Healthy Self-Doubt - <AUTHOR> https://nerdygirl.com/2020/07/02/healthy-self-doubt/ <comment><USER2> For most of my career I worked with a small group (20 to 30) group of highly educated and mostly brilliant people. I barely graduated high school. As the years passed and we all began to age, I realized that the amount of knowledge we all had obtained during our tenure was an irreplaceable resource for the company. In order to help the younger incoming people bypass this learning curve I set up a wiki where group members could publish articles that they thought may help others not to have to re-invent the wheel. What I discovered was that most of these brilliant people would not share a lot of their knowledge. I often wondered if even these brilliant people suffered imposter syndrome and that they didn't share this knowledge for fear they would be found out.

What I did learn from the most brilliant members of the group was to never be afraid to ask a question, even if it sounded ignorant. Never be afraid to expose a gap in your knowledge. If you don't, your missing an opportunity to increase your learning.

<comment><USER3> I've seen a lot of people waste time on writing documents that just sit there unread. No one wants to RTFM, esp one written a few years ago that is likely not accurate.

<comment><USER4> documentation has to be actively maintained, but even old and innacurate documentation can serve as a starting point (and be update to be accurate) when something needs to be investigated/refactored etc

without any documentation, all you have is word of mouth, and when people quit, the organizations knowledge DECREASES over time

> people waste time on writing documents that just sit there unread. No one > wants to RTFM

documentation is hard... most documents that i have seen are mostly brain dumps, very badly formatted, just very hard to follow...

one thing i think severely missing in school and otj training is how to write documents people WANT to read

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Imposter syndrome such a popular thing to belive in because actually most people really do suck at their jobs.

I see a similar sentiment all the time where people say things along the lines of "Nobody really feels like an adult, we are all just muddling through" etc etc.

Actually no, some of us actually have our shit sorted out and are actual adults.

<comment><USER6> Yes, one particular pet peeve for me is the idea that the personal finance part of "adulting" is hard. It's really not. Live (far) below your means and invest the difference, that's it. Somehow 1.3B Chinese can maintain an average savings rate of 30%, but people in the west cannot help but live paycheck to payceck? Of course, few people are willing to actually go through with it, but it's not difficult to understand. It so happens that getting this part right is a pretty major part of adulting too.

<comment><USER7> Don't assume that what's easy for you is easy for everyone else.

There's more to getting out of debt than just basic math. I've been trying to keep track of my expenses for more than 20 years but no success so far. I do have online banking and a list of contracts but there's no way for me to figure out how much money I actually have left. Because for example, that yearly medical copay may be around the corner. I have no idea how to account for it, or how to spread it over the months while still keeping track of how much disposable income I actually have at any given time. And that's just one example.

Please be aware that not everyone is financially literate.

<comment><USER6> I actually don't think you need to track expenses much, at least I don't. I did at first at 18 just to make sure I could survive on the $1000 I got in loans and subsidies by the government at the time.

What I recommend is to focus on the big expenses, those are what gets you. That is, housing, transportation, medical (if you live in the US, but there's maybe not much you can do here). Don't go for the most expensive house or apartment that you can afford. If every house is expensive in your area, then settle for an apartment. If you're not willing to, then that's the root of the problem. Go car free if you can. If you can't, get a cheap reliable used car (mine was $4k, worked like a charm). Don't eat and drink out very often. Cut expenses until you're saving 30-50% of your paycheck. If you're in tech, that's very easy, otherwise it's difficult but still doable. Then, if you start earning more money, you can perhaps allow yourself to spend more.

The problem is the expectations that people have of life. Your parents have a big house so you deserve one as well. You're having a baby, so you need a 3 bedroom house and a yard, otherwise that's baby torture! All your friends are buying new cars so naturally you need one too, right?

If you're earning below median income, I'm willing to cut you some slack, but I think for most people on HN, that is not the case.

<comment><USER8> I'm on the Midwest, it's not as easy over here as you think.

The salary of your first job can hold down your income for a decade, you might not even realize how underpaid you are.

<comment><USER9> > The salary of your first job can hold down your income for a decade

Why is that?

<comment><USER8> Most employers ask you what your previous salary was, or get it from your past employer. Salary is not protected information. [https://www.marketplace.org/2020/07/08/how-salary-history- ba...](https://www.marketplace.org/2020/07/08/how-salary-history-bans-can- raise-wages-for-female-and-black-workers/)

<comment><USER10> except in a little-known place called CALIFORNIA

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how much of this ends up being from gender-based socialization. Maybe this individual got just the right balance of encouragement and luck in her upbringing to build a healthy balance of self-confidence in her abilities and self-doubt to encourage her to keep learning.

Meanwhile, a ton of men are insecure and scared, but they're treated as "the default choice," so in many cases they may not receive that formative boost of self-confidence. Thus, we get grown men convinced that they don't belong in their own careers.

<comment><USER12> The individual may feel impostor syndrome or similar negative feelings. On one level emotions need to be managed (observed & accepted). Associating emotion with being "underrepresented" may just be one of many possible internal justifications. The environment, work-environment dynamics, unreasonable demands and lack of leadership, are probably more powerful influences than one single individual's exhaggerated feelings of responsibility. Psychological safe space must be consciously built and maintained, sometimes by dilligent effort on multiple levels pushing back against existing marginalizing forces.

The modern victim narratives I don't automatically subscribe to. Though, try to relentlessly direct attention to official and unofficial power structures: How they shape interactions, siloing and the inevitable unhealthy power dynamics (entropy). The dynamics is defined from top and down in typical hierachical structures, but is not rectified until cooperation starts at the top. Sometimes, technology and knowledge hoarding is used to same effects and ends. With good people all this may happen unwittingly, no matter the color, gender or "representation".

The cure to self-doubt is a healthy and supportive environment to provide necessary feedback during the course of creative and deep knowledge work. This happens to really be what agility is about too.

The Divide & Conquer-people would like us to fully believe in individualism, to justify shortcomings in leadership, for own small-minded benefits or managerial simplicity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > At some point in my software engineering/leadership career, it became > evident that I was expected to have Impostor Syndrome. Indeed, it became > clear that all underrepresented people in tech were expected to have > Impostor Syndrome.

Is that so? I agree with the first part: it's somewhat expected that you deal with impostor syndrome. But it's pretty much expected for everyone, regardless of some group representation. I believe it's an occupational thing, not a "I'm in the minority" thing. That may contribute, but it's not _the_ factor at all.

</comment><comment><USER14> Imposter syndrome is where you actually have the skills and/or knowledge but don't believe you do (irrationally). Most people are simply incompetent. That is not imposter syndrome. Having a rational sense of your actual abilities is tough because beliefs affect confidence. So most people seem to be encouraged to over inflate their abilities. The syndrome is not imposter but over inflation.

<comment><USER15> "I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage." -Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord

<comment><USER16> Yet the question is not "am I stupid or clever?", the question is should I take advice from the army's central Hitler's opponent whose decisive moment of the career is described by Wikipedia like this:

> Hammerstein repeatedly warned President Paul von Hindenburg about the > dangers of appointing Hitler as chancellor. In response, Hindenburg assured > Hammerstein that "he would not even consider making that Austrian corporal > the minister of defense or the chancellor". Barely four days later, on 30 > January 1933, pursuant to a request by Hindenburg, Hitler formed a cabinet > as the German Chancellor [...]. Hammerstein was forced to resign from his > office on 31 January 1934.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I always get excited when I see a position like this that embraces competence and seems excited at rising to the challenges of learning.

There are so many meme-ish ideas that circulate that seem embraced precisely because they tacitly claim to _remove_ the challenges of life and learning and becoming competent.

Worried you're not competent enough? Oh, that's just "Imposter Syndrome", don't worry about it, we _all_ have it, you don't need to do anything to address it.

Of course there are feelings of insecurity that go too far and it's helpful to have a compassion for ourselves.

But I think more important is to not couple our self-worth to our competence. The tacit and wrong assumption behind "Imposter Syndrome" (and many aspects of our culture) is the idea that our self-worth and competence are connected.

It's okay to be incompetent at something; life is too short to master everything. But if you do make a conscious decision to grow your competence, then you should respect that it is going to be effort, you should even get excited about that effort, and yes, self-doubt, is essential in following through on that effort.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's strange.

In the tech industry, whenever you express any self doubt, people read that as you saying you have impostor syndrome.

Why is that?

<comment><USER19> Because as opposed to what many people like to think, and even though tech is a purely desk-kind-of-job; tech doesn't actually require deep intellectual thinking.

Tech is the least risky engineering discipline and in the huge majority of jobs requires the level of a plumber work with almost none of the liabilities of physical manufacturing.

So of course a lot of us have impostor syndrome as we're simply not doing anything special (but also the job doesn't actually require anything special either)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think there are different varieties of this that someone can experience. Many have piled onto the "most people suck at their jobs bit" (possibly because they feel like they haven't been pat on the back enough).

I feel like it can be difficult to disseminate exactly what it is that you may or may not be good at in a job, partly because the offered reasons are opaque, and partly because being good at a job doesn't necessarily depend on having a high level of whatever skill you were ostensibly hired for. Up until this year, most companies have normalized a standard definition of a job that selects for one type of person with some kind of skill that hopefully they'll be passable at.

I personally have been terminated 5 or 6 times from various software related roles, and have pre-emptively quit two other unrelated jobs in customer service and moving. I have at all times, especially during the interview gauntlet, been totally dissolutioned with either my own skills, those that someone is looking for, or what I'm looking to do. I'm fairly sure that if you were a bad programmer at a software developer job, you'd never know it unless you just found yourself intellectually dumbstruck when faces with fairly mundane problems.

At this juncture, I have no idea what I'd still feel like doing as a job, but I can pretty reliably guess when I'll depart of my choosing or otherwise, out of boredom, bureaucracy, or a terrible awful no-good sleep insomnia.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a bit of a weird take, the weird part is primarily...

> My point is this: if we expect everybody who is a little bit different to > think of themselves as an impostor, we've totally lost the plot on this > whole inclusion thing.

I'm wondering why when "especially [...] younger women" refer to "[their] Imposter Syndrome" it's assumed to be related to them being "women" and not to them being "younger?" Many young men and women feel some level of self-doubt early in their careers (and this is often labeled as "Imposter Syndrome"), which is why I'd imagine it'd be expected. I certainly did - self-doubt being simply a difference in internal vs. external "value" or "ability."

I certainly wouldn't expect a woman (or man) who has been in largely the same software space for ~20 years to feel Imposter Syndrome.

Other than that, which is a large portion of the article, I agree with the other general premise - that some level of humility in what you know is good (I probably would not call it "self-doubt" though, because nothing she described sounds like "self-doubt" healthy or otherwise).

</comment><comment><USER22> To me what the author is describing as 'healthy self-doubt' doesn't sound like self-doubt to me at, but rather admitting one doesn't know everything, one needs to surround oneself with competent people, etc. If you feel you're good- to-go except there are some things you just don't know, I'd say you're not suffering much self-doubt at all.

<comment><USER23> Healthy self-skepticism might be more accurate, but it's clunky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I constantly have self doubts, something in between Imposter Syndrome and OCD. I need to make sure I did the right thing, and even when I'm done what I had to, the self doubt kicks in, the OCD makes me look over just once to make sure. I'd say, this feeling is the exact opposite of walking away from what you've destroyed behind yourself like in the movies. In the early days of my career I thought this was what is keeping myself from achieving goals but later I realized that my self doubt kept me from making a lot of mistakes that would cost a fixing. It's ok to have self doubts, it's ok to think you're not competent enough, or fear that you'll fail in general. I believe that's what actually makes you a good developer.

</comment><comment><USER23> Tangentially related, John Carmack on the value of feeling ashamed of your work:

[https://www.wanzafran.com/posts/2020/shame-and- code/](https://www.wanzafran.com/posts/2020/shame-and-code/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Imposter syndrome is very much an internal struggle and I think for some people who exhibit imposter syndrome wouldn't let other people let on. So, the fact that admitting self doubt in public shows a break from it.

I had imposter syndrome while in business school and boy o boy did I try hard to fit in. Only when I realized that there is more to life than external achievements did I outwardly express any self doubt and only then to my close circle of friends.

</comment><comment><USER26> People always talk about this imposter syndrome thing for themselves.

I think it's hard to look at yourself. You gotta look at other people. Do you think this is necessarily true? Do tons and tons of stupid people think they're smart and tons and tons of smart people think they're stupid?

In general I've seen some of the former and almost none of the latter... mostly people know their place and how good they are relative to the entire ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER27> The author also did an insightful guest post for my blog: [https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2020/04/27/it-never- gets-...](https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2020/04/27/it-never-gets-easier- you-just-go-faster/)

</comment><comment><USER28> I've seen quite a lot of people from underrepresented groups claiming they have impostor syndrome but from the outside they seem to be closer to the Dunnunig-Kruger effect and just claiming it because it's hype.

Of course, I'm not in their minds and I'm absolutely biased.

</comment><comment><USER29> If you feel like an impostor, chances are you are. Embrace it, relish it, learn, and you'll become not an impostor.

<comment><USER30> I feel like this comment is actively harmful.

I know some ultra competent people who still feel like an impostor. They aren't. Suggesting that they are makes it harder to get out of it.

<comment><USER31> Are those people you know in the majority? The point could be made more politely while still being true.

More interestingly, steps to take in order to tell the difference?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Totally off topic, but damn if that TwentyTwenty WordPress theme doesn't have awful heading letter-spacing!

</comment><comment><USER33> The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

Being wrong is the first step to being right.

<comment><USER34> The more I know, the more there is to learn... this is what causes impostor syndrome.

<comment><USER33> I always equate "impostor syndrome" to being insecure.

There's a ton of stuff I don't know, and that's fine. I'm not afraid to ask "stupid" questions, and let folks know that I don't know something. Sometimes, I have no interest in knowing it, so I don't ask questions about it, and don't pretend that I know anything about it.

But there's also a lot of stuff I do know. At one time, I didn't know it, and asked a question. Now I know it.

The only annoying thing about my approach, is that when I state confidence in what I do know, it's perceived as "arrogance," and when I state what I don't know, I'm labeled as "stupid," or "lazy" (I'm none of the above).

I've learned to ignore this type of thing, and go ahead and ask my silly questions. Over the years, I have become better at asking questions. That's an art, in its own right.

Sometimes, the best way to get a correct answer, is to state something wrong. People will fall all over themselves to correct me. It can be grating, because they are sometimes rather nasty about it, but they also tend to do their homework, to make sure they are right, and I can rely on their response.

I've also found that the world will continue to rotate whether or not I provide my opinion/experience/knowledge at every opportunity that pops up.

I'd like people to respect me, but I won't go off into the desert to die, because someone on the Internet doesn't like me.

<comment><USER16> Well, knowing something is not arrogance.

Stating that you know something _is_ arrogance, unless you take precautions. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying the situation perfectly matches the dictionary definition of the word "arrogance".

Everyone around here surely knows that it's often sufficient to prefix the opinion with "everyone here surely knows that <X>". Because if you say raw "X" very confidently, people immediately assume that your full implicit message is "I cannot believe I even have to waste my precious time to explain to you nitwits that <X>".

<comment><USER33> I'm a fairly literal person ("on the spectrum"). If I know something, I say "I know this." If I don't know something, I say "I don't know this." If I think I have insight into something, I say "This looks like..."

My experience, here, and in many other places, is that people seem to have a deep-seated need to "put down" other people. We jump on openings from others with an almost fanatic zeal.

You won't find much (if any) of that stuff in my postings; here, or anywhere else I participate.

It's just not important for me to be "better" than anyone else (see "on the spectrum," above -I seem to have different motivational drivers from many folks). It's my experience that I can learn from just about _anyone_ , and that I can sometimes find that what I thought was right, was actually wrong.

I'm pretty much self-taught in software development. It has served me very well. I've been _delivering_ software for decades, but it has also sometimes handicapped me in other ways, by maybe missing something that CS majors get (I was an EE), or by not knowing the current vocabulary for something.

I remember once, in the 1990s, asking someone "What's 'AJAX'?" They all laughed at me, but explained it. I ate my crow, didn't react, and went home, realizing that it was just HTTPRequest.

Within a week, I had written a very powerful AJAX driver.

Sometimes, the people that laugh at me are doing me a favor. It doesn't really help things if I kick back. I've learned that I should keep my mouth shut, and learn from them.

<comment><USER16> > people seem to have a deep-seated need to "put down" other people

Well, of course they do. All the time. It's a fine way to improve status in a social group and to get more meat after we kill our next mammoth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> small brain: Dunning-Kruger effect

normal brain: 'imposter syndrome'

galaxy brain: healthy self-doubt</comment>


Math Wizard Elwyn Berlekamp Helped Bring Sharp Images from Outer Space - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/math-wizard-elwyn-berlekamp-helped-bring-sharp-images-from-outer-space-11556735303 <comment><USER2> Anyone have a non-paywall mirror of this? I'd love to read it.</comment>


CMLinux – DIY fully customizable Linux from scratch - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/CherryMill/CMLinux <comment><USER2> A "toolchain"? I only see some instructions for building a system in the style of Linux from Scratch?

This guide is highly inconsistent and often does not make any sense. Why should I create a new partition on my machine? Why should I then create a new VM? Both are never referenced anywhere later on. Overall it looks like bad copy & paste of instructions from LFS, without giving any attribution or adhering to the license.

Why would I want to use that instead of the much more detailed original?

[http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/index.html](http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I flicked through the README and didn't really understand what problem the project solves and how it does that. Technical TL;DR anyone?

<comment><USER4> Near as I can figure, the goal is to build your own Linux distro to run as a guest in a virtual machine (hypervisor virtual machine, not bytecode virtual machine).

If you want to make your own distro, this is certainly friendlier than the old way, which was "do it all on a standalone machine and hope you don't break anything or wedge it into a difficult-to-debug state".</comment></comment>


Are there going to be any changes heading into the Winter '08 program? - <AUTHOR>

Will the median age go up?  Will dinners be held on a different night?  Did the large batch (19 groups) work out OK? <comment><USER2> Nothing startling. 19 worked fine, so we may accept more, if we get enough good applications.

</comment><comment><USER3> 19 groups wasn't too bad (from a founder perspective). You won't get close with everyone, but the community is in full force.

Just don't pig out on the rice at dinner.</comment>


Can Science Breed the Next Secretariat? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/can-science-breed-the-next-secretariat-rp <comment><USER2> That's actually a reasonably balanced article. Genetic testing in thoroughbred horses is just another tool amongst the many other ways of looking at the breeding equation.

However, the Equinome test is starting to make an impact in British and Irish racing. It is well known that the British 2000 Guineas winner this year, Galileo Gold, was not entered for the longer Epsom Derby because he tested as CC, rather than the CT thought to be omptimum for the distance. This is perhaps the first published occasion a genetic test has resulted in a trainer not entering his horse for a specific race, and a classic at that.

We work closely with Byron from Performance Genetics, mentioned in the article, when buying yearlings. Byron uses a very wide range of tests, not just of the genetic variety, but also analytical data analysis, when making a determination of a horse's potential ability. Nonetheless, we have a number of other criteria to initially narrow the pool of horses we want to test. We also place value on the visual physical attributes of the horse.

Lastly, it is worth keeping in mind which horses are most valuable in a commercial sense. Even after all the testing, it is no guarantee the horse will perform at the highest level. Rather the testing is about creating an edge over other buyers. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind which horses will continue to have residual value in the market. It is better to take a risk on a popular sire, than an unfashionable one, unless of course the initial purchase price is also just as unfashionable.

<comment><USER3> I know there's lots of money involved, but breeding faster (and better visual physical attributes) horses is ultimately uninteresting and pointless.

What would be much more interesting would be to do things like breed smarter dogs.

<comment><USER4> Breeding smarter dogs is not interesting because after a certain point, the intelligence becomes a problem. Not just things like octopuses eating all the fish in your aquarium but escaping, or going insane from boredom and inactivity and becoming destructive. This is already an issue with border collies, among the most intelligent of dog breeds. Why would you want to make the problem _worse_? If you want to breed any species for intelligence, breed humans - at least there it's useful.

<comment><USER3> What is the issue with intelligent border collies?

Wouldn't a more intelligent dog make a better companion? Just keep them away from the internet so they cannot plot an uprising with the other dogs.

<comment><USER5> They get bored easily, and boredom leads to destruction. Herding dogs need to be worked regularly.

<comment><USER3> If dogs are bred to herd, it seems reasonable that there'd be trouble if they aren't herding.

But many dogs know several hundred words. I hypothesize that with breeding this could be increased substantially. Perhaps even sentences. I'm not convinced that would cause them to be destructive.

<comment><USER4> > If dogs are bred to herd, it seems reasonable that there'd be trouble if > they aren't herding.

Chimpanzees aren't bred to herd but are at least as intelligent, and keeping them in captivity is even more problematic than border collies: neurotic, destructive, difficult to keep safely contained, super expensive to 'retire' and care for. Which is one reason that countries like the USA have been trying to phase out primate research as much as possible.

<comment><USER3> Keeping intelligent creatures like chimps in cages for life is abusive and clearly wrong. If we create intelligent dogs, treating them in a manner consistent with their intelligence comes with the territory.

<comment><USER4> Yes, that's my point. Treating a chimpanzee well, at a primate retirement center, is extremely expensive and difficult to the point where governments & scientific organizations have trouble and are trying to avoid having to do in the future. Nor are zoos cheap to run. And people are already having difficulty keeping their border collies occupied and treated in a manner consistent with their existing high intelligence. (Not that dogs in general are treated optimally - think of how many fat dogs there are, or how many have to be put down for 'behavioral problems'.) And you think it's a swell idea to make the situation worse? It's not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why breed when you can just print one out?

<comment><USER7> Why raise horses when you can race cars?

Because we can.

<comment><USER6> I get that sentiment, completely. But what happens when breeding becomes irrelevant in the face of genetic engineering?

Doesn't matter to me; I prefer polo.

<comment><USER8> Eh, just like cars I imagine you'd have "stock" classes and "modified" classes.

<comment><USER9> May we never have any "funny" horses...

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

<comment><USER8> I suppose that would be horses with muscle hyperplasia?

(For reference, here's a whippet with that condition: [http://s30.photobucket.com/user/breakzhabit/media/Stuff/2192...](http://s30.photobucket.com/user/breakzhabit/media/Stuff/2192-640.jpg.html) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Coincidence? I only recently learned about Secretariat from Bojack Horseman, which released a new season just a few weeks ago.</comment>


A Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/finally-a-problem-that-only-quantum-computers-will-ever-be-able-to-solve-20180621/?href= <comment><USER2> This is basically the TCS version of a clickbait headline. It's a separation of BQP and PH by an oracle. Certainly a nice result, but to put it into context, we also have a separation of P and NP by an oracle. Yet, we are very far away from _actually_ proving that P and NP are distinct.

<comment><USER3> Any time I hear something sensational about quantum computing, I check Scott Aaronson's blog for the real story. Here's his blog post on this topic: [https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3827](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3827).

<comment><USER4> That webpage is the hardest thing to read on a phone screen. Dark grey on black, why would he ever think that's a good choice??

<comment><USER5> I think the white box behind the text must not have loaded on your phone. Looks fine to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article makes it seem like the problem that separates BQP and PH is one the classical computers literally cannot solve, given any amount of time. I don't believe that is actually what's going on. If it were the case, this result would have falsified the Church Turing Thesis, and there would be a lot more hype around this.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

</comment><comment><USER7> P != quickly solvable by a classical computer.

P means solvable in polynomial time relative to the size of the problem, which could still take longer than the universe has existed

<comment><USER8> Given that computer scientists use the word "efficiently" to mean "in polynomial time", I'm not too upset at using "quickly" to mean the same.

<comment><USER7> Idk, I majored in CS and I don't use the term efficient or quick to imply relative asymptotic time complexity.

Consider for example a randomized quicksort (O(n^2) worst case) is often faster than say mergesort (O(nlog(n)) worst case)) for small lists due to reduced overhead. I know these are both polynomial, but relatively speaking, randomized quicksort can be more efficient & quick.

In the real world we can make certain assumptions about our problem domain, where the most 'efficient' solution for your business problem may not have the smallest asymptotic time complexity.

Maybe it's fair to assume everyone reading this article knows what the auther means & i'm just being that guy, but I still don't like ambiguity lol

<comment><USER8> It's used when talking about the extended Church-Turing thesis [1]:

> "A probabilistic Turing machine can efficiently simulate any realistic model > of computation." The word 'efficiently' here means up to polynomial-time > reductions.

Real-world efficiency doesn't necessarily factor into what theoretical computer scientists are interested in.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >The actual best way to distinguish between complexity classes like BQP and PH is to measure the computational time required to solve a problem in each. But computer scientists "don't have a very sophisticated understanding of, or ability to measure, actual computation time," said Henry Yuen, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto.

>So instead, computer scientists measure something else that they hope will provide insight into the computation times they can't measure: They work out the number of times a computer needs to consult an "oracle" in order to come back with an answer. An oracle is like a hint-giver. You don't know how it comes up with its hints, but you do know they're reliable.

This is not how it works, at all.

<comment><USER10> Oh?

<comment><USER9> 1\. You don't measure the number of steps, you prove that it's bounded by some function of input length.

2\. You don't work off number of oracle calls, but number of total steps with an oracle call counting as one step.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for expounding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can't quantum computers be simulated on classical computers? Doesn't that mean that any problem solvable by a quantum computer can be solved by a classical computer, given enough resources? If so, isn't the headline that "Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve" misleading?

I don't know much about this subject, so I'm assuming one of my assumptions is wrong.

<comment><USER12> > Can't quantum computers be simulated on classical computers?

The simulation gets exponentially slow, to the point that the fastest classical computers we have are not practical for simulating even modestly sized quantum systems.

<comment><USER13> Regarding (a), the approximation can be made as good as you want. However you are right on (b) it gets exponentially slow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14>
      Imagine you have two random number generators, each
      producing a sequence of digits. The question for your
      computer is this: Are the two sequences completely
      independent from each other, or are they related in a
      hidden way?

That, right there, should tell absolutely everyone, by intuition alone, that, despite assurances from industry experts that flaws leading to breaks ( _plain-text discovery faster than brute force_ ) are universally impractical, even with all the energy of a dyson sphere, that there are classified equations for back doors baked into all modern, commercially used civilian/consumer-grade cryptographic algorithms.

<comment><USER15> I'm not 100% sure which side you are taking, but I think you are saying all common crypto is backdoored. That seems like a giant logical leap with absolutely no hints as to why you landed at that conclusion based on your quote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How to efficiently simulate a quantum circuit? _Badum ching_

I'll be here every night, ladies and gents.

<comment><USER17> If you can prove that simulating a quantum circuit cannot be done in P, that's a breakthrough you should publish. I'm 80% sure that even if you prove it's not in PH, you'll be the first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Quantum computing is coming. How quickly isn't clear, although the first versions of this technology are expected to begin showing up over the next few years, with the rollout across more markets and applications expected by the middle of the next decade. [https://semiengineering.com/quantum-computing- becoming-real/](https://semiengineering.com/quantum-computing-becoming-real/)</comment>


Scalatra: A Sinatra-like Web Framework for Scala - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/10/scalatra <comment><USER2> They really need to change the name. Something that rips off Sinatra less and promotes the fact that its a micro-framework. Besides that I would love to take it for a test drive.

<comment><USER3> It's kind of funny because originally it was called step and then they renamed it a few months ago. I liked step better.

<comment><USER4> We renamed after we discovered another framework named Step. The new name has the advantage of being easier to search for, but I do sincerely apologize for the name of the scalatra-scalate module. Glad you enjoy the framework!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone using this? It'd be pretty awesome to get a first-hand account of it.

<comment><USER3> I have used it. I like it quite a bit. It's very simple and integrates nicely with Scalate, a Scala templating library.

Scalatra + Scalate + development using simple-build-tool (using ~ prepare- webapp) is a pretty killer combination, in my opinion. The feedback cycle is every bit as fast as rails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Although I love Scala, I preferr Groovy/Grails over Scala/Lift for my web development needs. I would love to give Scalatra a try too.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is anyone aware of any web frameworks that are more structured than the 1,001 Sinatra clones but aren't Django/Rails or something resembling a rotting corpse with a bad idea for an ODB persistence layer?</comment>


Boosted lays off 'significant portion' of its employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/4/21165336/boosted-layoffs-money-funding-problems <comment><USER2> It's a shame but not that surprising. The market for electric skateboards is only so big, only so many people are comfortable with the risk and in a place where they can ride them. Nothing about Boosted really stood out, and I heard rumblings of them cutting quality in recent years to attempt to repay investors.

The jump into scooters was probably ill advised as well. It wasn't really their target market (long board riders) and the scooter market has a saturation already.

Personally I ride a OneWheel, but am actively waiting for a company to make a knock off of it that works as well. Future Motion has been locking down their parts more and more recently which is a shame because of the price.</comment>


Olbers' paradox - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox

<comment><USER2> It might seem like a paradox from our perspective, but there is good possibility that like fish in water - our senses & instruments just haven't evolved to perceive and function out of water (off earth) A good possible explanation would be that the seemingly empty void of space is chalk full of dark matter scientists assume makes up 95% of the universe and our eyes can't see it like a dog can't see color, and this invisible matter might someday end up being a biological commodity to future beings that evolve from us just like fresh air is to our lungs.

The universe might look like a cerulean sky, we just haven't evolved to see it that way yet.

<comment><USER3> No need for dark matter. As it states in explanation paragraph, according to big bang theory, in the beginning stages there were light everywhere and the universe was not even transparent. So according to this, when we look at the sky now we should see that light if we look far enough. But we don't. Reason for that is that as universe expanded, that light emitted from the early stages got "stretched out" and shifted from visible light to microwave length. That's what we call cosmic microwave background. So it's not a possibility - it's fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm really not convinced by the passages, both in Wikipedia and in the referenced book, concerning the role of the finite age of stars.

From what I remember from Coles-Lucchin, the finite age of stars does furnish a partial explanation: keeping the average density of lit stars the universe constant, does not solve the problem, since in general, when I look in a particular direction, any star in that direction will either be dead or lit, but still too far away for its light to have reached me.

Indeed the opposite would require fine-tuning the stars ignition time so that there is sphere of burning stars at the right distance.

</comment><comment><USER5> What about the fact that we can barely see the light from some of the stars that we know are there (because of space dust, etc.)? How did somebody come to this conclusion just 150 years ago...

<comment><USER6> The energy absorbed by interstellar gas and dust doesn't just disappear, it's re-emitted at (mostly) infrared wavelengths. If there really were infinite stars in an eternal universe, everything would be heated to the same white-hot temperature, including the interstellar medium.

<comment><USER5> Think about what you're saying. In our current system, if you do not except infinity, then you are accepting that there is finite space for energy to escape to, which means that the lack of much visible light and infrared from distant stars available to Earthbound viewers implies that any distribution homogenous and similar to ours currently observable would result in similarly dark views from any vantage point.

This is a logical truth.

<comment><USER7> You should try rephrasing that because the point you're making is not at all clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't this one explained by the speed of light?

Only a finite number of stars have had enough time to reach the earth. So there can only be a finite number of concentric shells.

<comment><USER7> The paradox assumes there are infinite stars that have existed for infinite time:

> If the universe is static, homogeneous at a large scale, and populated by an > infinite number of stars

You're assuming an infinite number of stars sprang into existence a finite amount of time ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Of course, given the quantum nature of light, this breaks down: at some (admittedly very large) distance, a star will be emitting so few photons in a given direction that it will be effectively black.

<comment><USER10> If the universe is infinite, for each particular direction there are an infinite number of stars. So even if the probability of a photon coming from a distant star is very low, there are infinitely many stars in that direction, so that direction will still be very bright. So the quantum nature of light does not change the paradox.

<comment><USER10> The wikipedia article surprises me though.. The actual brightness can be calculated as an infinite sum of start brightnesses getting weaker with the distance. The result of an infinite sum can be finite or infinite. I would have though apriori that the sum is finite because the star density is so low. But at the end of the article they seem to suggest that the universe is dense enough for the sum to be infinite...

<comment><USER11> I think one resolution is the finite speed of light. Even if there are infinite stars in any given direction, they haven't been around long enough for the brightness to be infinite.

This "paradox" is basically just theorizing an aspect of the heat death of the universe.

<comment><USER12> The paradox says that an universe infinite in space and time would have to be bright in all directions. By infinite in time, I mean that the universe has been around infinitely long, i.e. it has no beginning. The finite speed of light wouldn't matter here since the light would have had an infinite amount of time to reach you.

<comment><USER13> Huh? We definitely know that that doesn't describe the universe. If two points are so far apart that the expansion of space inflates the distance between them faster than light can cross it, then no light can ever reach from one to the other, even if it travels for an infinitely long time.

<comment><USER12> The Olbers' paradox is from the 1800s, before we knew about the expansion of space. It's arguing against a static, infinitely old universe. As you point out, we now know that this isn't the case.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Can We Get Data.gov to Answer These 5 Simple Questions? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/13/fiv-questions-data-gov-savethedata/

<comment><USER2> I do not mean this as cynical, simply straight: The customer of Data.gov is journalists, in their capacity as people who may write a sentence semantically related to "Data.gov proves the openness and transparency bona fides of the current administration." Not as users of the data itself, beyond pulling the site up and poking at it for ten minutes.

We've made progress in getting the government to care about appearing open, but the pressure needs to stay on to get them to truly care.</comment>


A Look Back at the 1960s PLATO Computing System - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/tech-history/silicon-revolution/sxsw-2018-a-look-back-at-the-1960s-plato-computing-system <comment><USER2> From the article:

 _" Imagine if today, iOS or Linux had built-in libraries of code that allowed anyone to build a social application that didn't require cutting a deal with Facebook or using their APIs," … "[With PLATO], the API was in the operating system and it allowed any app to be social.

… Term Comment … allowed users to leave feedback for developers and programmers at any place within a program where they spotted a typo or had trouble completing a task … the user would simply open a comment box and leave a note right there on the screen. Term Comment would append the comment to the user's place in the program so that the recipient could easily navigate to it and clearly see the problem, instead of trying to recreate it from scratch on their own system … "If you were doing QA on software, you could quickly comment, and it would track exactly where the user left this comment. We never really got this on the Web, and it's such a shame that we didn't."_

<comment><USER3> Makes you wonder what pioneers back in the 60s and 70s could have accomplished with modern hardware. What does Smalltalk or Englebert's NLS end up being with gigs of RAM and high speed network connections? What would the LISP machines have been like? It still kills me to think that an OS crash on one of those took you into the Lisp debugger. And it kills me to think that Smalltalk and Visual Basic had a built-in GUI editor and layout manager, unlike the web.

<comment><USER4> They'd accomplish a lot, but I fear most of it wouldn't take anyway.

The problem is the Internet. Or, more precisely, _other people_.

Those systems of old didn't separate between "an user" and "a developer" because they assumed all users are _trusted_ (and responsible people). With the Internet, this assumption immediately becomes false - between people attacking the network and social engineering, it's dangerous to let people have that much control over their environment.

Which is something that pisses me off, because I'd love to work on a modern- day version of a Lisp machine, but I understand this can't ever become mainstream (and myself I'd be worried using it to do my banking).

Or, as I sometimes phrase it, Star Trek-level tech requires Star Trek-level society.

<comment><USER5> I suspect there are Laws of Social Computing which guarantee that public networked systems inevitably converge on certain kinds of uses and applications, with certain consistently reinvented "abuses" and failure modes.

Networked computing is just a mirror. We seem surprised when some of the things we see it aren't very nice, but perhaps we shouldn't be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > the entire PLATO system was designed with social sharing in mind, he says, > whereas the modern Internet is more fundamentally suited to fetching > websites and documents.

> the API was in the operating system and it allowed any app to be social. > That was kind of the assumption that the PLATO people had.

Hmm, so why didn't the web emphasize social? Ponder...

Read-only web. The first web browser(s?) were read-write editors. HTTP GET was paired with PUT. But ramp up happened on read-only browsers (Mosaic, Navigator). User input wasn't possible until ISINDEX and then FORMs. Write didn't become part of the culture.

Documents, and separate social. In an ecosystem of ftp, and assorted file formats, and nntp (usenet news), there was a missing integrative piece. HMTL/URLs addressed that. Gopher had similar motivation. HTML was a static document format. But the 'one piece of an ecosystem' model meant social wasn't tightly integrated. If you wanted social, you did news, not WWW. You posted urls.

News (distributed social) plateaued, then declined, and the focus of social development shifted to web sites. I was never quite sure why news development stalled. There was a multi-year period, where it was clear what needed to be done to advance (eg voting), but it wasn't happening.

One certainly could have built a pervasively social system on top of the web. But it's hard for add-on layers to get traction. Even when they were part of the original vision. For example, X Windows' low-level Xlib, was intended only for the higher-level libraries everyone would then use, but those were slow to materialize, so everyone just stuck with Xlib.

Part of why the web worked was its initial simplicity and subsequent feature creeping. The hypertext community was quite miffed that this toy was getting traction, when their various more complex systems were not.

But we never got say a news2://... protocol. It seemed dotcom was pulling the oxygen away from a lot of potential infrastructure-ish projects - perhaps that was part of it.

Anyway, random musings.

<comment><USER7> Seems like browser-based PUT is at once "too" generic and simultaneously not self-describing enough for a lot of input. (Should I be allowed to change my wife's facebook details?)

The protocol supports rejecting those edits, but what if I want the form itself to change in response to edits I'm proposing? (Greying out the "change password" button, or telling me "You can't change the relationship status of others!")

Stepping up from my examples a bit, it seems like you'd need a pretty sophisticated model for ACLs and almost arbitrary client side validations, which we didn't have until javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you want to find out more about the book, I recommend:

[http://friendlyorangeglow.com](http://friendlyorangeglow.com)

that is, after you've gotten a copy of the book. Really, everyone in the YC world ought to read this book. It is a completely alien history of computing that has basically nothing to do with Silicon Valley, and in some ways is heresy to Silicon Valley. The PLATO system was built 1000 miles to the east, in Illinois, and had very little (but not zero) cross-fertilization with Silicon Valley thinking. The exception is Xerox PARC, whose people including Kay and Goldberg had regular interactions and trips back and forth with their counterparts at the PLATO lab called CERL at Univ of Illinois. I have a whole chapter on PARC and Kay and how the PLATO project deeply influenced Kay.

But seriously, if you have any interest in the untold histories of:

      • flat-panel gas-plasma display invention
      • e-learning and online courses (which PLATO was doing, for full credit, as early as mid-60s)
      • MUDs before MUD-1, including 3D dungeon games
      • multiplayer graphical games of all sorts
      • PLATO Notes as a precursor to USENET and Lotus Notes
      • instant messaging in 1973
      • chat rooms in 1973 using Talk-o-matic
      • screen sharing
      • phishing, PLATO-style
      • emoticon long before Internet smileys started
      • crowdsourced online newspapers
      • the White House threatening to shut down, in 1973, ARPANET and PLATO, completely, because they had online forums talking about impeachment of Nixon
      • tons more

I'd recommend you read the book. :)

Meanwhile, feel free to ask me anything.

</comment><comment><USER9> I had my first job programming Plato at UofD. I had my second job building hardware for replacing the old expensive terminals with pcs running the same hardware. A few years later, I came to silicon valley to help the people who put tcp/ip on the Macintosh fight the networking war ( spoiler, tcp/ip won ).

Plato had community, and I even bought my first computer from a guy in illinois. There was a form of live chat that even spanned different universities, there were Friday afternoon massively multi player flight simulator battles. in the late 70's.

let me give you a quick taste of programming in Tutor. Variables were strings, integers, and shared ( same value for everyone in the program, used for multiuser experiences ). there were 150 integers, called i1, i2, and whatnot. There were no symbolic variables.

Since you didn't have to make a network call to communicate between users ( that came with the draconian unix process model ), you could make shared experiences far more easily than today.

Ah well.

<comment><USER8> Yep me too: first programming job was at PLATO at U of D in 1980.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For a social history of PLATO, see the 50 Years of Public Computing conference that took place at UIUC School of Information (the same year as the Computer History Museum video embedded in the article), [http://50years.ischool.illinois.edu/](http://50years.ischool.illinois.edu/).

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm reading Brian Dear's book now, it's great.

<comment><USER12> He's on HN

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=brianstorms](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=brianstorms)

Hour Long Podcast with an interview with him here:

[http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2017/12/the- forgotten-...](http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2017/12/the-forgotten- story-of-plato-with-brian-dear/)

<comment><USER13> +1 on the Internet History Podcast episode. It's awesome (other episodes from IHP as well :) )</comment></comment></comment>


BLACKBOX – From the Creators of Cards Against Humanity - <AUTHOR> http://www.blackbox.cool/ <comment><USER2> > _without publishers or other bloodsucking middlemen taking most of the > money_

aren't they ....the middleman?

Good to see competition though, looks like it'll be competing with etsy, amazon handmade, etc</comment>


Engineering Degrees Wasted-12 Years of Life Gone - <AUTHOR> I went to Wright State University (WSU) in Dayton, Ohio. Earned a BS in Biomedical Engineering (BME) and an MS in Human Factors Engineering (HFE). For over ten years they used me as cheap slave labor teaching/lecturing fundamentals of engineering and senior design along with a myriad of lab sections. All the while they dangled the fish of potential employment. Once I turned 60 years of age they decided that the easiest way to get rid of me was to hire me. One year later I'm fired on trumped-up BS charges like not making enough progress on my PhD (they didn't even ask to see my work and poor student evals when over 90% of students gave me favorable evals. All my teaching experience was there and now I can't get a favorable reference. Nothing left but the streets. <comment><USER2> I am so sorry, do you have family support on these troubled times? seek their support. I dont know what else to say ... you deserve better

</comment><comment><USER3> 0\. Politics. Threatened or annoyed someone. Someone else was promised tenure.

1\. Ageism. It's rampant, and I've seen in academia, discard people like tissues.

2\. Progess. Maybe expectations weren't set mutually.

3\. Lemonade. Maybe it's not such a great place or there's a better opportunity elsewhere. Write a book? Do a podcast or teach MMOC?

</comment><comment><USER4> I worked in academia for a couple of years. I don't get it. In addition to the horrible pay, the politics are horrendous and are an order of magnitude worse than private industry. Those pensions are nice though.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is sadly too common if you are not tenured, let alone not a Phd already. Universities treat their non revenue teachers as cattle. And there are darn few professors who bring in money.</comment>


Research guide for convolutional neural nets - <AUTHOR> https://heartbeat.fritz.ai/a-research-guide-to-convolution-neural-networks-a4589b6ca9bd <comment><USER2> This is convnets 101, not covering any recent advances. Something as common and useful as depthwise separable convolutions is not even mentioned. So a better title would be "History of convnets: 2012-2015".</comment>


IE 8 Release candidate available for download (does load faster than Firefox) - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx?ocid=ie8_s_5dde9edf-7217-4cca-b687-47a526704568

<comment><USER2> I wonder how many people here would use IE8 if it was really the best browser out there. Personally, I've been finding myself turning to chrome over FF every time I boot up my Windows partition - I value a quick boot up time and browsing experience over the benefits of extensions.

I've actually found Windows 7 to be the first copy of Window s that I really wouldn't have a problem using on a day-to-day basis, but my distrust for Microsoft has been honed for so long I'd probably still avoid it. Is this a bad thing?

<comment><USER3> To me, being open or not is a big factor in being "the best", so if IE8 was "the best" and ran on the OS's I use then yes. I would use it.

Although I place a high value on extensions as well, so a browsers extensibility would also be a factor in being the best choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Honestly, I really don't care anymore.

I though I'd be interested, and some time ago I was, but now... whatever.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think it's more important to let IE6 die(stop supporting it).

<comment><USER6> ah-men...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does load faster the Firefox? O rly?

Firefox 3.1b2 opens in a fraction of the time IE8rc1 opens, on first start and on re-open.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why I would not use IE8:

Not because it is by MS (hey windows works, and is a heluvalot cheaper than mac [though you can argue you get what you pay for])

Not because it is by MS (yet again) I don't hate MS just because they are Microsoft.

Not because it is not cross-platform. Chrome is not cross-platform (yet). More importantly if it makes my windows experience good, then fuck other platforms.

Not even because of the memory requirements. If I browse the web I want my computer 100% used up to make the absolute best experience for myself. If I want a browser and play a video game I would hope my OS can page-swap (IE8 was supposed to have a huge memory footprint).

Why? Because of plugins. Making plugins for firefox is encouraged, supported, free, and more importantly firefox is built on being customizeable. IE... not so much. And since most geeks and technology enthusiasts don't use IE I won't resort to hoping the corporations who want to build IE plugins to stay competitive to be my sources for features.

Sure the argument can be "why use plugins, the browser should do what you want" but that one dies rather quickly. MS is realizing why they are losing market share. Once IE6 dies it's market share will drop even further. The only reason why my company uses IE6 all over is because of some crappy old programs that just work on IE6. So why the hell would they want to upgrade? They don't even use those for regular internet browsing.

Now a direct critique to the claim that IE8 loads faster. How can something that has an over 100 meg memory footprint to just start up (last numbers I have) start faster than something with just a few megs unless it is pre- fetched by windows vista on startup, in which case this is not a fair comparison, thats more like cheating.</comment>


Offer HN: Free job listing on Hacker Jobs UK - <AUTHOR>

Hey folks
I've been threatening to launch my own start-up for a while now and the day has finally arrived.
I, along with a good friend, fellow HN'er and brilliant Ruby Developer have built a job site for Hackers. Nothing new or revolutionary there right? Possibly not but right now the vast majority of job boards for the Tech industry are just terrible and we aim to fix that.
http://www.hackerjobs.co.uk opens its doors for business on Monday the 26th of March.
This isn't just a shameless plug. We want to offer any UK based company (our initial offering is UK centric however we have a global option coming soon) an opportunity to advertise your jobs on our site free of charge for the first 30 days.
If you are a UK based employer and you've got a vacancy you'd like to advertise, email steve at hackerjobs.co.uk and I'll send you the form.
If you simply want to be notified when we launch, go to our site, ignore the hideous orange temporary landing page and stick your email in our box.
That's it. We'll post a blog on launch day about what we intend to do to drastically improve the quality of job boards as well as elaborate on why we think they are fundamentally flawed in the first place. <comment><USER2> Nice :-) Hope to see plenty of UK jobs on there. It's depressing how all the cool jobs are in the US, mainly in SF.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well we already have a few interesting companies who have agreed to advertise their roles. We just want to get the word out now to ensure that any start-ups in London or even established companies with a Hacker ethos get involved.

<comment><USER2> Bah! Those few interesting jobs that _are_ in the UK, they're in London, pft! Can't move down there for a few years but can't wait until I can. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> You say that, we've had quite a bit of interest from up north so don't lose faith just yet! The more we can encourage the Hacker culture to expand beyond London the better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> More power to you Sir! I really hope you will do a good job with the Search functionality, which I find quite bad on most job sites.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice. Are you going to be at HN London tomorrow? See if you can share lessons so far with the group (or just share some of your general recruitment wisdom!).

<comment><AUTHOR> Afraid not. I've been every month for the last 6 months but due to Mondays deadline I'm afraid I have to give this one a miss!

Once the site is launched and getting a bit of traction you'll catch me on stage at HN London. I won't just be pitching our service either!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> this is awesome, I was talking to some friends/colleagues and got this link from @peterc.. added to get notification.. looking fwd to the launch...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clicky: <http://www.hackerjobs.co.uk></comment>


A computer that would require kids to be creative to use it - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/kidspc <comment><USER2> Eh, I had one of these, it was an Amstrad CPC 464 with a broken tape drive. If I wanted to do anything on it, I had to program it.

But I'm not sure I would have turned out differently had I had a more capable machine (I might even have been able to skip Basic to begin with), and I'm also fairly certain most other kids in the same situation would just give up.

<comment><USER3> Yeah there's a difference between forcing a kid to program and making an environment that encourages tinkering when they want to.

You wouldn't build a car that required engine maintenance to start up expecting that you'd get a bunch of mechanics.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: AI and Philosophy - <AUTHOR> It is hard to ask a question one doesnt know how to ask. Pardon the vagueness.
On thisXdoesnotexist
X can come in different encodings
- a song as sound input, images of score sheet
- a poem as text, or images of the text
- a face as image or some other representation
- etc
This sounds strongly related to Plato's theory of forms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms
Is this ultimately a change of basis in linear algebra terms?
As opposed to the technology side of AI, how much is the philosophical (but practical) side developed? What is good reading on the subject? <comment><USER2> Sounds like you're talking about semiotics. Or maybe something else.

Please continue to refine your questions so someone else can understand and help you. You might want to talk to someone with your voice and their voice, better even face to face (as much as we can do that these days). Sounds like you really need someone else to help you think through this.

</comment><comment><USER2> Here's some authors to browse about Ai, philsophy, being human, meaning and the world...

Steven Pinker

Marvin Minsky

Douglas Hofstadter

Daniel Dennett

Jordan Peterson</comment>


Show HN: "dynameme" HTML5 Meme Generator  - <AUTHOR> http://dynameme.com/

<comment><USER2> It doesn't honor aspect ratios: [http://dynameme.com/embed/v1/?image=abedgun.gif&topHeadl...](http://dynameme.com/embed/v1/?image=abedgun.gif&topHeadline=&bottomHeadline=pewpewpew&via=)

It doesn't check if the letters get really tall: [http://dynameme.com/embed/v1/?image=abedgun.gif&topHeadl...](http://dynameme.com/embed/v1/?image=abedgun.gif&topHeadline=&bottomHeadline=%D6&via=)

The text doesn't get burned on the image so I cannot use the images as standalones.

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be nice if there were something like a live preview. Also the aspect ratio is sometimes thrown off by resizing the images. Maybe set it up as a canvas editor in front (to allow for things like cropping and resizing the background) and send the data uri to the server?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any and all comments are warmly welcomed. This is one of those "scratch your own itch" kind of projects, but I'd be interested in any directions and advice that people were willing to offer.

<comment><USER4> not that it would be terribly common, but a single letter on a line is usually taller than the image itself. may want to look into max-height of sorts

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Simple & fast, nice work. Quite enjoyable on mobile as well.</comment>


To prevent the next pandemic, we might need to cut down fewer trees - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-prevention-deforestation-trees <comment><USER2> We may have to stop cutting down trees is completely understandable(because of the global warming & pollution and all of that) but how does that help in preventing pandemic?

<comment><AUTHOR> Read the fucking article.</comment></comment>


Testing Bash scripts - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/wemake-services/testing-bash-applications-85512e7fe2de <comment><USER2> Hi! Take a look at Outthentic - [https://github.com/melezhik/outthentic](https://github.com/melezhik/outthentic) \- script framework and Outthentic::DSL - DSL you can use in your scripts to test the output - [https://github.com/melezhik/outthentic/blob/master/check- fil...](https://github.com/melezhik/outthentic/blob/master/check-files- syntax.md) all this could be good a choice to test any bash scripts in TDD/BDD manner</comment>


Widespread Mortgage Fraud, Not Homeowners, Toppled the U.S. Housing Market  - <AUTHOR> http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/real-estate-news-mortgage-fraud-countrywide-new-century-mortgage-afg-financial-robert-morganthau-fitch-ratings-new-york-daily-news-huffington-post-2433.php <comment><USER2> The title of this submission completely misrepresents the (very weak) claims made by the article.

The article leads off with a single anecdote about one fraudulent company which stole $12 million from banks.

The remainder of the article is devoted to fraud perpetrated by homeowners (sometimes in collusion with mortgage brokers and others).

One of the few hard numbers the article gives claims that 53% of fraud is simply investors (i.e., homeowners) lying about whether they intended to occupy the property: _Then in September 2005, [a study claims the] most prevalent type of mortgage fraud - 53% of all claims [...] involved an investor who falsely claimed on the mortgage application that he/she intended to occupy the property as a primary residence._

It then recounts anecdotes of mortgage brokers with baseball bats, homeowners lying on mortgage applications, and assorted small sample studies (e.g., homeowners lied on 90 out of 100 NINJA loan applications selected for study). Not to mention another study claiming 40-90% of subprime homeowners lied on their mortgage application, and significant numbers of homeowners facing foreclosure (in various small studies) also lied on their applications.

The article is weak. The title on HN is a gross misepresentation. Flagged.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have no doubt something similar to this took place, BUT if you claim this to be the primary cause of the housing collapse, then you have ulterior motives. Like looking for a scapegoat to excuse your personal financial decisions. Or having a vested interest in the real estate market inflating back up, which would require the public to no longer be wary of making the same financial mistakes...which would require a scapegoat to excuse their personal financial decisions.

Note who's publishing this article. What do you think they want you to believe?

Got an economic idea you want to incept the public consciousness with? _No matter what it is_ , you can find an economist somewhere who believes it. Then all you have to do is hire him to write a column.

</comment><comment><USER4> _For example, let's take the scammer in New York City whom we will call L. V. At the end of 2006, he went on a two-month buying spree in which he purchased ten investment properties in south Queens by obtaining 20 mortgages from ten different banks putting little or nothing down on any of the purchases. Apparently none of the banks was interested in checking his other purchases to see whether he had the means to handle 20 mortgages. Of course, L. V. never told the banks that he had no intention of making the payments on any of these loans.

One by one, L. V. defaulted on the loans. By the end of 2007, eight of the homes were in foreclosure. Undeterred, he continued to collect rent from tenants whom he had put into these two-family homes. When the article about his scam appeared in a December 2009 New York Daily News article, he was trying to evict tenants from two of the properties for non-payment of rent even as foreclosure actions against him were proceeding._

We need some sort of system to deter Evil landlords, such as this one. It is such a one-way street. Landlords / Property Management Companies (PMCs) almost always require credit checks, background checks, first month + last month + deposit + "fees" to move into a place they're not even getting any ownership on, just for a freaking lease!

Why shouldn't renters be able to check out their landlords, or PMCs similarly? Not just BBB stuff, but seriously comprehensive and detailed records of assets owned for passive income.

Real estate is SUCH a screwed up industry.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any programmers outside of Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR>

Truly though, for a community of people who seem to understand that remote work is not only possible, but a very effective way of finding top talent, why do we still see job ads that require people local to the Valley?<p>Title courtesy https://twitter.com/tenderlove/status/354425960155709440 <comment><USER2> Yep. Even making similar income as you all but living in great communities where those same dollars have more than two times the spending power. It's awesome.</comment>