Elop running out of time to turn Nokia around - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-nokia-strategy-idUSBRE88I0IQ20120919

<comment><USER2> Nokia were the kings of mobile back when phones were simple, so why the hell haven't they ditched Windows Phone and made phones simple once again?!

I bet there's a huge market out there for older users that want a simple and usable phone with stripped functionality, and it's a tactic that worked very well for Nintendo when they realised that they couldn't compete with Sony and Microsoft in the console market. A lot of older users just want a mobile phone so they can get in touch with family, send a few texts to people and occasionally browse the web.

If linked with a company like Yahoo (providing mail and other basic cloud stuff) I'd be shocked if a phone that focused on being a phone and not a smartphone didn't sell millions amongst the tech-illiterate and older audience.

<comment><USER3> Guess what, there is already a phone that works wonderfully for people who only wants to call people, send a few texts and occasionally browse the web. It's called an iPhone and my parents have one. They perfectly fit the use case you're describing.

They haven't downloaded any apps, they browse the web once in a while, but mostly they use the phones for calling and SMS (and my father checks his email). With their previous Nokia dumbphones, they never even learnt how to use the T9 dictionary.

Of course, it's still an expensive phone, but many of those older people get their iPhones for free when their children upgrade to a newer model.

<comment><USER4> There are multiple problems with your statement ...

\- It shows you're an American, otherwise you wouldn't hand-wave the price of an iPhone, even when speaking about phones being given by kids to parents.

\- the iPhone seems simple to you because you've gotten used to it. Compared with classic rotary phones, the iPhone is anything but simple - of course, for the provided functionality, the iPhone has a lot of features packed in a tight package that has a pretty simple interface by today's standards. But regarding parents, on the contrary, I've watched my mom struggle with an iPhone, before she got back to an older Nokia model, with a simple key pad and no extra functionality other than SMS.

\- because of the specs, the iPhone consumes a lot of battery, even by using it only for your basic needs - it's sure nice to have a phone with a battery that lasts for 7 days of normal usage.

\- mobile phones are designed to be usable for 2 years, after which the battery and the hardware start falling apart.

Also, the T9 dictionary was really awkward. I don't think anybody was suggesting that Nokia should return to their older models. I do think that some company in the future will come up with a sexy design and a set of features for simple phones that customers will absolutely love.

<comment><USER3> \- I'm not American. I don't upgrade my phone every year, but when I do the old one usually gets handed over to a family member. I think this is quite common, although some may sell it for a price depending on the age of the phone.

\- Turning off WiFi, GPS and bluetooth, you get quite a bit of battery life out of an iPhone.

\- I can only answer for the people I've met who are non-technical. They had no problem using an old Nokia phone to make calls, but for everything else (including contact lists and SMS) the iPhone is easier.

The only usability problems I've discovered has to do with the buttons, as they don't discover what the sleep/wake button and silent/ringer button does, and because they think the Home button is an "end whatever you're doing" button, which makes them push that button to end a call (this of course doesn't work since it just returns to the home screen with the call backgrounded).

Since I'm curious, what was your mother struggling with?

\- The iPhone hardware has a tendency to last a long time unless the display breaks. My mothers phone is from 2009, for instance. Although I agree that replacing the battery is a problem since you have to know someone with a screwdriver or pay to have it replaced.

<comment><USER4> I don't really know why my mom struggled with it, but I guess it's because of the tree-like interface, and because normal users are used to rote learn their way around such interfaces, the classic problem of graphical interfaces ... she's used to all the options being available at first glance.

For instance if I wanted to make a call right now on my Android, I would press the green button with a phone icon on it. The logs view would pop-up because that's the last view I've used. To dial a number manually, I would have to select the "Keypad" tab. To search of a contact I have to press the "Contacts" tab, which on Android at least is a different app with a different top bar of tabs. Clicking on a name would show me that person's profile. I would have to do another click on his phone number to actually initiate the call.

This is in contrast with her Nokia phone - to dial a number out of memory, you just need to start dialing the number on the always available physical key pad, then you press the green button, which is also always available on display. To search for a contact, you press the down arrow and then upon selecting the desired entry you press the green button. To look in the logs, maybe to dial the last number dialed, you press the up arrow, dialing involving a press on the green button again.

So basically I think it's because every basic use-case involves a number of 2 or 3 steps that can be easily remembered because all the buttons are on display and there's also some consistency (dialing involves either typing or selecting a phone number + a press on the green button). Of course, she probably could have learned to use an iPhone if she really wanted to. But she doesn't have the patience anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think Nokia seriously underestimated the "Instagram/Zynga" factor when they decided to go with Windows Phone. The average consumer does a minimal amount of research before buying a phone, and typically buy whatever the sales representative recommends (unless they are looking for a specific model, like the iPhone or SGS3). But on top of that, consumers will still ask questions like:

1\. Oh my friend uses this app called "Instagram", does Windows Phone have "Instagram"?

2\. I want to play "Words with Friends" with my friends, can I do that on Windows Phone?

If the sales representative is honest (I mean he has to be or will get an instant return), the consumer is just going to pick up an equally cheap or cheaper Android phone.

The 920 does not solve this problem despite having pretty sweet hardware. Not only that, its a huge phone like the SGS3, but quite heavy, which will turn off a lot of consumers who want big screens, but light devices (you don't see Apple making bigger phones that are _heavier_ ). Even if the camera is the best on the market (and to be honest, I don't think it will be noticeably better than the iPhone5 and upcoming Android phones), without useful apps for sharing those photos, people won't be drawn to the platform.

Finally, things like wireless charging and using the phone with gloves on are not major selling points, just like NFC has never been a major selling point.

<comment><USER3> The sales representative isn't always honest, but he _will_ try to push whatever model the carrier is interested in pushing. Right now, carriers are interested in pushing Android since that ecosystem is aligned with the carriers interests (easily customizable).

Carriers are generally not interested in Windows Mobile and Nokia, and very few carriers are interested in pushing the iPhone even though they have to carry it due to customer demand.

<comment><USER6> > the conclusion is that they should switch to Android and sell commodity > smartphones?

I had my phone upgraded a couple months back and I certainly saw a lot of pushing for Lumia phones. Even when I asked specifically for an Android phone, the salesperson wanted me to consider a Lumia. After some friendly interrogation, she admitted the commission for selling a Lumia was about twice as much as the commission she would get for selling my the Android device, and part of it would be paid directly by Nokia through some incentive program.

Microsoft is spending a ton of money on it and a lot is channelled directly through Nokia.

<comment><USER3> That's right, I forgot that they had a push for the Lumia a while back, and maybe it's still ongoing. But even so, the sales have been low.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When he took over, Elop stated that it is 'a battle of ecosystems'. Having spent significant time with Nokia devices (including Maemo/Meego), I completely agree with him. A few years back Android itself was second choice for most mobile developers, and it was almost impossible for Nokia to get them to write apps. Also, Android picked up because of Google; if Samsung made Android it would have gone the Bada way.

WP8 is the first OS that gives Nokia a fighting chance against iOS/Android devices.

\- I have only seen positive reviews of this OS.

\- It is do or die for MS as well, expect massive ad spend this season.

\- Shared kernel with Windows. Attractive to millions of Windows developers. (Windows isn't cool anymore; but there are way, way more developers on Windows than any other platform.)

\- If resource constrained WP7 is anything to go by, WP8 will be smoother than any android phone in the market.

This is Elop's first, last and only chance. I'd rather give the man a fair chance.

Edit: formatting.

<comment><USER8> > Windows isn't cool anymore;

windows has never been cool; ubiquitous is the word you're probably thinking of.

<comment><USER9> In the 90's, having a Windows gaming machine was _cool_.

<comment><USER10> Especially considering consoles didn't have multiplayer beyond the living room. Having access to B.NET, Kali, MPlayer, and other gaming networks of the day was very cool.

<comment><USER9> I still think my dual boot Windows/Linux machine is cool, but I seem to be in a minority around here. Haters gonna hate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Once Microsoft buys them at a suitable price, they've got nothing to fear. Just like they did with Bing, Windows Phone, Xbox etc. Microsoft has deep enough pockets to continue pumping money into Nokia for making WP handsets until they gain meaningful market share.

I am not trying to critique Microsoft here - just that I see that as a likely scenario given the past and current circumstances. It only helps that both Microsoft (with Windows Phone 8) and Nokia (with hardware) are doing things mostly right.

<comment><USER8> > has deep enough pockets to continue pumping money into Nokia for making WP > handsets until they gain meaningful market share.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Them achieving meaningful market share with windowsphone would shock a lot of us in the industry since microsoft's track record so far has been that they suck pretty badly at hardware rollouts.

<comment><USER9> > they suck pretty badly at hardware rollouts.

The Xbox, and MS branded keyboards and mice are all highly successful and highly regarded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _"Nokia still sells almost a million phones a day"_

 _"Greenwich's Rehle said Nokia should focus on rolling out smartphones running on Google's Android software for millions of consumers in emerging markets who often still prefer Nokia's brand. Android models cost under $100 while the cheapest Windows Phone costs around $200"_

OK, so they're selling a million phones a day and not making a significant profit. The reason is that too few of the phones are high margin smartphones.

And from this the conclusion is that they should switch to Android and sell commodity smartphones? This doesn't sound like analysis. It sounds like Microsoft bashing.

<comment><USER6> > the conclusion is that they should switch to Android and sell commodity > smartphones?

They already sell commodity phones. In these markets people don't pick Nokia because of brand or features - they pick it because they need voice and text calls and Nokia's phones seem to be a slightly better value proposition (rugged, long battery life) than other low-end units.

Once other manufacturers manage to bring Android 2.x into the S40 price range (something Nokia certainly won't be able to accomplish with WP8), you'll see quick erosion of Nokia's share because other sets will have a much better value proposition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> IMHO Nokia had a promising platform in Meego. Would be interesting to see what would happen if it was given half a chance.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think they have any time left to risk it on going all-in with another platform with non-existent market share. If they fail to get significant momentum with WP8 this year, the kind of momentum they need to actually recover and also replace the Symbian sales, then they need to immediately switch to Android. If they want they can still do Meego on the side. But going Meego-only would be an even worse decision.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. It's too late now, and it's very sad to see.

If they had gone all-in on Meego a few years earlier, or chosen it instead of WP7 and made it run Android apps out of the box, maybe they would have had a fighting chance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd buy if they went back to meego/harmattan

<comment><USER15> They could sell this to a few geeks. But that's it. Meego never came even close to Android in terms of quality. And ern Android would probably not work for Nokia. Nokia is doing exactly the right thing - just years too late.

<comment><USER16> The main reason they are "too late" is that MS has screwed them - first by limiting the capabilities of WP7 phones, then by betraying them right at the time they launched their flagship and saying there'd be no upgrades to WP8 for ANY phones, and then finally for forcing them to wait forever to get Windows 8 devices out. In my view the Microsoft partnership has been a disaster for Nokia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If Nokia survives as an independent company, it is going to shrink considerably. They don't need a lot of people to be a little patent troll still making a product just to avoid the NPE pigeon hole.

<comment><USER17> They really have good products with the Lumia phones. I think they will make it, however I agree it will probably not as an independant company.

<comment><USER18> The Lumia hardware is really nice and robust. Lumia with Android would probably sell like hotcakes _right now_.

Now they are at the mercy of Microsoft, who seem to have trouble wrapping up WP8, can abandon the platform any moment (as they have done with Windows Mobile, WP7), or stop delivering updates for slightly older phones.

<comment><USER17> You might have a bias against WP. I own a Lumia and the experience is good, WP7 is a very decent OS.

<comment><USER18> I don't. I also have a Lumia with WP7, and I do like the operating system quite much. What I do not like is the lack of updates and that the Lumia that I bought relatively recently is now already obsolete. Coming from the iPhone, where I had years of updates, that's a few steps back.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Fitbit Inc. Just Lost a Third of Its Value - <AUTHOR> http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/03/why-fitbit-inc-just-lost-a-third-of-its-value.aspx <comment><USER2> What are the products better than Fitbit's which the article alludes to? I've generally been impressed with their products, and my experience with a competitor (Virgin Pulse) was terrible.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anecdotally, I'm noticing that friends that used to wear the fitbit and apply social pressure (through the fitbit app) to keep wearing it, have stopped. Also noticing a lot more people with smartwatches, including Apple iWatch. Without the social pressure, there doesn't seem to be much lock-in. Mine died and haven't felt the urge to replace it.

</comment><comment><USER4> My wife wears a fitbit and is currently on her second one. I Both items are physically failing and falling apart. Both items show breakages after about 10months. When the second item finally breaks, I'm pretty sure my wife won't be replacing it with another one from fitbit.

Must say that their customer service is pretty, too bad their product is not so robust.

</comment><comment><USER5> _sales growth would be just 2%-5%. Analysts were expecting much higher_

A company can't be profitable and grow at its own pace without being called a imminent failure.</comment>


Show HN: Magic Lasso, a high performance ad blocker for the iPhone, iPad and Mac - <AUTHOR> https://www.magiclasso.co <comment><USER2> So, as this apparently uses the native Safari content blocker mechanism, the only ways it can compete with things like .e.g 1Blocker, is on ruleset, both in terms of default rules, and how you can enable/disable/tweak/sync your desired rule set.

I don't see anything that relates to those things. Is that not a feature, or is there really no configuration available?

In the world of Safari ad blockers, claiming "faster than other blockers" doesn't mean much, because the _good_ blockers are all using the content blocker framework now, so the speed difference is negligible.

In case anyone wonders: I'm not affiliated with 1Blocker or it's developer. I do use it, and I've paid for the IAP to unlock features. I've also written 'packages' of rules for it ([https://bitbucket.org/stephenreay/1blocker- packages](https://bitbucket.org/stephenreay/1blocker-packages)).

<comment><AUTHOR> We take a slightly different philosophy in that we don't think most users will want to tweak different sets of rules etc. 1Blocker is a great product, but we think most everyday users will not want to configure rulesets in most circumstances.

Our goal is to produce the best default, current set of optimised rules which blocks ads and user trackers without requiring individual user configuration.

Obviously power users will possibly want to do more elaborate configuration. In future updates we are planning to enable more sophisticated whitelisting but probably won't have the extensive lists of different rulesets that 1Blocker features.

Rulesets are just one of the parts of a great Adblocking product. We believe we can also create a great product with our approach to rulesets and also differentiate on other features.

<comment><USER2> It's good to hear that you have reasoning behind your approach. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

Your 1Blocker packages look very useful for users and I can see the merit in being able to let users share and enable specific pre-packaged rules for particular sites.

May be something for us to consider to support in future releases of Magic Lasso (as long as we can make the process as streamlined and user friendly as possible).

<comment><USER2> One nice thing about 1Blocker 'packages' is that (from what I understand, I've read some of the content blocker docs when the WebKit team announced it, but not in-depth) they're essentially just using the native content blocker format.

If you were to go down that route, it might be useful (for end users) if your apps could read e.g 1blocker packages.

One thing thats still missing (AFAIK, happy to be shown otherwise) is a website/app to facilitate finding community built 1blocker packages, and adding them.

I guess if I get time one weekend I might build it...

<comment><AUTHOR> > One thing thats still missing (AFAIK, happy to be shown otherwise) is a > website/app to facilitate finding community built 1blocker packages, and > adding them.

This should perhaps be built into the Adblocker extension and enable users to see suitable packages in context when they are browsing compatible URLs ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I bought AdBlock by Future Mind on iOS. I use it because prior to iOS 10, you could load hosts (e.g. mvps) and block ads within apps, 3rd party browsers, etc. I want to block ads from more than Safari and AdBlock is more complete. On iOS 10 and above, I have to load MVPS hosts block lists manually but I can still do it with some effort.

Performance is much faster and saves me data on 4G LTE when you block ads on the DNS level.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sorry, there doesn't appear to be any actual content on this page.

If you want me to use your tool in a space I am already familiar with, you at least need to show me how your tool is better than any of the competitors that are already out there -- like uBlock Origin.

<comment><AUTHOR> Point taken - thanks, makes sense. There is more info available on the App Store page but you are correct that the website could be more informative. We'll look to update in the future.</comment></comment>


What Your Old Graphing Calculator Says About Technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/what-your-old-graphing-calculator-says-about-technology/244028/#.TlUaOxId6Os.hackernews <comment><USER2> There is a feedback aspect that this article does not seem to get.

> After all, the _material_ hasn't changed (much), so if the calculators were > good enough for us 10 or 15 years ago, they are still good enough to solve > the math problems.

Technology _changes_ the material: it changes what you think you need or want. You could almost say dialup internet was fine for viewing text web-pages -- why does it need to be faster? Broadband enabled web video -- which in turn spurred the need for broadband.

The calculator example looks a bit like a phone. If you took a phone from 2000 and one from 2007, they would look pretty similar. It is still a phone, is it not? We do not _need_ something more, do we? And then the iPhone appeared.

> Here's the thing. Some technologies don't change all that quickly because we > don't need them to. . . . Look at cars or power plants

Crikey! If you wanted to hit on two of the things we _do_ most need to change, and have for decades, it might well be just those.

The whole article disturbs me a bit, actually, because it seems dangerously full of the anti/un-creative mindset. You will never invent anything if you just look at what you have and think of justifications for why everything is pretty much fine. You create by _finding_ faults and imagining what you do _not_ have. Look at those two calculator pics, and think of them as representing some part of the web now and in 2021. Scary? Well that is what it _will_ be unless you get irritated and make some weird unexpected new stuff!

<comment><USER3> Excellent point! Commonly told anecdote, lady sees Faraday's inventions and asks "What is it good for", he answers "What good is a newborn baby!" (I just found out that this didn't exactly happen this way, see <http://www.jstor.org/pss/986790>, but you get the point). Some tech advances are pushed by necessity, some just happen (or may be pushed by some other necessity) and create the question or need that they then answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I loved the HP48 series in high school and college, and m48+ brings it to my iPhone. For the rare times I feel the need for something more powerful than the calculator built into Spotlight, and something less powerful than Clojure, I reach for it.

Never go into the HP50 series, though it does look nice. Probably would have started using it if I were still in school.

<comment><USER5> I didn't know people reimplemented these for phones.. I just grabbed Droid48 for my Android tablet, and will probably be trying it later.

Thanks for the heads up!

<comment><USER6> There is also AlmostTI for those rare N900 owners, <http://fms.komkon.org/ATI85/>

hmm.. there is a link to an Android port.. installing now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Want to see a non-incremental innovation for multi-touch calculators?

A friend of a friend wrote this: <http://mathtouchapp.com/> (He doesn't know I'm linking it here).

The app throws away the calculator metaphor and starts from scratch. Instead, the author uses the back-of-a-napkin as the metaphor.

You start with a blank page and add systems of equations. You can visually link variables together. You can insert values along with its unit of measurement and numeric precision. You can feed results to graphs.

At $10, this is cheaper than getting the Nspire if you already have an iOS device. But of course, you can't use it when taking the SAT. And it would be cool if you can export it to Wolfram's computational data format and trade formula libraries.

You need to actually understand the math instead of just punching the buttons. Then again, isn't that what Sal Khan's videos are for?

<comment><USER8> That's really cool! Non-incremental innovation indeed. Thanks for the link! Has this been submitted to HN proper?

<comment><USER7> I don't remember. I'm not very good at writing posts that get a lot of upvotes. You are more then welcomed to try -- this app can get all the marketing help it gets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The title should really be: "What Your Old Graphing Calculator Says About Our Education System."

<comment><USER10> Indeed. Conrad Wolfram has a great Ted talk on this very subject: [http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_m...](http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_math_with_computers.html)

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the link. I just finished listening to the talk in its entirety. I would love to know what you thought about the actual content of the talk ( ie. not the presentation skills...Conrad Wolfram is charismatic and his analogies are compelling ). I personally think he has completely missed the whole point of math, why does one do math, math education, and problem solving using math.

<comment><USER10> Interesting. I thought the most compelling part of the talk was his interpretation of the purpose for doing math and how we've failed to educate toward that purpose.

I assume you're referring to his assertion that deep understanding of by-hand calculation is not necessary (the driving a car vs servicing a car analogy). I would agree that this may be a false analogy, and that a basic understanding of mathematical concepts (presently drilled into place through hand calculation) may be a fundamentally important step to being able to do math. Especially for those who continue to any advanced math study, fundamental understanding is almost certainly necessary.

But this talk is more about the common student who doesn't go on to college or post-grad math. Overall the broader point of the talk still rings true to me: because of an overemphasis on calculation, the majority of students are receiving insufficient math education to successfully make life decisions and contribute to their own fields of work/study. In my mind, Wolfram presents a viable solution in recommending refocusing math education towards logical thinking and correctly structuring problems, and in utilizing computers for calculation.

<comment><USER11> >the most compelling part of the talk was his interpretation of the purpose for doing math

Exactly. Except that he misinterprets that very purpose. He assumes the purpose is entirely utilitarian. He implicitly says math should be about solving common real-world problems, like his concocted life-insurance premium minimization, which helps the common student make life decisions (as if!). While 100% of pure math folks would actively disagree with him, even 99% of applied math folk would have a tough time agreeing with his utilitarian mindset. We simply don't do math to just pay the bills. People were trisecting angles and squaring the circle and computing surds for over thousands of years with no utilitarian aspect whatsoever. He also says math problems must be rephrased as CS programming problems!!! I'm all for algebraic computing tools, and Mathematica is a rather neat addition to that category, but aside from that, the rest of his talk is beyond hyperbolic. Koblitz makes the case against computing here: <http://www.math.washington.edu/~koblitz/mi.html> But there's a very wide literature on why math & computers don't mix in the classroom - read Dr. Jeffery King on the art of math ([http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mathematics-Jerry-P- King/dp/030644...](http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mathematics-Jerry-P- King/dp/0306441292) ) - there's whole chapters in that book devoted to debunking what Conrad is talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't think there's much competition, either. HP appears to have bowed out of the graphing calculator market years ago. (though a Google turns them up?)

Also, for high-end math wizardry, it's very easy to simply not use a calculator: Maxima [1] obseleted my calculator for tasks that weren't tests

I suspect as smartphones get cheaper and finish their takeover, the calculator firmware will get loaded into an in-app emulator and there they will live.

<http://maxima.sourceforge.net/>

<comment><USER13> The HP graphing calculators are still alive and kicking. the HP 50g is honestly a far more awesome tool than the TIs (and for those few who care, allows RPN entry too). (it also has a pretty outstanding distribution of reviews on amazon)

Yes portable ipod touches and the like are moving to partially supplant these tools, but there are a lot of use cases where a calculator with dedicated physical button and a far better battery life than any apple gadget, while still fitting in your pocket and being a general purpose CAS, is quite a nice baseline.

<comment><USER14> And, at the lower end, HP also has a presence.

The HP 32SII (discontinued, now $139 on ebay; originally sold for less than half that price) and the HP 35S (redesigned version of the 33 which was the ugly successor to the 32SII) are non-graphing RPN machines that are very good for quick calculations. (My first and favorite HP, the 41, is much older than these, but it's too expensive to have one laying around everywhere I might need one.)

Even if I'm in front of a computer, typing in to a console window, it's faster to turn on the calculator than to enter bc, python, or matlab and type in the calculation. And with RPN you get to see the intermediate results so you know you're not forgetting something.

<comment><USER15> dc is the standard RPN console app that's been around forever (according to Wikipedia it predates the C language). It loads instantly but I always have a terminal window running it somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'll repost the comment I left on the article:

I used a TI-66 as an undergrad (Purdue - Computer Technology), but I graduated from college(the first time) in 1988. Was great that I could program in frequently used equations. Later as an MBA student I picked up an HP 19Bii Business Consultant Calculator for all the financial functionality.

They let you use a calculator on the SAT now? That is my "You kids get off my lawn" moment of the story.

Oh, and <https://www.xkcd.com/768/>

<comment><USER17> _They let you use a calculator on the SAT now?_

Indeed. It seems like more and more, math classes are teaching students how to use a graphing calculator to avoid solving problems.

I used a scientific calculator all through high school and college. I don't remember if I got to use it on the SAT.

<comment><USER18> Ideally, wouldn't math classes teach students how to solve the parts of problems that computers aren't as good at? I mean, I'm happy that I can use memorized multiplication tables to make my quick estimates of various quantities accurate to two orders of magnitude instead of one, but that's about all they're good for. Anything more, and I pull out my phone or head over to wolframalpha. And I'd much rather have spent those years of brute- force arithmetic practice advancing to higher, more interesting math.

<comment><USER17> The point of a math education is to understand what's going on. If you can't work problems, you don't really know what's happening, and you will have trouble applying the concepts outside of strictly defined problem spaces from classrooms.

Learning to use computing to do the heavy lifting is great, but I often see learning to use the sin() function used as a proxy for learning what sin() is, for example.

<comment><USER19> > If you can't work problems, you don't really know what's happening

On the contrary: If all your 'work' can be done even faster by a machine, you don't know any more than the machine does and your skills are worthless once your wages are more expensive than just buying and maintaining the machine.

Real mathematicians use software like R and Matlab and so on, because their real skill lies in knowing what to do with the software and how to interpret the results it gives.

<comment><USER17> _Real mathematicians use software like R and Matlab and so on, because their real skill lies in knowing what to do with the software and how to interpret the results it gives._

Of course! But what I would contest is that (at least in my humble experience) knowing what to do with the software and how to interpret the results comes with learning about how those results are produced.

When I want to analyze a complicated circuit, I don't use a pencil and paper, I use pspice. But I would not be able to create a useful model, run useful tests, or make sense of the output if I was not _able_ to (at least once upon a time) do it on paper.

<comment><USER19> This post seems to contradict what you said above:

> It seems like more and more, math classes are teaching students how to use a > graphing calculator to avoid solving problems.

This is, simply, wrong: Calculators are banned for as long as students are learning to calculate. Once they are actually solving problems, as opposed to grinding through numbers (which isn't something they need to be doing anyway), they're thinking in ways calculators cannot match. A calculator can only do the most mechanical, least problem-solving-like parts of solving a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I haven't changed the batteries in 8 months. I can do math on my TI-89 Titanium without even looking at it, that's not possible with any tablet. Real buttons are worth the extra money. Depending on the complexity of the problem, there's many I'd rather use a calculator than even Maple or Mathematica, both of which would be an absolute nightmare to do on my iPhone. Also, _you can still program it_ , which isn't available on anything iOS related unless you used javascript somehow (Fucking up the semi-empirical mass formula in Nuclear Physics was practically a pastime on my homework before I wrote a small basic program). Furthermore, no teacher/professor in their right mind is going to let anyone use a device capable of wireless communications on a test.

<comment><USER21> +1 for real buttons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Standardized tests also help maintain a niche for Standardized calculators.

<comment><USER16> I kinda boggles my mind that they allow calculators on the SAT now. Some googling indicates that they are still prohibited on the GMAT.

<comment><USER23> Calculators haven't been allowed on the GRE either but with the new one (it either started this month or next month), they are offering an on-screen calculator built into the test.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Meanwhile, over in Europe: <http://www.geogebra.org/cms/>

Geogebra is open source and funded with EU grants. They're about to launch version 4, I think, but I don't care because v5 has been in stable beta for the last 6 months.

<comment><USER25> If it's paid by my taxes they better remove that GPL license out of it.

Tax money = public domain

<comment><USER26> I don't understand your logic. The GPL ensures that the software is free for you, your children and their children to modify as they please.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> That's nothing. The HP12C is thirty years old and still lists for $70.

In other words, it was cutting edge in 1981 along with the original IBM PC.

[[http://www.amazon.com/HP-12c-Financial- Calculator-12C/dp/B00...](http://www.amazon.com/HP-12c-Financial- Calculator-12C/dp/B00000JBLH/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1314214865&sr=8-4)]

[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-10C_series#HP-12C>]

</comment><comment><USER28> Repost of my comment on the atlantic article:

The fault lies with the college board. A useful standardized test would either: * not require a calculator at all, testing understanding instead of computation or * allow access to real world tools-- including free ones like <http://wolframalpha.com> and <http://desmos.com/calculator> (full disclosure-- I helped build the latter)

How much time is wasted teaching the unnecessary skills of how to use an antiquated, expensive device merely because tests require it? We should be teaching our students which resources are available, which to use in which situations, and how to plug in the gaps between them

</comment><comment><USER29> People find it amazing that an analog oscilloscope from 1985 sells for $200 on the used market. Or that a milling machine from 1965 sells for $1,200. Tools, certainly solid tools, derive their value from their ability to meet the need, and once silicon density intersected with the needs of high school math they reached 'equilibrium.' From that point on, a solid calculator has an intrinsic value. What is more its pretty clear that the value is higher than the cost of manufacturing it, so building solid calculators is nearly always going to have some 'profit' associated with it.

Personally the TI-92+ was the pinnacle, it was basically a Sun-2 workstation with Macsyma installed in a handheld unit. I've still got mine :-)

<comment><USER17> The reason an analog 'scope from 1985 can fetch $200 is a combination of things, and you're forgetting at least two:

1) A quality scope is expensive to make. Those 'scopes, expensive as they may seem, are priced at a fraction of the cost to make one; it is not just their utility, but also the cost of making on that keeps their value above $5.

2) Modern, new quality 'scopes cost thousands of dollars, so $200 seems cheap in comparison.

<comment><USER29> True, both of these. Although the recent move to 'USB' type scopes has some people wondering if maybe moving all the 'display/ux' bits to a laptop warrants the price reduction.

I was trying to explain the difference between the Tektronix probe frontend (expensive american brand) and the Rigol (cheap chinese brand) scopes to a hobbyist and they couldn't really appreciate the flat frequency response from DC to the scope's rated frequency of the Tek front end, whereas there was a little more than 1dB dropoff in the frequency response on the Rigol as it approaches its rated frequency.

(Oh and the Tek actually 'works' to nearly double its rated frequency and the Rigol certainly does not do that)

I worry though that 'good enough' will make it hard to find quality test gear going forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> TI calculators were toys for children. Real Engineers use HP!

Lots of good memories with my HP-48G, until it got stolen just before I graduated.

<comment><USER31> Real Engineers use Curtas!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think it says more about the state of high school math. technology meets the needs of the market, and this market hasn't changed much in 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER33> It says "Get a powerful oligopoly to essentially require your product and say goodbye to competition! Cut R&D and cruise down easy street."

</comment><comment><USER34> I still have my TI-83+ from my highschool days. Honestly, I couldn't survive without it. When I have to do hard core matrix algebra or graphing, and I need to be in front of my book, I can't use the PC or tablet -- it just doesn't fit in the zone. The physical nature of the calculator, the portability, and tactile feedback are all necessary.

Also, the TI-83+ takes a beating. ;)

</comment><comment><USER35> Come back to teenagedom in 1985. You listened to the FM radio, because CD's hadn't been invented yet. You made calls on a landline, and yes, it was called "the phone". You didn't have a beeper. You didn't have "the internet" (it had been invented, but you had not heard of it yet). Instead, you had local dial up BBS's on a 1200 bps modem (if you were very lucky) or on a 300 bps modem (typical). You most likely had an Atari 2600 as your "game system" (that is, if you had a "game system" at all). And your calculator of choice was the HP-15C.

Well, maybe most didn't have a HP-15C, but that was the calculator I had. Still have it actually, and it still works as well today as it did then.

<comment><USER36> You're a bit off about CD's. They weren't popular yet, but they did exist. They first went on sale in the US in 1983, and 4% of albums sold in 1985 were on CD.

For portable music in 1985, there were also cassette tapes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> While I am geeky, I always felt that the graphing calculators did not contribute much to my math classes. And neither were they a significant gateway into technology - few people went beyond the simplest functionality.

<comment><USER17> That's because graphing calculators are, as best I understand it, really a tool for post-undergraduate level math.

Of course, anymore if you're doing anything that requires the full muscle of a graphing calculator, you're using Mathematica or MATLAB instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I used my TI-83 for quasi-cheating (it was loaded with extra info and formulas in notes) and playing mario or tetris. It served me well.

</comment><comment><USER39> Other people must be thinking this as well, but it seems likely/obvious that the graphing calculator will go extinct, replaced by an app on a touchscreen device (not an emulated ti-82, but a _better_ more intuitive graphing calc). Sounds like a pretty promising start-up. That the TI-82 is still $70 is unbelievable.

<comment><USER40> Actually, I started working on something like this last week, as a pet project to keep me busy. In essence, what you need is a basic programming language that's geared a little bit more towards mathematics (so you can do little things like 2log(n) instead of 2 * log(n) and actually use π as a constant instead of something like Math.PI), a REPL and a way to graph functions. That's feature equivalence, and that's easy.

The cool part is when you start thinking about how to innovate on top of that. Then you can add things like:

* the ability to display and remember the results of a whole range of calculations on a single screen instead of always having to write stuff down or bring back old calculations, e.g. <http://stuff.stdout.be/graphcalc.png> (think iPad app)

* the ability for teachers to follow along on their own screen as you're doing calculations, to help out, maybe even allow teachers to take over control (remotely) to show stuff

* save calculations and make little reports, which could serve as homework

* slowly learn general-purpose programming along the way, simply by having the thing based off a language like CoffeeScript instead of Texas Instruments' own half-assed TI-BASIC.

* extensions for physics and chemistry, so it's not just about math

I don't know if it'd really make sense as a startup (tablets are still too expensive and the nice thing about graphing calculators is that they're small and people can't browse the internet on them) but the whole "let's try to reinvent some ancient technology using modern tools" thing is pretty fun.

If anybody else is looking for a weekend hack project, I'd gladly open-source what I have thus far.

<comment><USER41> Frankly if you replicate the TI-83's layout in a GUI, and emulate its OS, and sell it for $10 on the App Store, you'd make millions. Any student carrying around an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad would gladly pay that, rather than $100 for a new bulky TI-83, and use that in school instead. Makes their lives simpler by only having a single device.

Replicating the interface is key. From my experience, most teachers were horribly confused if someone brought in a TI-89 or, forbid, a TI-92. Why? Different UI that they don't know. You can't teach students how to use their calculator unless you know how to use it yourself.

After, you can add in all sorts of extra features like you mentioned. But "A TI-83 that runs on iOS" is probably the first feature that people will pay for.

It does bring up the issue of students cheating on tests, using their iOS "calculators", but last time I checked it's not too hard to hide notes on your TI-83 either...

It's an idea I've had for an iOS app for a while, but don't have the time to dedicate to it (working on something else).

<comment><USER42> The presence of a network connectivity on an iPhone (or even an iPod Touch) is a bigger problem than the ability to put notes in it. Notes are just a basic help, while the full answer is a different matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Have a 14 year old TI-89, that I still use to this day. It's small, simple, quick, and have all the functions and symbols I use under the custom menu. Amazing their haven't been any screen and function improvements (built in programs).

</comment><comment><USER44> All I would change about my graphing calculator is speed and perhaps a brighter, higher-resolution screen.

</comment><comment><USER45> I miss my old Ti-89. it really was the best graphics calculator I ever used.</comment>


Ask HN:  Would you sign up for a sales bootcamp? - <AUTHOR> I have in mind an 8-10 week program that would turn you into a sales superstar.  Content would include:<p>-  Crafting the story for any product -  Creating the pitch deck -  Learning how to sell multiple different product types (SaaS, Packaged Goods, Yourself) -  Presenting in various formats (1-1, in person, to a group, phone, screenshare, Skype, etc.) -  Negotiations -  Prospecting -  Creating a team of virtual assistants to drive inbound sales (which you would take with you from the course) -  Outside Sales -  Social selling skills - content creation, use of Linkedin, Slideshare etc.<p>Also - I'm curious what other things people would like to see in such a program.  The intent is that any Tech, Finance, or Fortune 500 would hire graduates from this program into a mid-level sales role, or that any technical founder could effectively drive the business side of their startup. <comment><USER2> I don't have any interest in being a salesman (working for someone else). As someone in the very early stages of trying to start my own business (technical founder), this type of thing sounds interesting, but 8-10 weeks of a full immersion program is just too much. Even if I had the time and the money to attend a rigorous 2 month bootcamp, I have a hard time believing that would be a good use of my time. Something more tailored to a part time schedule would be more interesting to me, and even then it would be a tough sell.

But if you do decide to push ahead with it, good luck. I do think there's probably room for this type of thing targeted to sales people if you can deliver the goods. I've only known a few people in sales, but it truly is a wonderful sight to see a pro work his magic.

</comment><comment><USER3> 8-10 weeks sounds like a _very_ long time for basic sales training, whilst companies hiring mid-level candidates will tend to favour a track record of closing business over a sustained period of time (showing qualities of consistency and resilience that can't be taught) over successful passing of theory tests.

That said, there's a huge sales training market out there, I just think there's a good reason most courses are aimed to be short bursts at different stages of a salesperson's career.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sales training is already a pretty crowded, competitive space. What's your Secret Sauce? [http://www.sellingpower.com/2013/sales-training- companies/to...](http://www.sellingpower.com/2013/sales-training- companies/top-twenty-listing/)

It's unlikely I would hire program graduates, without a proven sales track record. But if the program content is solid, I might sponsor my people for additional/on-going training.

</comment><comment><USER5> Have you heard of Tradecraft? You might consider reaching out to alumni of the program, and asking them about their experience. You could get insights on how those students found out about Tradecraft to help you sell your bootcamp.

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

</comment><comment><USER6> Personally I think there is room for training in the way you describe it. I do not think I am very good at sales, so I've looked into a lot of programs to get better. But none touch on all the pieces you mentioned in your post.

Is there a big market? Not sure - would I be interested - yes.</comment>


College Advice I Wish I'd Taken - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/opinion/college-advice-professor.html <comment><USER2> My top 3.

1\. Show up to office hours. Even if you sit there and do nothing, TA's notice -- and TAs will absolutely spill the beans on what to prep for for exams, even unintentionally.

2\. If you're so brainfried that you can't study any more, go to the gym. Not only is exercise generally good, I'm real convinced it's good for memory consolidation too.

3\. If you're attending an expensive private university, networking is effectively what you're buying. Exploit ruthlessly.

<comment><USER3> >3\. If you're attending an expensive private university, networking is effectively what you're buying. Exploit ruthlessly.

This is how I got into my job. It's never too late. Bring yourself out and talk to people.

<comment><USER2> you and me both.

my first graduate school advisor took me on as a full staff member 5 years out of undergrad. It turns out he knew exactly who i was and was keeping tabs on me in industry, waiting for me to reenter the market. I don't know what I did to deserve that, but I'm eternally grateful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Like most college advice, this is a combination of "what my professors wish I would do" and "what future me will wish I did".

Good advice doesn't just tell you what you will be glad you did later, it directly addresses the real problems that you have _now_. It's not easy to give because it requires that you step into someone else's shoes. The last one suggesting seeking out emotional support is probably the closest to this, but it's also some of the most common pieces of advice published anywhere.

<comment><USER5> I remember being told my generation were going to have it rough. One old man in particular seemed to single out my profession (mathematics) as some sort of ultimate cure all that should feel the burden of solving all of societies problems. Pretty heavy to lay that on anyone.

And yet I don't know what I would actually suggest people consider. Health care does have good, local growth prospects at least. But that's very much not for everyone, myself included. It just seems like more than ever that outside of very few localities work and the "American dream" are way off from the realm of possibilities.

<comment><USER6> Healthcare and tech are basically the two "jobs of the future". "Local growth" pfffft. More people need more healthcare. There are few surer things.

<comment><USER7> Especially with all of the baby boomers getting old and needing care. If I was in college I'd figure out what kind of health care old people need the most and go into that. At least, that's what I would do if I was in it for the money. I studied Ancient Near Eastern Studies in college, so obviously I wasn't in it for the money ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree with _everything_ in the article. However, it was written from the Liberal Arts POV and I was in Engineering.

Get all your reading done before class. Class is review.

If you have a paper due get a draft done a week ahead of time. Then you can hammer on it over the week.

Shop for TAs the first week. In a big lecture class, your TA will make the class.

Avoid bad teachers. I never didn't get into a class. But I dropped three classes the first week because I thought the lecturer was weak. There was something else better to take. I missed a class that was only taught once a year but the prof sucked. Nothing is worth that. There is another way, always.

If you're in STEM you'll have to take some LA classes for breadth. Make these count. These aren't classes you have to take. These are classes you get to take.

Hit the gym. A lot.

<comment><USER9> > If you're in STEM you'll have to take some LA classes for breadth. Make > these count. These aren't classes you have to take. These are classes you > get to take.

I regretted I didn't. I consistently find myself unable to have any meaningful conversations with anyone on anything outside of Computer Science (even then I am only comfortable discussing security and infrastructure; ask me about compiler I can tell you the basics and that's about it). Good teachers teaching LA can prepare you becoming more full-stack in life :) Good LA classes are usually more discussion-oriented (but I REALLY HATE WRITING PAPERS).

<comment><USER8> I used to hate writing papers, especially in HS. But what I was really hating was the night before it was due, thinking somehow the magic would happen. It never did.

The key is getting a draft out, literally a raw simple draft of what you're gonna say, a week ahead of time. It's kind've like pseudo code. Then fill that in.

Then I'd hammer on my papers over the week. They'd start out raw and get better and better. I'd tweak. I'd find a better word. (Is this sounding familiar?) I'd _work_ on it.

When I turned it in, I knew I was getting an A. I had two papers quoted in lecture. _Hey wait, I wrote that!_ I don't think I ever got less than a B+, generally A's.

Writing isn't magic. It's _work_. In fact, what 'they' do isn't really that much different from what 'we' do.

<comment><USER9> I agree. I usually start with the first paragraph, but if I am unable to complete the first paragraph (where I state my stand), I just go into the body. I usually have the outline on a piece of paper, and probably erase the whole word doc a few times. On this topic: I don't like setting an upper bound for word limit. The longest essay I have ever written was 15 pages because I had so much to write...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I barely made it through college and I can tell you what eventually was the most valuable thing I that was doing there:

Networking.

I didn't fail linear algebra because a friend explained one important concept to me twenty minutes before the exam.

I got my first(not related to my education) job because I helped a friend with calculus(his father was a manager in a company and hired me shortly after his son passed his exams).

I got my first paid internship because I bumped into my friend while I was visiting some other friends in their dorm(apparently the said friend's manager was looking to spend his budget - or so it seemed given that the hiring process was a formality really).

I got my first "real" job because a friend of mine ran a company and was in need of devs.

I could go on and on. Basically connections were the thing that jump-started my career.

So my advice would be: try to be likable and hang out with people with grit.

<comment><USER11> Agreed with your whole comment except this:

> _try to be likable_

You can't do that. But showing genuine interest in what people think and do, being a listener and not only a talker, is what gets many people to like you. And that's not something that's easy to fake. You have to be genuinely curious about other people's perspective and context.

<comment><USER10> I didn't specify _how_ exactly you should be achieving that so I'm assuming you assumed that I was assuming that networking is all about drawing attention.

Anyway I originally went entirely against your advice here and it worked for me. Mostly because my fellow computer science students hated initiating smalltalk and enjoyed a good story, so lifting this burden off them was good.

I guess what it shows is that neither of our approaches are guaranteed to work.

<comment><USER11> Yep, wrong assumption.

Also, small talk and a good story aren't mutually exclusive. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I disagree with a good bit of this advice. And I suspect it varies with the discipline of study.

In a field like computer science, time is better spent working on personal projects, hashing out ideas with peers and exploring research opportunities than aspiring to get an A in every class. A's make for boring, one dimensional students. People who make priorities based on more complex factors than an arbitrary letter grade are preferable to interact and work with.

<comment><USER13> College is the one time you have direct, easy access to all those things that those who didn't go or didn't take advantage of are now struggling to learn on their own. Books, videos, and websites are a poor substitute to having someone who knows sit down and explain stuff to you.

Don't waste the opportunity.

<comment><USER14> > Books, videos, and websites are a poor substitute to having someone who > knows sit down and explain stuff to you.

For subjects like math and CS, these things are great substitutes. For things like mycology or religious studies, less so. I think there is something to be said for using your time in college to focus more on the subjects that are basically unlearnable via other channels.

For things like CS though, just sitting down and spending a weekend watching Tim Roughgarden's YouTube channel will give you more than enough algorithm and data structure knowledge to get a job as a developer or whatever.

<comment><USER5> As my math advisor said, even subjects like math are best conveyed person to person. There are subconscious and nonverbal communication factors that can't be reproduced in a video or book.

<comment><USER14> Sure, I was mostly referring to calculus and the other subjects you study as an undergrad though, where the trade books you can get on Amazon are generally much better than the textbooks that the university courses use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nothing in there about money? Here's one I figured out a couple years too late...

You got average grades and nothing unusual about you that would lead to scholarships? If you go to school the "normal" way you're likely to end up in huge piles of debt. Even if you go to community college first.

An open secret is location. Find a place in the country, or even another country, where college is subsidized for residents. Instead of going to community college in your home town, prioritize moving to that location ASAP.

Get a part time job, a crappy apartment, and start community college there. Pay close attention to their residency requirements to make sure you meet them as quickly as possible. Then transfer to the college of your choice and save tons of money

<comment><USER16> good luck affording an apartment pretty much anywhere that is anything like that with a part time job these days.

<comment><USER15> This sounds unreal, but I found a place that was $210 a month about 6 years ago. The area was sketchy and the place was crap. Best thing about it was that it didn't have roaches.

Since college funding is usually on state level you have some latitude with where you initially move. Going to a community college in a farm town doesn't sound like a blast but it's probably the easiest way to make things work from a cash flow perspective.

Your friends/family are likely to think your "master plan" is crazy too lol

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> ...aaaaaand learning things takes a back seat to credentialism in the whole article. We should go to college because it is the most cost effective way of learning things, not because our profs bestow favors on the front row.

<comment><USER11> As mentioned in the article -- "professors are humans too".

If you show genuine interest, they'll remember and favor you. That's how us the humans work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm surprised this doesn't seem to mention cost, aside from A's lead to scholarships.

Many community colleges offer guaranteed admission to state schools so long as a GPA is maintained. It can save the student tens of thousands in fees.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well, apparently being good at college is not a requirement for becoming professor... But I don't get that US GPA system. If B is the second best grade from 5 available grades, and GPA goes from 1 to 5 with 5 best, shouldn't this translate to 4/5 then?

We here usually just average the grades from the courses. But on the other hand, nobody cares about that score and it's not written anywhere officially. Because teachers are different and schools are different, a C with one Prof could still be better than an A with another one.

<comment><USER19> Ok nevermind, seems there is the max 4 and max 5 system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > . Recently I learned that my niece Dara, a sophomore at New York University > with a 3.7 G.P.A. (and a boyfriend), was offered a week of travel in Buenos > Aires as part of her honors seminar. I was retroactively envious to learn > that a 3.5 G.P.A. or higher at many schools qualifies you for free trips, > scholarships, grants, awards, private parties and top internships

For some reason I don't think this is common.

</comment><comment><USER21> ROTC can get you a scholarship and a great job out the door, plus loads of opportunities and leadership experience during your career no one else gets.

Plus you are defending an entire country. And much of our country's leadership class comes from the military, so it gives you a bigger say in where our country is going.

</comment><comment><USER22> Somebody once ran into Vladimir Putin at some diplomatic cocktail party when he was just a mid-level KGB guy, and they asked him what he did. Answer: "I mingle."

</comment><comment><USER23> Sleep more often.

</comment><comment><USER24> > I reward those who try harder with recommendations, references, professional > contacts and encouragement.

...and everyone knows that recommendations from writing professors are what helps you land the jobs that make the big $$$.

</comment><comment><USER25> Sorry, but this does not contain any special insights. Reads like platitudes.

My luke warm insights:

\- Stay fit, keep your back trained.

\- Mitigate risks to your mental well being

\- Socialize

\- Do the work

\- Take advantage of opportunities given to students (travel, discounts, university resources)

</comment><comment><USER26> I didn't go to college in the US so I'm a bit surprised:

A's come with perks - seriously? Maybe when you're 6 that is a thing, when you're 20 I thought you'd grown out of that.

Asking questions in class - I hate these people, 50-200 people have to listen while some prima donna wants all the attention.

After one of my intro sessions, a freshman from Idaho blurted out: "Awesome class! It's like you stuck my fingers in a light socket." I laughed and invited her to speed walk with me around the local park - I guess arse lickers are everywhere.

<comment><USER19> Well it was up to 700 for me. At least in the first years. Also felt the questions were annoying there. Especially because it was so basic stuff you can find everywhere in the internet. In the specialized courses in the master there were often only 2-20 people and this was completely different, with topics that are state of the art in research and material you can't find online so easily.</comment></comment>


What does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2016? - <AUTHOR> http://christophjanz.blogspot.com/2016/05/what-does-it-take-to-raise-capital-in.html <comment><USER2> Great post, I am working on my own side project, but it is just for fun. I am not sure if I would ever raise capital for it, but this napkin will come in handy if I ever change my mind.</comment>


Liquibase – Source control for your database - <AUTHOR> http://www.liquibase.org/ <comment> why-el We used this back when I worked in Brazil. Liquibase is fine and solved some of our problems keeping schema migrations in sync across developers, but I remember it lacked some essential features such as syntax correction. I remember I wrote a couple of Ruby scripts to check things for me.

The catch phrase is unfortunate, because it could trick one to think this backs your data. This is basically a Rails migrations like solution that relies on XML files to describe changes to your schema.

Update: And now JSON even. Hoorray.

<comment><USER2> You can write your schema in the sql dialect of your choice. No xml required, cept one config file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> OK, I haven't used this, but I don't see too much use in trying to revert your database the same way you do with source code. Databases are not fixed, you never restart / rerun a database in the same way you do with code, the data and schema make sense together. I imagine trying to revert a database change to be messy and unpredictable. If you need to revert back to a previous state, you might as well just restore from a backup. Then your data and schema will be correct together. Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER4> This isn't so much to revert your database, but to manage your schema migrations in a similar fashion to rake db:migrate.

Liquibase works well with Spring, so you can have the Spring context run migrations as required without involving application code. This is a very good thing. Without this, you have to have your code up your own solution for figuring out at runtime if your database schema is in line with your Entity objects (assuming your using JPA).

<comment><USER5> Definitely agree. I use liquibase so that I can check database migrations into source control and have an easy way for other developers to update to the new schema without having to understand a whole lot. It also provides a nice way to drop your whole database and recreate it if you need to.

In addition, much like how unit tests force you to think about how to write code, rollbacks help when writing schema migrations to make sure that something could be undone if necessary. In practice, I've rarely used them though, and if you do it's likely going to be on a dev/staging server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks like a framework-agnostic version of Rails Migrations. Neat. Combined with git hooks could be useful - so when I merge a coworker's code I also get their schema updates.

</comment><comment><USER7> I stumbled on this after commenting recently about Stellar. Sqitch was mentioned, so I decided to search for similar tools. I plan on trying them out as soon as I have time, but would be interested to hear some pros and cons from those who've used either or both.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've used this a while back and I can tell that if you need a database migration tool this one should be on the top of the list.

</comment><comment><USER9> Flyway

<comment><USER10> [http://flywaydb.org/](http://flywaydb.org/)</comment></comment>


Secrets of the first practical artificial leaf - <AUTHOR> http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=223&content_id=CNBP_029905&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=e6e067fa-7208-4256-83d6-3da5276ac52e See abstract: http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ar2003013 <comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, for those interested in the real deal (much more detailed) see here: [http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ar...](http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ar2003013)</comment>


Those Mythological "Jobs Of Tomorrow" - <AUTHOR> https://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2020/01/those-mythological-jobs-of-tomorrow.html <comment><USER3> >My objection is that all this talk about STEM is just the latest way to keep our schools focused exclusively on vocational training, to prepare our children for those mythological "jobs of tomorrow," jobs that may exist today, but are unlikely to exist two decades from now when our preschoolers are seeking to enter the job market... Anyone who claims to know the specific skills required for the jobs of tomorrow is just blowing smoke. They are wrong and they have always been wrong.

It seems that Teacher Tom is missing the point about early STEM education (this seems particularly worrying given that he is a teacher). The point is not to teach preschoolers how to use, for example, TensorFlow so that they can develop deep learning models (who are predict if this would have any relevance for the future?).

Instead, the point is to help kids to develop a background in math, physics, chemistry, etc. whose basic foundations haven't changed in the fundamental way in the past 50 years. In particular, developing an understanding of math takes time, and seems likely to required for many jobs for tomorrow. Would Teacher Tom contest the point that math will be necessary for jobs of the future? Perhaps Teacher Tom's object was just to write a provocative article to generate blog traffic, (fair enough) but the argument presented in the blog does not seem very well reasoned.

<comment><USER4> It seems to be a common thing for people who didn't get a decent education in maths and science to decry the teaching of maths and science.

<comment><USER5> To go on a tangent, one very important topic (even more than STEM) that I don't think is formally taught at all is governance.

I think children should get a proper education formally and practically on how to balance and how to meet the political (in the sense that these are needs that are solved at the societal / collective level) needs of a group of people. It doesn't have to be a large group; along the lines of the entire school or talking about the needs of a district or city would do. I think that such education would go a long way to help people understand what is important in governance, and be more resistant to political ideology that is harmful to these things.

<comment> barry-cotter One in five Americans cannot name any of the branches of government. Only 46% know each state has two senators. It is extremely difficult to get people to retain any knowledge they neither use nor care about.

Teaching children how to organize to solve their own problems would be antithetical to the incentives of any normal school's administration. Children who can self-organize to oppose them are a threat. If people wanted children to learn how to organize, be capable and be self-efficacious democratic schools like Summerhill or Sudbury would be vastly more popular. They don't. They want childcare that teaches children to sit down, shut up and do as they're told.

<comment><USER6> The solution to this problem is not education but limiting the vote to those who have shown themselves to be responsible and competent voters.

<comment> barry-cotter Who do you trust to administer that test? I don't trust anyone with the power to deprive other people of all effective power. If you don't have a vote even the best "representative" in the world will place less effort into helping you than someone who also needs their help who can vote for them.

<comment><USER6> The people who choose not to vote deprive themselves of the vote. Do you trust them to do so?

<comment> barry-cotter Yes. They do not deprive themselves of the power to vote as your proposal does. You may not care about the difference between the plausible candidates currently on offer enough to vote. But if the Communist Party seems likely to get into government suddenly a lot more people will care.

A power not exercised is still relevant insofar as it can be.

<comment><USER6> I'm not proposing to deprive anyone of the vote if they are willing to show themselves to be responsible.

I would make a simple criteria: if you are a net taxpayer, you get to vote. If you are a net loss to the government, you don't get to vote.

If people have control over their circumstances, then they will be able to arrange their life in such a way that they can enable their voting power and vote responsibly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is wrong on two levels.

First:

> My objection is that all this talk about STEM is just the latest way to keep > our schools focused exclusively on vocational training, to prepare our > children for those mythological "jobs of tomorrow," jobs that may exist > today

My first grader is going to college in 11 years. 11 years ago was 2009. The jobs were more or less the same. She'll be graduated in 15. 15 years ago was 2005. The jobs were the same.

Second: the article conflates STEM with vocational training. It's not. It's an alternative framework to the "liberal arts education." Even if the "jobs of tomorrow" are different, a STEM education will prepare kids for it better than a liberal arts education. The idea that a "liberal arts education" is the "all purpose flour" of education is obsolete. It's an artifact of the culture of western aristocrats.

> No, the purpose of education in a democracy ought to be to prepare children > for their role as citizens and that means that they learn to think for > themselves, that they ask a lot of questions, that they question authority, > that they stand up for what they believe in, and that they understand that > their contribution to the world cannot be measured in money

A STEM education is better for that too! Citizens who cannot think about the world in numeric and statistical terms are not prepared to understand it, or the complex choices facing them.

> I did not enter the teaching game to prepare young children for their role > in the economy

Teachers are deeply confused about their role. They're public employees who are hired to prepare kids for the work force because that is what taxpayers pay them to do. We don't spend $1 trillion a year on public education to have teachers indoctrinate kids on their philosophical and political views. (Now that I have my own kids in school, I understand why my mom, moving to the US from an Asian country 30 years ago, was so befuddled by the education I was receiving.)

<comment><USER8> > Citizens who cannot think about the world in numeric and statistical terms > are not prepared to understand it, or the complex choices facing them... We > don't spend $1 trillion a year on public education to have teachers > indoctrinate kids on their philosophical and political views.

I think the "liberal" in "liberal arts" is throwing you off :-P.

Math, stats, and logic is very much part of a liberal arts education.[1] So are life and natural sciences, philosophy, history, geography, and political science. I would imagine learning all of these would make you a better informed citizen.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education#Modern_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education#Modern_usage)

<comment><USER7> From that link:

> In the Renaissance, the Italian humanists and their Northern counterparts, > despite in many respects continuing the traditions of the Middle Ages, > reversed that process. Re-christening the old trivium with a new and more > ambitious name: Studia humanitatis, and also increasing its scope, they > _downplayed logic_ as opposed to the traditional Latin grammar and rhetoric, > and added to them history, Greek, and moral philosophy (ethics), with a new > emphasis on poetry as well.

In practice, modern "liberal arts" programs often dispense with logic, math, and empirical science. Again, from your link:

> For example, the core courses for Georgetown University's Doctor of Liberal > Studies program cover philosophy, theology, history, art, literature, and > the social sciences.

More fundamentally, it's insufficient to throw in a few courses on math that everyone quickly forgets. Math, science, and logic should be the _basic foundation_ for cultivating children's world view, not literature, philosophy, or social studies.

For example, consider how kids learn about history. They read stories, mostly focused on individuals. But that's not the only way to learn history. I took a class at Georgia Tech in the history of science, which looked at the impact on society of various technological advances. History education doesn't quantify anything. But we have lots of data. What was the GDP per capita of ancient Egypt versus Mesopotamia? What are quantitative indicators we can use to help put those societies into context and compare them with ours? what was the infant mortality rate in India before and after British colonization? What were the demographic trends in Mandate Palestine prior to the creation of Israel?

<comment><USER8> > In practice, modern "liberal arts" programs often dispense with logic, math, > and empirical science...it's insufficient to throw in a few courses on math > that everyone quickly forgets.

Where are you getting any of this from? What in the world are you talking about?

Since you mentioned Georgia Tech, I looked up their liberal arts programs at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Selected undergrad majors: Computational Media (computer science and design)[1], Economics (pretty mathy, check out the curriculum[2]), Global Economics and Languages (ditto [3]).

Selected graduate majors: Digital Media (tons of programming and design work[4]), Human Computer Interaction (tech-y by definition [5]), Economics, Infosec [6]. Seems like any of those degrees would require plenty of "logic, math, and empirical science".

But then one might say, "Georgia Tech is an engineering school. Of course their liberal arts stuff is going to be tinged with rigor. But them lefty, coastal, liberal hotbeds can't reason their way out of a paper bag."

So I looked up Wellesley College, one such institution. They offer majors in such soft disciplines as Astronomy, Physics, Astrophysics, Biochemistry, Math, Chemistry, Biology, Computer Science, Geosciences, to name a few.[7] They graduate students in these majors _every year_.

I don't think you understand the breadth of disciplines that a liberal arts education can encompass. There are liberal arts degrees attained by taking the bare minimum of math, or science classes and then there are liberal arts degrees such as geology that have plenty of hard (haha!) science and math behind them.

> consider how kids learn about history. They read stories, mostly focused on > individuals. But that's not the only way to learn history. I took a class at > Georgia Tech in the history of science, which looked at the impact on > society of various technological advances

What does a class you took at Georgia Tech have to do with how kids are taught history in school? They are different things. Kids being taught history poorly doesn't invalidate the importance of the subject. Kids are taught math and science poorly too.

Advanced studies in history do explore questions of the sort you raised.

> Math, science, and logic should be the basic foundation for cultivating > children's world view, not literature, philosophy, or social studies.

I think philosophy and social studies are just as important as math and science, and maybe literature is less important. First off, logic has its roots in philosophy[8]. Social studies such as history, civics, and geography are important for a well-informed citizenry. Economics is pretty handy. You may scoff at literature as being useless, but it forms the basis of the entertainment industry - plenty of money there.

1\. [https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/cm](https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/cm)

2\. [https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/econom...](https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/economics)

3\. [https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/geml](https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/geml)

4\. [https://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/program/courses-2/](https://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/program/courses-2/)

5\. [http://www.mshci.gatech.edu/program/about](http://www.mshci.gatech.edu/program/about)

6\. [https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/graduate](https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/graduate)

7\. [https://www.wellesley.edu/academics/deptsmajorprog](https://www.wellesley.edu/academics/deptsmajorprog)

8\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic)

<comment><USER9> There is an issue of terminology happening here. While Georgia Tech might have a "Liberal Arts College", that's not the same thing as a "Liberal Arts degree".

From wikipedia: "There is no formal definition of liberal arts college".

Here's someone else explaining better than I can: "A bachelor's degree in liberal arts means that the courses you take will be in general areas of study such as philosophy, mathematics, literature, art history, or languages, rather than in applied or specialized fields."

If you think that Biochemistry is a "liberal arts degree" then you've really misunderstood what the above poster was talking about. Biochemistry is a specialized field, and no one would consider that a liberal arts subject.

If it helps, you want to be looking towards degrees like: psychology, business, literature, arts, sociology, women's studies, languages, history, political science... Does this mean these degrees will never touch math? By no means! But it's foolish to think the level of mathematical and technical rigor would be similar to a degree in, say, Physics.

Generally speaking, even a Physics student will take some liberal arts classes as electives, as part of a "liberal arts education"; what we might call well- rounded. But while the physics student might read a few books and find it interesting, and keep that as part of them for the rest of their life... it's generally _not_ the case that a student of Fine Arts is going to take Calculus and occasionally wistfully perform derivatives.

<comment><USER10> STEM people have a real blind spot with this.

Who runs the world? Not STEM people. Most politicians have a legal and/or liberal background. They may _also_ have a background in STEM - <USER2> likely in Europe, less so in the US - but you get nowhere in politics without studying and understanding foundational liberal arts skills such as rhetoric, persuasion, and public debate.

The idea that liberal arts majors spend their entire time writing on essentially useless activities - like post-structural critiques of famous literature - is hilariously naive.

Some liberal arts academics do indeed do this, but that's because the liberal arts have pure and applied elements. Just like STEM. And STEM academics also spend their time on wildly impractical theoretical pastimes.

But at the applied end, the liberal arts run the planet. They don't keep the lights on - engineers do that - but they set the policy goals and define the political, economic, moral, and philosophical orthodoxies that virtually everyone conforms to, whether or not they're consciously aware of it.

<comment><USER11> Funnily enough, most politicians* are from law backgrounds... which while it falls on the 'arts' side of the spectrum is definitely a specialized field and vocation.

I suspect that the dichotomy isn't so much 'STEM vs Arts' but 'Accountable vs Unaccountable'. Most STEM fields are accountable to reality and future employers, and law is similarly accountable to rival scholars of law and employers of new lawyers. That makes law a rather noteworthy outlier in the liberal arts.

*in western countries

<comment><USER8> Physics, math, chemistry, logic, biology, history, geography, geology, astronomy, even economics are "accountable to reality". They are all liberal arts. Your idea of liberal arts is incomplete.

<comment><USER11> Are you accepting the dichotomy of STEM and Liberal Arts, and then categorising math as a liberal art?

Do you know the M in STEM stands for 'Mathematics'?

<comment><USER8> I think it's pretty clear from my posts that I'm not accepting this dichotomy - the "S" is science. Most sciences and math are firmly in the realm of liberal arts. I believe the argument is over how much T & E there needs to be in school and college education.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article says "2020", but I got about 2 sentences in and said... "I've read this before". In 2018...

[http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/those- mythologic...](http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/those-mythological- jobs-of-tomorrow.html)

But wait, there is more! He _also_ wrote it 3 years ago. Nearly word-for-word identical.

[http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2017/11/when- democracy-s...](http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2017/11/when-democracy- suffers.html)

Self-plagarism is still plagarism.

</comment><comment><USER12> > _Anyone who claims to know the specific skills required for the jobs of > tomorrow is just blowing smoke. They are wrong and they have always been > wrong._

Well, historically they have been more right than wrong. For millennia jobs were more or less constant (farming, the trades, commerce, mercenary, etc) so it was even very easy to predict. And for the best part of the industrial era, "more STEM" would be both easy to predict and an easy win. As would be "more office/services jobs" in the mid-20th century, and "more IT jobs" in the 80s and on. All of those existed as guesses and were correct. So where are those guesses that "have always been wrong"?

> _Anyone who claims to know the specific skills required for the jobs of > tomorrow is just blowing smoke._

That's also a bad argument. Nobody claims "specific skills".

A STEM education is not just some specific skills, it's a very wide range of skills, that have been useful to the best job positions for centuries.

Don't see that changing, unless widespread general AI (not the crap we have today, with task-oriented NN models) takes over most technical and scientific jobs renders poetry and painting and music playing the only jobs available to people. Which I don't see it happening in the next 50 years or so, if ever.

</comment><comment><USER13> > they learn to think for themselves, that they ask a lot of questions, that > they question authority, that they stand up for what they believe in

And math and science teach you how to frame those questions. They enable you to evaluate the evidence that those authorities may be using. They show how to present new evidence or new models to update the existing knowledge.

In short, math and science addresses the issue of if two people have differing views, how can they state those views clearly (mathematics) and evaluate the correctness of those views in an objective manner (science).

The issue with our society isn't that people aren't questioning authority, it is that a lot of people are questioning, not in a quest for truth, but to be able to impose their view of the world on everybody else and become the authority. Without science and mathematics, all this questioning just devolves to demagoguery and questions of power and control. There are many groups that claim to "question" authority, but woe be to any member that question the group's beliefs.

Science and mathematics allow people from different backgrounds with different beliefs to all speak a common language and have a common way of stating hypothesis and evaluating evidence so that we can learn more about our world. Engineering and technology allow us to use that knowledge to make other humans lives better.

<comment><USER14> For people to debate, understand and live with each other I would rather teach them philosophy than mathematics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Having been born in the early 90s I sure wish my elementary school teachers encouraged an interest in computers and used them for more than KidPix, AskJeeves and word processing. They treated computers like a fad then and failed us, let's not make the same mistake again.

</comment><comment><USER16> This sort of vague condemnation of STEM and praising of liberal arts never seems helpful. All math is bad? We shouldn't teach any? Are all liberal arts classes are equally good?

You need to discuss some sort of real curriculum. Or at least what changes you'd make to a current one.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think anyone is arguing that we remove liberal arts from the K-12 curriculum. There should be more to education than just vocational training, especially at the younger grade levels. If we want to have a functional democracy we need educated voters, and they should have a broad base of knowledge including the liberal arts.

At the college level I think the colleges themselves are to blame for all the animosity towards the liberal arts, they've priced themselves completely out of the market. Not too long ago it wasn't a big deal to spend four years getting a liberal arts degree and then going on to an MBA, Law or sales or even a STEM field to make a living afterwards. That's exactly what the author's wife of this article did by the sounds of it. Now that path might mean tens of thousands of dollars of debt just for the BA, so the pressure is on to make that investment worth while and for many it's not.

<comment><USER18> I don't know anyone in tech who has a liberal arts degree, and I graduated 25 years ago. The authors wife probably doesn't actually develop the tech, rather management.

<comment><USER19> Well, if you count math and physics as liberal arts, as the ancients did, then there's me. Granted, electronics and programming were my hobbies.

<comment><USER20> Math and physics goes under STEM, so in the context of this article they are not liberal arts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I agree that 10 year olds probably don't need to learn javascript and the camps teaching that are probably not a great choice for parents. But the authors views on STEM are awfully pessimistic. There are a lot of creative aspects to what I do, and I don't want people thinking that it's drudgery working in STEM.

<comment><USER22> Noah! If you don't eat your vegetables, we're sending you back to javascript camp this summer!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Having been on a school board I can tell you that it's the Gadgrind administrators _and_ parents who are pushing that. I would love to have the kids receive an exciting and inspiring introduction to maths and the sciences (and for that matter language and civics) but many of the teachers (not a majority, but significant minority) aren't into it and the loudest parents certainly aren't either. Instead the kids get rote prep aimed at where the puck is now.

</comment><comment><USER24> And likely coming from an upper middle class background with a social safety net

</comment><comment><USER25> I really don't understand why people are so hung up on the dichotomy of STEM versus the liberal arts education.STEM is an orphan without philosophy and history, and really ugly without the arts.

Growing up, kids need to be exposed to a variety of fields so that they art grounded/aware of the basics and can pick up further study when needed.

Yes maths and science are important, but so is philosophy, economics, history, arts, sports. They all help you understand the world around you. They help you understand yourself. Like Heinlein said, specialization is for insects. And school is really not the time to do that.

What is wrong is the way they are taught in almost every school. Kids are born curious and parents/schools have become very good at sucking that curiosity out of them to "make them a better citizen/workforce".

</comment><comment><USER26> "being self-motivated, being sociable, and working well with others" doesnt require formal education.

</comment><comment><USER27> > It's a scam as old as public education, an idea that emerged from the > Industrial Revolution because back then the "jobs of tomorrow" were stations > along an assembly-line

Is he suggesting here that public education is a scam? It doesn't seem so in the later paragraphs, and that's an extreme view to hold. Also the idea I don't think actually emerged as a way to fulfil national labour requirements. Condorcet, I think an early French pioneer in public education systems, seemed primarily concerned with equality, not creating labour supply.

</comment><comment><USER28> His main point is valid, education is important for becoming a well-rounded civilian.

However

> Anyone who claims to know the specific skills required for the jobs of > tomorrow is just blowing smoke

I do! Math!

Machine learning:

Lin alg

Calc

Stat/prob

Programming: understanding math gives a leg up in understanding many of the ideas underlying.

The meta-skill that math teaches is also timeless: when you learn concept D, you need to have a very good mastery over concepts A, B and C.

In my psychology lectures there never was such a "concept dependency hell".

So yea math.

Also writing and articulating yourself. A rhetoric class is also timeless (if given properly).

So yea... I could go on. I won't but I will predict this:

If you learn how to sell

Learn how to play along

And learn math

Then those skills will immensely help you for some of the new jobs in the future.

</comment><comment><USER29> It should be mentioned that the world's biggest problems are not really STEM oriented, but more about the humanities: political, cultural, legal, economic, etc. I don't think anyone is arguing directly against STEM education (as suggested by many of the defensive comments). Point is that pretending we have or will have shortage of qualified techies is a bit of a scam, often pitched to gain political/financial support for tech industry.

<comment><USER30> Agreed. I'm often stunned at the ethical vacuum that defines the tech industry, these days.

This has been personally heartbreaking, for me, as I was once a "starry-eyed dreamer" that the tech industry would rescue the world.

Instead, it has become an ethical wasteland that puts money above all else, to a vastly self-destructive level.

There is prior art in this. The finance industry was the same. After 1929, and several other disasters, since, the industry has come under increasing regulation.

<comment><USER29> Heartbreaking is the word for me too. I started out more in ops research and did well, but after the early 2000s dotcom bust thought it would be wise to pivot toward software. Mythical job of tomorrow as it were. Now surrounded by charlatans and it seems there is no escape!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Projectors are the future of education:

[https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem- how-t...](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-how- technology-corrupts-education/)

</comment><comment><USER32> Spoken (I guess written) like an out of touch, over privileged idealist. Sure, forget about being able to get a job and make money down the line, that's not that important. /s

</comment><comment><USER33> Schools and colleges should prepare students to earn a living. Once they can do that, they can educate themselves by reading and taking courses for the rest of their lives.

</comment><comment><USER34> "My objection is that all this talk about STEM is just the latest way to keep our schools focused exclusively on vocational training..."

That's only a problem when you have a monopoly supplier.

<comment><USER35> I don't understand. what do you mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This guy actually educates children?

</comment><comment><USER37> Japan has removed all humanist subjects from thier universities.

I would refer to these STEM subjects in this order instead, because thats how they depend: math, physics, chemistry and biology. MPCB does not sound as good though.

As for jobs they do not exist; only work exists, and you need to spend energy to do it.

One last thing, we need to have more female teachers in these subjects, since they are not trying to keep secrets.

Men keep secrets to get what they want, which mostly is women.</comment>


Ask HN: How to get free AWS, Azure, GCP credits? - <AUTHOR> I have a startup working on a new platform/marketplace that, if successful, could grow to a very heavy traffic site. I have contacts within AMZN, MSFT, etc. but they are all developers and likely don't know anything about getting free startup credits. What's the best path forward to this? <comment><USER2> Here's a list of software (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.) and other offerings that have free tiers for developers and startups: [https://free- for.dev](https://free-for.dev)

</comment><comment><USER3> For AWS if you're unfunded (bootstrapped) you can apply directly on [https://aws.amazon.com/activate/](https://aws.amazon.com/activate/)

In the past I got some via a coworking space, which for some reason counted as accelerator, I think because they had mentors and training sessions. And years later via a startup conference.

<comment><USER4> My application got rejected :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I wanted to learn Azure, is there a free program where I can get limited credits while I learn?</comment>