handle this situation. Instead, they would have to come up with a 'special exception' for this particular person and compensate them correctly.

If you get down to every little hole I could poke in this algorithm, you'd find out that almost everyone has a special circumstance and that throwing them into an inhuman algorithmic compensation experiment is Wrong(tm). Instead, you need people that can understand the nuances of Jim, Joe and Sally's situation and can do their best to serve their interests as well as the company's interests.

I'm not saying that the status quo is great, but this 'perfect solution' is anything but.

<comment><USER3> I think you're showing a fundamental misunderstanding of what working within a team means. Full time experience interacting with other people and with stakeholders of the product you are creating is something you're friend won't have, regardless of how amazing she is with RoR.

Being a developer is as much about being able to write code as being able to identify the best solutions to problems within the particular domain. This ability can only come through working as a developer and dealing with these situations first hand.

Put another way, I've been called very rude names by very famous musicians and being able to deal with that and continue working with these people was a massive learning experience to me.

<comment><USER4> Then you weigh in favour of those that aren't very good developers but are good at navigating office politics.

<comment><USER5> There is a real difference between being able to work in a team, and "being good at navigating office politics".

When you want some software shipped, you don't only need good programmers, you need good programmers that can work together, and fulltime experience helps with this. That said, I do not think fulltime employment is the only way to get this subset of abilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Title is kind of linkbait. The article talks about how to pay equitably and transparently compared to co-workers, but doesn't actually say how _much_ you should pay. No real dollar numbers are discussed other than a range that "top- notch" C# developers are paid $30k to $200k (and with bonuses and other compensation, I think the top end is actually low on this).

<comment><USER7> $200k is low? I just got a new job paying near $100k and thought I was hitting the high end of the scale...(C# dev, 6 years full-time exp after university in NYC). I'm fairly satisfied with the pay but I'm happy to know there's still room for growth :)

<comment><USER6> I'm not saying $200k is a low salary, just that the top end is higher than $200k.

You're not anywhere near the top end of the scale, but it's a relatively normally distributed curve and you're probably starting to move down the downslope of the right side of it :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Damn! I better start brushing up on my modem whistling skills! I used to whistle Hayes 300bps and AppleCat 1200bps handshakes in order to lock open lines when speed dialing. If you timed it right you could 99% of the time secure the dialup line with the real modem when the remote modem cycled the line connection.

<comment><USER9> Yes but can you whistle up a GIF file? If you can whistle a GIF image of yourself into a modem then I name you King Of The Universe.

<comment><USER10> I only can whistle JPGs

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> tl;dr

"We have a system for evaluating devs, and pay people more for living in NY."

The article has a bunch of words, but doesn't actually say anything about how much you should pay developers. Not sure why there are upvotes.

<comment><USER12> Maybe the linkbait title?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is a top notch C# salary $30,000 in some parts of the world?

Well, frankly after reading it I still have no idea how much pay it is for someone that's all B or all AAA+++. Do they use the checklist or an algorithm?

What is SE's starting salary at least?

</comment><comment><USER14> What's the algorithm? You list the factors you use to decide, but I'm confused as to how those combine. How much do you weight Modem Whistling Skills versus Blog Posts versus years of experience?

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone who has dedicated enough time to master the lost art of modem whistling should be able to name their own salary.

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting comment by Tim:

 _Every employees salaries are completely public. In addition to this, employees set their own salary. This has been shown to have three effects: 1\. People tend to actually value themselves lower than they might otherwise outside. 2\. General happiness is higher. 3\. People who are earning too much feel guilty, and either work harder or don't raise their salaries. They're also expected to perform at that level. If someone sets their salary 5k higher than the guy next to them who churns out the same amount of code but has 1/3rd the defects (and that were the only difference), then questions would be asked._

\--- [http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/how-much-should-you- pa...](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/how-much-should-you-pay- developers/#comment-59962)

Does anybody have some references for this?

</comment><comment><USER16> This is like GM's vision of how much you should pay for a Saturn vehicle: everyone ends up paying the same amount for the same model and options. That's a good, fair system if the amount is competetive but I wonder if others adopting this salary model don't end up like Saturn's pricing -- the biggest beneficiary of menu pricing is the company.

<comment><USER17> I don't think that's true. What I think is most important about this is that it tries, at least, to be transparent and fair. In my current company I've been exposed for the first time to how salaries are chosen, and in many cases it's almost totally arbitrary, or worse. It's certainly based far less than I would like (and far less than I expected) on the person's ability to do their job. The biggest beneficiary of a system as proposed by the OP are people who are good at their jobs (not friends of the boss, better negotiators, prettier, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I thought the salary matrix on the old joel on software was more insightful - it showed how the different factors summed up.

</comment><comment><USER18> San Francisco, USA (from home and office-based work; split)

We are looking for a lead developer that has 3-5 years of experience creating mobile/tablet applications for the following three platforms: Android (mobile), iOS (iPhone), and iOS (iPad). Knowledge of recently upgraded "versioning" requirements is essential to this position. Coding/programming experience on Android (tablet) and Blackberry is a plus (but not required).

This position will be compensated for generously and the chosen candidate will have the opportunity to lead a team of developers as we continue to scale; this is a salary plus residual-commission paying position. We have a global footprint in the market of custom app development and accordingly the position may grow to encompass development of mobile & tablet apps for customers on several continents.

<http://www.thecreativeappco.com/>

For consideration, please send three (or more) examples (preferably names of apps already published in the marketplace; apps available for us to download and preview), a resume (or school/work history), and any other relevant anecdotes to:

firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER18> ^^ this is the advertisement we posted recently. Our salary range is 40-65k/year to start plus a 5-10k retainer/sign-on. Plus residuals.. plus equipment... ladada...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This all sounds good in theory, I wonder though it someone who is pretty key to what they are doing had an offer from a competitor they would stick rigidly to what they say here or would be willing to make exceptions.

<comment><USER17> Right, it would require a lot of discipline in that case - I was wondering how strictly they stick to it, too. The problem is, if they've intentionally defined a totally rigid system (for good reasons, IMO) then even a slight deviation from that undermines the whole thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> >Creates public artifacts

>Blog posts, open source tools, books

So if I worked at SO and I didn't have a blog, hence presumably scoring a 'F', they'd be having a "stern talk with me"?

<comment><USER20> I guess they mean that you engage in the SE communities (e.g. SO, Superuser etc.) or contribute posts to their blogs.

<comment><USER21> Well considering at StackExchange their main focus is the StackExchange set of sites, community building Q&A. If you didn't participate then you wouldn't be eating your own dog food and hence would not be as good a developer on the project. Having developers actively work in the community also helps keep them more focused on what they are building, and it means there are more people actually building the ecosystems.

Having your own blogs, podcasts, and other public artefacts also helps since it would help build an audience and get the word out to more people about the SE sites. Also don't forget that SE is a startup with VC backing, therefore if the developers don't help in spreading the word the company could fold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Enough that they are happy to work for you.

And not the way frog creek does. You architec should be paid less than the programmers since they contribute the value, no programmer should have to be promoted to a role of writing less code.

Oh and I had side jobs in college. Yes, they count as years of experience, since that is a bullshit measure.

<comment><USER23> more code != more value. Lots of people can crank out thousands of lines per week, but someone should be responsible for the system to make sense as a cohesive whole - and that is usually the job of a software architect ( pretty unglamourous, I should add ;) ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The new default Word theme got lame fast.</comment>


NSA advisory sparks concern of secret advance ushering in cryptoapocalypse - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/10/nsa-advisory-sparks-concern-of-secret-advance-ushering-in-cryptoapocalypse/ <comment><USER2> Discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10430367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10430367) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10426518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10426518).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _The advisory recommended backing away from plans to deploy elliptic curve cryptography, a form of public key cryptography that the NSA spent the previous 20 years promoting_

or they can't break it?

[https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://eprint.iacr.org/201...](https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1018.pdf)

should we switch to rsa-3072 instead ?</comment>


Uses of "* is the new *" in 2005 represented graphically - <AUTHOR> http://thediagram.com/6_3/leisurearts.html

<comment><USER2> "LOL I CAN HAS" is the new "is the new".

<comment><USER3> Is your name "Strange Loop", or "Douglas Hofstadter", by any chance? ;-)

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen Seriously clever.</comment>