Taylor Swift: Don't know what else to do - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/notes/taylor-swift/dont-know-what-else-to-do/10156631338812023/ <comment><USER2> _(not a tay tay fan. not actually listening to much music these days, I can 't quite get Bach and Beefheart out of my head)_

Normally I'm a "the contract sets the limits" person but in artist's rights, an given the extent to which artists are both young, and exploited, and wind up in legally dubious relationships which then magify out and up, I think the intent should be "what's the right thing here, no matter what the contract says"

And I think unless she received heinous amounts of fuck you money, and sold her rights for their current worth, unless she did that, if this is just normal A&R nickel-and-diming, then they should be told to go away, and she should get to perform her songs.

 _" you can't perform your songs"_ is a very sad place to wind up. it does nobody any good.

She very possibly did receive heinous amounts of A&R support but I would also believe a lot of leeching has been going on. The industry is a giant machine to suck revenue out of art and put it into tax efficient structures for other people.

They learned from masters: the movie industry. Who did those masters learn from? The Sheet music industry.

Pop will eat itself.

<comment><USER3> > Normally I'm a "the contract sets the limits" person but in artist's rights, > an given the extent to which artists are both young, and exploited, and wind > up in legally dubious relationships which then magify out and up, I think > the intent should be "what's the right thing here, no matter what the > contract says"

If young artists cannot sign away their rights to the songs they create they won't get funded in the first place.

> And I think unless she received heinous amounts of fuck you money, and sold > her rights for their current worth, unless she did that, if this is just > normal A&R nickel-and-diming, then they should be told to go away, and she > should get to perform her songs.

This is absurd reasoning. "You have to pay for IP rights. Also, if the artist is successful, you have to pay them again in 10 years depending on how successful that become." If they want that kind of a deal, it's usually possible to negotiate points for money, especially with unknown talent.

There is this idea that artists have some sort of moral right to control the destiny of their creation. This is garbage thinking.

Quite frankly, becoming a pop star is a huge gamble. Most people who get fronted money by labels don't make it. Those that do pay for all the failures. If you want to call that "exploitation", so be it. But I don't have much sympathy for her predicament.

<comment><USER4> > If young artists cannot sign away their rights to the songs they create they > won't get funded in the first place.

Bullshit. We are perfectly fine accepting all sorts of contact limitations in other areas. How many times have I heard on this site that people wish all states were like California in making non-competes unenforceable. And yet engineers still manage to get hired there.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to amend performance contract law to state that artists who actually wrote songs should always be allowed to perform them, even if someone else owns the "rights". Heck, even put in some reasonable royalty payment that the "rights owner" must be paid if the original performer performs her songs, but don't allow an outright ban on performing them.

The "rights owners" would still have full control over ability to use that music in other areas, and by other artists, commercials, political rallies, etc.

<comment><USER5> Supply and demand.

There are a limited number of engineers and the companies who need them actually have to fill those roles in a reasonable amount of time to be able to get things done and stay competitive. This puts pressure on the companies to make the contracts more equal.

There are an (effectively) infinite number of young musicians dying for the chance to "make it big", and the music companies don't have the same kind of pressure to constantly have to keep filling seats to get work done. They can take their time and pick and choose however they want. This allows them to write the contracts more in their favor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Evidently, starting next year, Swift will have the legal right to do something harmful to the owners of Big Machine Records- rerecord her old songs. The owners of that company currently have the legal right to prevent her from playing her old songs. There are many artists who I think have been exploited by the executives of their industry, but Taylor Swift isn't one of them. I expect that she was generously compensated for giving up ownership of those songs. If she wants to change the terms of that deal, the other parties have offered to negotiate.

<comment><USER7> Presumably she had a lot less power early in her career when she originally recorded those albums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For those who, like me, don't visit the domain called facebook dot com: [https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/1195123215657508867...](https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/1195123215657508867?s=20)

<comment><USER9> To be fair Twitter isn't overwhelmingly better.

<comment><USER10> I never am asked to sign in to Twitter just to view content. Facebook does last time I checked.

<comment><USER11> I am asked with a pop-up but not required every single time on Twitter

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >The message being sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you'll be punished.

>This is WRONG.

Is that the message? Is it not the case that this is the result of a legally binding contract?

<comment><USER13> Right. Is this just celebrity with a huge audience privilege whereby they get to skirt contracts they signed by leveraging their fan base to exert pressure on the other party?

<comment><USER14> Contracts she only signed because the music industry had all the leverage. A music industry that is filthy rich, and notorious for their exploitative contracts, so I wouldn't rush to their defense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can someone explain the background here? I only have a vague idea of how the music industry works. I don't understand what's going on here.

<comment><USER15> Taylor Swift signed a deal with a record label instead of being an independent artist because it seemed (and possibly was) advantageous at the time and now that she is rich and famous and doesn't need the label, she no longer wants to hold up her side of the deal (giving the label certain rights to her earlier music for a certain period of time) and so now she is playing victim to get her fans to pressure the label into giving her more generous rights to the music she signed to them.

Basically when you sign with a record label you give them certain rights with respect to creative control, music ownership and licensing in exchange for them investing in helping you produce and market your music to a wide audience, network in the industry, tour, etc. In short, they help you make it big and take on early costs and risks and in exchange you make them rich if you do become extremely successful.

<comment><USER14> It should be noted that music label contracts are notoriously one-sided, and artists often make their labels millions without seeing a dime themselves.

<comment><USER16> We should thank those who have helped nudge the startup world in a different direction.

<comment><USER4> Hallelujah. I'm honestly kind of dismayed at how many people are saying "tough shit Taylor Swift", when I hear people bitch on this site _all the time_ about the unfairness of things like non-competes, lopsided preference rights, etc. that end up in the contracts of engineers and the startup founders.

While I don't know if it's the same people bitching about these contract provision who are also saying Taylor Swift should cry me a river, the overall tone strikes me as completely hypocritical. Just search for any post on this site about non-competes and tell me how many upvoted comments you see saying "Tough shit, why did you sign the contract then?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think there are two things that weaken Swift's message here:

1/ There's no need to call out gender — "be a good little girl and shut up", referring to "these men", etc. Not during 2019's entertainment industry harassment crisis. This is an intellectual property rights issue but it feels like Swift is trying to nudge it in another direction, unfairly.

2/ When your net worth is measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars it seems calculating and disingenuous to try to have your way in the court of public opinion. Asking your fans to directly contact the other party in the legal dispute feels like straight up bullying.

<comment><USER18> I'm sure Scooter Braun, who's likely got a net worth more than Taylor Swift, is going to be OK. He can take care of himself and doesn't need you to defend him.

Nobody is bullying anybody here.

<comment><USER19> Your argument is essentially "It's ok to use dirty and deceptive tactics against people with more net worth than you." Why is that acceptable to you?

<comment><USER18> The words "dirty and deceptive tactics" are yours.

I just don't worry about people with 9 figure net worths arguing over inconsequential things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Full text, readable away from FB: [https://outline.com/https://www.facebook.com/notes/taylor- sw...](https://outline.com/https://www.facebook.com/notes/taylor-swift/dont- know-what-else-to-do/10156631338812023/)

PSA: I just prepend [https://outline.com/](https://outline.com/) to the URL of a FB post to get the actual text (as FB domains are resolved to 0.0.0.0 in my house).

</comment><comment><USER21> Wait, so she sold "her" music and it's no longer hers....

What am I missing here?

<comment><USER22> > On Sunday, June 30 [2019], it was announced that Scooter Braun and his > company, Ithaca Holdings LLC, acquired Scott Borchetta's Big Machine Label > Group in a deal that's reportedly worth over $300 million. Through buying > Borchetta's company, Braun now also has ownership of Taylor Swift's master > recordings made when she was with the label, including her first six albums.

[https://www.bustle.com/p/why-doesnt-taylor-swift-own-the- rig...](https://www.bustle.com/p/why-doesnt-taylor-swift-own-the-rights-to- her-music-its-actually-more-common-than-you-think-18159717)

<comment><USER23> > in a deal that's reportedly worth over $300 million

So if she were to really put the money where her mouth is, she could probably buy the rights to her old records with her reported $360 million of net worth, or find a more friendly recording label willing to do so.

<comment><USER24> She actually tried that, but was unsuccessful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So she's crying a river over being forced to live up to the obligations of contracts she willingly signed. Most of her fans reading this can only dream of having a fraction of the breaks she's had or the money she's made. So she won't have a documentary about her on Netflix. Neither will anyone reading this, but somehow we're all supposed to feel sorry or outraged for her?

</comment><comment><USER26> Apparently she doesn't understand the concept of ownership. Yes, she created the songs.

However, once you sell something to someone else it no longer belongs to you. This includes works of art.

</comment><comment><USER27> She's too young and her music is too recent to invoke her right to terminate her copyright transfer, which would otherwise be a nice solution.

<comment><USER28> Another possibility that comes to mind is a compulsory license.

For those not familiar with compulsory licenses, US copyright law provides that for certain kinds of works and uses of those works, instead of obtaining a license from the copyright owner you can pay a fee to the Copyright Office and they can give you the license. The Copyright Office sets the amount of the fee. The money still goes to the copyright owner.

It doesn't matter if the copyright owner doesn't want you to have a license [1]. If you pay the fee, you get the license.

Unfortunately for Swift, I don't think that taking a compulsory license would help her here. I don't think that there is a compulsory license available for broadcast rights or for performance rights, one or both of which would be necessary for performing the songs on a TV broadcast. I think that the only compulsory license available for songs is the right to make and distribute audio recordings.

[1] One big exception. In the case of recordings of songs, compulsory licenses are not available until after there has been a release authorized by the copyright holder. Once the first authorized release is out, others can take compulsory licenses and make and release their own recordings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Cf [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5352108](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5352108)

[http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17](http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17)

</comment><comment><USER30> Was this flagged by moderators? @dang

<comment><USER31> Given the other comments, it was likely user-flagged.

<comment><USER30> Weird. Copyright is one of HN's favorite topics in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Maybe she can turn herself into a symbol, and fix it that way?

</comment><comment><USER33> Maybe she should talk to John Fogerty...

</comment><comment><USER34> isn't she been trying to trademark 22 number?

and once we swap sides, will she act differently?

</comment><comment><USER35> She should try CC-BY-SA.

</comment><comment><USER36> Pretty sure that with such a huge fan base, these guys could appear to sexually harass a couple of acquaintances or more. This is a very unstable situation happening right now, depending on their positions in the business. Maybe it's better to let the girl sing her songs? Everyone would win.</comment>


New findings indicate HIV/AIDS pandemic began around 1900, earlier than previously thought - <AUTHOR> http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/10/01/new.findings.indicate.hivaids.pandemic.began.around.1900.earlier.previously.thought

<comment><USER2> The hypothesis that best describes the origin of HIV is outlined in an extensive book by Edward Hooper, titled "The River", and originally laid out in a Rolling Stone article (of all places) by Tom Curtis.

This "new" evidence is consistent with that theory.</comment>


What to do when the difference between your competitor and you is 1 function.? - <AUTHOR>

I've been working on a SaaS app recently. The problem I've stumbled upon is that I'm not sure if people would pay for this if my competitor, Yammer is very popular, whereas my app is still being developed.
Basically the only difference is 1 functionality and pricing(we're not an enterprise)
Workflo is an easy way to collaborate with your team using a micro blogging platform. Workflo works on a very similar principal to Twitter. Our competitors include Yammer, Presently and HashWork. In the status updates, we let you post todo's, attach files to your status-updates, and direct messaging(such as @name: do this).
With workflo, it's really easy to set a todo for your teammate, for instance: "@pg todo: Please see the applications for #ycombinator-project #next-friday" will set a todo for PG telling him to see the applications for the project with the name "YCombinator Project" by next Friday.
I'm not sure whether I should continue developing it if the only thing between us and Yammer is that extra functionality. I've gone totally crazy on this project, to that point in which I looked at Yammer's design and thought, well I believe ours should look like this. <comment><USER2> Don't ask us, ask your customers. You need to find out whether or not you have a minimum viable product. If you do, get some customers and find out what matters to them.

[http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum- viable-...](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable- product-guide.html)</comment>


Git-recall - Simple and handy tool to easily recall what you've done - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Fakerr/git-recall <comment><USER2> I just use tig, I don't see this adding much over it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, I hadn't heard of tig before now.

[https://jonas.github.io/tig/](https://jonas.github.io/tig/)

<comment><USER4> Anyway, having alternatives is a good thing, thanks for this to its author :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I saw the name I thought it was about "recalling" as in a product recall, i.e. reverting.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice one. Don't want to hack your post but I made something similar sometime ago [https://github.com/kamranahmedse/git- standup](https://github.com/kamranahmedse/git-standup)

it does all of git-recall stuff (excluding diff) plus

\- Multi repository usage

\- Specify directory search depth

\- Checking someone else's commits

\- Commits from n days ago

\- Changing the date format

\- GPG

\- Changing the Weekdays (e.g. SUN-THU)

\- Fetch commits before showing standup

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice. Is there something that it can do, that [tig]([https://jonas.github.io/tig/](https://jonas.github.io/tig/)) can't do?

<comment><USER8> I believe tig [1] and gitk [2] are the standard tools for doing this. Either the author did not know about them or he did wrote anyway as a fun project.

\---

[1] [https://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/05/git- tig/](https://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/05/git-tig/)

[2] [https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitk.html](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitk.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This seems very similar to the (quite popular?) git-standup script.

[https://github.com/kamranahmedse/git- standup](https://github.com/kamranahmedse/git-standup)

As someone that often works across multiple projects, I find the ability to do a recursive search through a directory of git repositories very valuable.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been using git-standup for a while: [https://github.com/kamranahmedse/git- standup](https://github.com/kamranahmedse/git-standup)

Seems similar.

</comment><comment><USER11> Excellent. I added your link to the GitAlias README at [https://github.com/gitalias/gitalias](https://github.com/gitalias/gitalias)

</comment><comment><USER12> _git log --oneline --since=Yesterday --author=[whoever]_ works pretty well, but the navigable menu-style interface of this does look interesting.

<comment><USER13> May I suggest to add the --name-status flag? It clearly shows which files you touched, which I often find quite useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is cool. Is there any tool to get some kind of interesting stats like number of commits, your commit frequency, how much code you have changed, what are your "productive hours" and things like that.

<comment><USER15> I have no suggestions for the latter two, but number of commits / user / repo is doable in vanilla git:

      git shortlog -n -s

<comment><USER16> Also, check out the '\--shortstat' flag available to commands such as diff and log.</comment></comment></comment>


Where to learn Unity 3D - <AUTHOR>

I'm a new iOS developer and looking to learn how to use Unity, but haven't found any good tutorials or books. I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations on where to get started.<p>FWIW, I'm OK with code, but an animation and game building n00b. <comment><USER2> This guy has the most useful tutorials in my opinion. I've learned a lot of stuff from his videos and I believe he also offers all the source code he uses in his videos.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMWhtKjUr10>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, really appreciate the link.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Play-tag, an iBeacon dog collar - <AUTHOR> http://play-tag.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks everyone! I'm Maggie, founder of play-tag. Someone suggested I do a Show HN, so I'm giving it a go. feel free to contact me. email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not really sure I understand the marketing. For lost pets, bluetooth really isn't a reliable or great solution. If you could pair the tag with a smart dog bowl, or treat dispenser then you may be on to something interesting.

If you want a iBeacon for your dog, you can just pick up a TI SensorTag and it includes 6 sensors, and code ready to go for using with iOS and Android. All for $25 / half the price.

[http://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag/inde...](http://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag/index.shtml?DCMP=sensortag&HQS=sensortag- bn)

<comment><USER3> I use a product called The Cat Locator for my animals (dogs included). It's a radio beacon (with an antenna woven into the collar) that sends out a ping every second. The range in the city on a halfway decent battery is one city block. Batteries last about one month. The housing on the collar is about as big as a stack of four quarters. It's a bit expensive but I never want to lose an animal again.

[http://www.com-spec.com/thecatlocator/intro.htm](http://www.com- spec.com/thecatlocator/intro.htm)

<comment><AUTHOR> Does the size of that device bother you or the dogs? My dog would not be okay with that haha.

<comment><USER3> I was actually surprised that my cats were not bothered one bit by the size or the weight. You can get a pretty good idea of the size here: [http://imgur.com/bdVrg8J](http://imgur.com/bdVrg8J)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Three questions and a comment-

Q - is it really iBeacon? iBeacon is a specifically licensed "technology" from Apple (which, to go offtopic, should be avoided because it's intentionally exclusive and locked in, despite the existence of unsanctioned implementations on other platforms). BLE != iBeacon, just as Facetime != h264).

Q - Is it really manufactured in the USA?

Q - What are the in-app purchases? I'm not sure what functionality you could provide above and beyond that would merit an additional purchase.

C - I have a terrible eye for aesthetics, so take this with a grain of salt, but the fonts on the site really bring down the quality level and expectations.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "iBeacon is a specifically licensed "technology" from Apple"

Any sources on this? I thought that was just Apple's name for their own BLE API's. i.e. iBeacon is their marketing term for BLE.

<comment><USER4> [http://beekn.net/2014/07/ibeacon-for- android/](http://beekn.net/2014/07/ibeacon-for-android/)

iBeacon is some interaction standards atop BLE, and early on everyone assuaged themselves that it was safe and open -- because it's just some BLE interactions -- but Apple has it covered by trademarks, patents (similar to Microsoft's ActiveSync patents, as an aside. It's just a web service, but use it in certain ways and you're at risk of a patent suit) and marketing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems to me that this software would be infinitely more useful if there was some kind of always-on base station which reports over wifi. That would enable pet owners to keep an eye on their pets even when they're not at home.

Ultimately, if your pet does manage to escape the range of your phone (or base station), there's nothing that this app can do to help you locate them. Do you have any plans to expand the app to support crowd sourced recovery like Tile ([http://www.thetileapp.com/](http://www.thetileapp.com/))?

<comment><AUTHOR> We do have a base station coming out in the next few months! It is called "Play-tag: home base"

We were thinking about crowd sourcing, but still on the fence. What's your thought on it?

<comment><USER5> The marketing seemed to be centered around reducing the risk of a lost pet. If this is truly the goal, having a crowd sourced mesh network for recovering a lost pet seems like an ideal feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> The cool thing about this too is the user (dog owner) can set a reward for the finder, with this non-dog owners will get on board with the app too!

<comment><USER2> There are too many hoops to jump through. The person who finds the dogs needs an iPhone. They then need to be able to figure out that the tag requires an app. They then download an app to receive a notification from the tag. Then you somehow figure out that the dog is lost and display reward information. You reunite dog with owner. The non-dog owner somehow keeps the app around for the next time they find a dog?

Alternatively, you can just write your phone number on a dog tag.

Additionally, I don't see anything on the tag that explains to people that they should download an app for owner information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. There is also a code on the tag that you can text to get info about the dog and also texts the owner. We are still working out the bugs on this though... But maybe I should add to FAQ on website?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there an API or a way to get the raw beacon ID being broadcasted? I am already thinking of some really cool projects you could make with this.

Beacon aware doggie doors, doggie location analytics within the house, a treat dispenser that gives each of your dogs only a certain allotment of treats per day based on their beacon ID, a doggie photo booth that sends the photos back to their owner when the dog triggers it, and the list goes on and on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly! Thanks so much for the input, these is exactly the sort of things that our team is thinking too. Would love to hear more input of yours and chat - email email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know... I don't think that the point of a leash is to know where your dog is but more to keep him under control. This does nothing for that except ring bells and stuff which can be more annoying then helpful.

<comment><USER8> The video had a good example - you let your dog out, he escapes out of the back yard. No leash involved.

The problem for me is that I already know he is missing, and this thing doesn't tell me where he is.

<comment> j-hernandez Agreed. If the tag functioned also as a GPS beacon of some kind, and the app mapped for the owner, this would be a no-brainer - for me at least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They claim several times that it does not require cell phone coverage, but from the screen shots on [http://www.play- tag.com/info/#about](http://www.play-tag.com/info/#about) it appears that you have to log into the app before you can use it?

<comment><USER7> it probably means it doesn't use the cellular network, so it's doesn't require a SIM. To connect you can use wifi.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also the only feature that requires this is for the health info of the dog which is stored on the cloud - all other features do not require cell phone service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very cool. How accurate is the the "leash"? Is it reduced by line of sight obstructions?

<comment><USER5> Bluetooth LE performance is a bit spotty and unpredictable in my experience. Obstructions can really mess with the range.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love the concept! GPS trackers are heavy and bulky for dogs - I can see my stylish pup wearing this and I haven't seen an app that includes health info. Buying one of these :-).

</comment><comment><USER12> This is awesome. I'm totally getting this for my dog. I love the LED feature - can you control the light through the app at other times? Like in the backyard or camping??

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you control the LED colors and you can turn it on whenever - great idea for camping! If you're a dog owner I'd love more of your input maggie@play- tag.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Is the tag waterproof? Durable?

This question has a very vauge answer, mainly it doesn't give waterproof details or anything specific at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion - we will put this info in the FAQ. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nicely done! How hard would be to add a GPS based beacon?

<comment><AUTHOR> GPS would make the product cost twice as much - and we want to make this accessible to more dog owners. Perhaps version two though! Thanks for your input.

<comment><USER15> Cost twice as much, worth ten times as much, in my opinion. I've had many times when a dog got away and gps tracking would have been very useful.

Keeping track of exactly where my dog is within 150ft radius, not so much. The "leash" analogy is also entirely misplaced. "Leash" implies having control over your dog, so it can't get away. With playtag it seems, there's not really any element of "control" at all, and if my dog gets more than 150 feet away it's basically useless.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear ya but check out the crowd sourcing feature where other app users can pick up the location of you dog & get a monetary reward. If you're a dog owner, I would love to get more of your input - firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks very cool! Well done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool! Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This thing really needs a GPS, great idea just need something "more"!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback!</comment></comment>


The Origins of the Blink Tag (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag

<comment><USER2> Yes, we remember, it has been posted like 6 months ago.</comment>


Launching the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab (May 2013) - <AUTHOR> http://googleresearch.blogspot.ca/2013/05/launching-quantum-artificial.html

<comment><USER2> I wonder if Moore's Law will proceed in a similar fashion as it did with traditional computers. Now, quantum computers are so expensive that only the government and large corporations can afford them. How long until the BBQ- Micro?

</comment><comment><USER3> isn't new is it ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought it was posted already. This was my try to find the discussion thread. Seems it wasn't.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Read Later for Hacker News - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read-later-for-hacker-new/kcfdkmoconldndmnipphejclfmajmanc?hl=en <comment><USER2> The official Pocket Chrome extension also inserts itself inline onto HN pages. Not to mention, it appears this extension hasn't been updated in over 2 years.

</comment><comment><USER3> fwiw, if you have the Instapaper extension installed it has the option to insert itself into Hacker News among other sites.</comment>


Software development: it's got nothing to do with computers - <AUTHOR> http://www.philipotoole.com/software-development-got-nothing-computers/

<comment><USER2> That form of ultra-clickbaiting should be outlawed by the internet police.

Refuting your own title in the first sentence just screams "but I made you come here to read this, didn't I, moahaha". To me, it just makes the author seem arrogant.

</comment><comment><USER3> A short article, but it touches upon what makes software development work in the long run. The ideas that last are the ones based on suiting people.</comment>


Ask HN: Where to look for QA engineers? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,<p>Where do people look for QA engineers as opposed to standard software engineers? A company that I'm friends with asked me about this, but I have zero clue where to start. <comment><AUTHOR> On the off chance you are one, I'm email@example.com :)

</comment><comment><USER2> Post a position to linkedin or twitter?</comment>


How to watch Euro 2008 live at work - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/euro_2008_watching_live_on_the_web

<comment><USER2> I just asked for this on twitter. Croatia beat Germany 2-1!

</comment><comment><USER3> or you can check out veetle.com --oneof my friend's startup

You can create your station there, and somebody has created a station with live games!

It works on linux and windows, but I am not sure it works on mac yet.

My productivity at work during the day has been very low these days. All the games have been pretty good, and some of the groups are getting very heated.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any one has a good website for macs?

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.justin.tv/worldsport1></comment>


Every American Must Watch This: Oliver Stone Explains Urgency on The NSA State - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2013/jul/10/oliver-stone-nsa-surveillance-aclu-video

<comment><USER2> How about my rights as non US person?

I think the people of the US are hypocritical and deserve the government they got.</comment>


Impossible choices: Gregory Bateson saw the creative potential of paradox - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/gregory-bateson-changed-the-way-we-think-about-changing-ourselves <comment><USER2> > Faced with an impossible choice – a 'koan' as Zen Buddhists call it

A koan is not an impossible choice. That's the whole point of a koan, realizing the _illusion_ of the impossibility.

A koan highlights the inappropriateness of (written/spoken) language to describe the ineffable experiences that life is really made of.

Funny thing is pretty much all written/spoken language are in a way koans. Making an analogy with formal logic, language itself is an inconsistent knowledge base, as it allows for (seemingly) opposites to be expressed simultaneously. For example the phrase: "Absolutes don't exist", is a statement that implies absolutism itself, while at the same time stating absolutes don't exist, thus it contradicts itself. However reality is not inconsistent, it can never "contradict" itself, reality just is. So our words fail us in accurately conveying what we mean.

So, depending on your own interpretations and point of view, I might be completely wrong about all of this too.

PS: I was expecting the article to focus more on the meaning and potential use of paradoxes, however the word is used only once in the whole text. Despite that, loved Bateson's remarks about dualism and overcoming our fear of death.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great context on one of my favorite thinkers. I learned something I hadn't seen in other profiles, his views on family therapy/double bind theory were influenced by losing a sibling to suicide. Makes perfect sense.

I wish Bateson hadn't been so averse to getting involved in the controversy over double bind/family therapy. I admire the high-mindedness and invitation to systemic change, but unfortunately without his advocacy his ideas have gotten largely ignored by the mainstream psychiatric community.

This is a great quote:

> To one accusation that he was not taking the organic aspect of the disease > seriously, Bateson replied:

I will concede that schizophrenia is as much a 'disease' of the 'brain' as it is a 'disease' of the 'family', if Dr Stevens will concede that humour and religion, art and poetry are likewise diseases of the brain or of the family or both.

</comment><comment><USER4> In re: cybernetic psychology, Bateson said of the NLP† people "they have succeeded at what I attempted." (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of his statement.) I believe he was talking specifically about the material that became the content of "Structure of Magic" vols. I & II.

†Neurolinguistic Programming not Natural Language Processing.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's amazing to read this. I can't help but think about the trajectory of discourse today in the context this quote:

"An arms race leading to a war was schismogenesis on a grand scale, with no correcting feedback"

This feels familiar to the trajectory of discourse in some social media societies. The 'correcting feedback' are just mirrored tactics used to widen divides.

A newly politically awakened individual peruses the tenet listicals of two parties. He finds he likes 6 tenets from one and 3 from another. He wraps up his opinions in a bindle and sets off to join the conversation. If he brings up any of his traitorous opinions to his new community, he's met with a surprisingly concentrated method of "debate".

Support for any tenet claimed by the opposition proves you directly support the opposition's atrocities. Modus Tollens, QED.

Having a mixed plate at the political buffet is a recipe for being called things like 'racist', 'lazy', 'authoritarian' maybe 'baby murderer'. What he's called depends on where he's talking and what shade of grey he's discussing. No neurons are rubbed together about the specifics of your transgression. They don't need to be! By my radicalization conjecture, if we can associate your opinions or ideas with the opposition, then they are horrible anathema. It's not about context or meaning, it's about flavor!

Few would be cowed by this immediately.

"No, I do not support the wholesale slaughter of all baby giraffes because I like going to the zoo. You must be a rare internet denizen to draw such an extreme conclusion!" The proof is then repeated to you in different words, probably by a different person.

Didn't you hear us? Support for any tenet claimed by the opposition proves you directly support the opposition's atrocities; it's almost worse -- really. Modus Tollens, QED.

There's two ways out of this cycle, be cowed in mentioning unsavory things you support, eschew the whole game all together.

If you signal that you're eschewing, you're greeted with "the world is political, it affects your life, you can't escapeee" and other bright "corrections". Also, the politically disenfranchised are responsible for <opposition atrocities>. The only people who aren't responsible for the destruction of freedom, happiness, and rainbows are people who aren't in this list:

1\. The opposition 2\. Centrists, moderates etc 3\. The disenfranchised

Who remains? Hmm.

I wonder what x% who participate in those koan factories, naively thinking it's a discussion, would be driven to violence after a few months of having <flavor> = <pure evil> drilled into you. It's like chinese water torture, but people participate of their own volition!

It's nice to read something new that corroborates and simplifies a hard to articulate uneasy feeling I've had for the last 10 years.</comment>


Insightful talk by Gary Vaynerchuk - "Crush It" author - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWHkcCP3tA

<comment><USER2> Had no idea who this is, now I know he's awesome. And a great speaker. I love when someone is himself, curses in every sentence not giving a damn, while still bombing you with more inspiring stuff than many of those guys who try too hard designing the perfect speech.

Lots of great thoughts there. I didn't know that there are such talks on Railsconf.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm embarrassed to say that I almost closed the window after a few minutes because his accent/demeanor made him come off as a bit of a douchebag. Now I'm really enjoying it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I highly recommend watching. If you are unfamiliar or put off by Gary V's demeanor, give him a chance. His character is part of why his wine review show is so successful. He is a successful, tenacious entrepreneur. His thoughts presented here are valid and insightful.

FYI, there is some coarse language though.

</comment><comment><USER5> For those who haven't seen a talk by Gary V before, be prepared for plenty of cursing.

Also, he can be a little off-putting at first - give it a chance, you'll be glad you did.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was there. Enjoyed the talk.</comment>


Ask HN: Which Programming Language To Build A Web App? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, my name is Pravin (more here: pravindaryani.com). I'm writing a blog post which discusses my experience with the question: "Which Programming Language To Use To Build A Web App"
I have my own thoughts from what I've learnt off course but would be great if you guys want to add your comments on this - would be good further learning from me.
Note: The post has been approved by a popular web publication you probably read (i'll avoid giving out the name for now) and if I use your input/quote in the post, I'll be sure to credit you for it <comment><USER2> JavaScript is going to be the thing at the client end whatever.

Otherwise the choice would best be decided by which language you are currently most familiar with - if you can't use that then use the one closest to that.

Course if you want to use ROR then the choice is made - indeed the choice of framework/platform might just make the decision for you.

In the end it is probably not worth getting too hung up about - just get started and ship some working code!

</comment><comment><USER3> What programming language to use entirely depends on several factors:

What languages to do you/the team have experience with? What are the features of the web app? Realtime stuff? Single-Page App? Lots of IO?

I've lately preferred working with Node.js, and Ruby before that.

I know we use Python (with Pyramid) for a lot of internal things at work and the main website is made fully with Java.

The bigger websites of the world use many different languages.

Google seems to favour Python, Facebook uses PHP, Twitter used to use Ruby and now they are mostly Java (?).

So what language you use is not that important in my opinion, you just need to find one that fits your needs. I also prefer to use languages that have a good community around it, that way you can ask others :)

<comment><USER4> I believe Twitter migrated from Ruby to Scala, not Java.

<comment><USER5> AFAIK it was only a part of that was moved to Scala. The web interface is still written in Ruby.

More: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Technology>

<comment><USER4> Yes that's true. I was making the point that they were simply moving to a Scala stack rather than a Java one, as you had mentioned above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To me it all depends on other factors. If you're programming in a Windows environment then I'd pick ASP.NET MVC using C#. I've worked with it before and while I'm a Mac/Linux guy by trade, I found C# to largely be a pleasant language to work with.

If you're on a more traditional Linux stack, I find Ruby has the best ecosystem around web application development. Its not the best for everything (for instance Python tends to have better libraries for more advanced math and statistics work), but I think Ruby is the best for rapidly prototyping and building out a web application. The packaging system, ecosystem, and huge number of available libraries are killer features, and you can always switch to JRuby if concurrency becomes an issue.

If you build your application in the right way you can extract services and port them to Java or something more performant as needed if you hit the limits of a scripting language performance wise. This gives you a clear path forward as you need to grow and scale. Though a well constructed Ruby/Python/whatever app can scale fine if built well.

</comment><comment><USER7> For web I prefer PHP or Java, for client side just JavaScript, but then that is because those are the two languages that I am more familiar with and know more about, in the end it will depend on language preference. I would advice not going with Node, I have played with it but seems to be too hard to maintain on big projects. Speaking of that anyone has ever used Node on a large project? And how hard it is to maintain? I would like to know more opinions. Never worked with Ruby so no advices for/against. Python while nice I do not have much experience with it and none on the web, and I think I may never will, the forced indentation annoys me (yes I still like readable code, just don't like to care about it when writing).

I do not know how Java amount of libraries compares with Python or Ruby but it does seem to have a lot more.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just like camera's, the best programming language is the one you already know. It makes no sense learning a new language when, in the same amount of time, you could build and ship something real. If you're new to web development, I'd go with Ruby if you already have some experience, or PHP if you're blank. I'm well aware of the pitfalls of PHP, but there's just so much code and tutorials on the web to learn from.

</comment><comment><USER9> The one you know best?

For me, that would probably be either PHP, JS, or Perl, depending on what functionality I needed.

</comment><comment><USER10> Ruby because the development cycle is blazing fast and once you reach a scale where it matters there's plenty of options.

</comment><comment><USER11> <http://www.yesodweb.com/></comment>


IOS 5 predictions - <AUTHOR> http://www.oded.us/2011/06/ios-5-predictions.html

<comment><USER2> These are some really... unlikely predictions. Especially this one:

 _Xcode for the iPad: This is more of a wet dream, but Apple is building on the iOS as their main operating system for the future, and to get the real hardcore users to move to it, they have to make an IDE available. The main reason I gave up on my iPad and gave it to my mom was the lack of a good IDE (plus she really liked it :-)._

This one makes me a little ill. Who would ever choose to develop in a crippled OS on underpowered hardware with no keyboard?! Argh it's like sometimes I feel there are two groups of software developers and I'm in the increasingly shrinking sane one. Fortunately, everything from Apple indicates the exact _opposite_ about OS X and that OS X is more likely to become a developer-only environment than iOS to become any kind of development environment.

<comment><USER3> They could try for a visual DSL. Something like Automator, but with more options.

<comment><USER4> I'd like to see that. I think automator is the best part of OS-X and bringing portable automation would truly make the world a better place.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd like to see that too! oded from <http://oded.us>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The widget prediction is very unlikely to happen, because that's what Apple was trying to get rid of in the first place. At least that's what I think.

For example, many of the Apple's original iPhone apps were adapted from Mac OS X dashboard widgets. The clock, calculator, notes, and weather widgets all were Mac OS widgets before they became apps. Apple just invented a new device form-factor exclusively for the widgets.

Why would they mess this clear division up by introducing widgets for iOS?

Besides, do you really need widgets that are always visible? Widgets on the homescreen or on the lockscreen would show information to you without you expressing an intent to view it. Wouldn't this potentially be distracting? Wouldn't you potentially waste your time by looking at and interacting with the widgets instead of doing things that you actually turned the device on for, because the widgets are the first thing that you see when you turn it on?

Let's say you turn on your iPhone to look something up on Wikipedia while you are at home on your couch. But then you suddenly see in a widget that you have new unread emails. If the email catches your attention you would likely read it. In this case you would likely forget what your original intent was.

You forget your original intents when you have widgets that contain interesting information, because those intents only live in your short-term memory and also there's nothing to help you remember, because most likely you don't write notes for small tasks.

I think this is also part of the reason why Apple has to refine the notification system. By showing those distracting dialog boxes on the lockscreen which demand a decision, the notification system does the same thing to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> You have a very good point there which I didn't think about while writing this. Still I think most iOS users have android widget envy... and Apple wants to satisfy them.

<comment><USER6> I seriously doubt iOS users have any kind of Android anything envy. Especially if they tried Android and its rightful predecessor, Windows Mobile. That is where widgets came from, actually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My biggest prediction at this point is a revamped notification system, given that they've hired Peter Hajas.

[http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/06/03/apple_hires_ip...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/06/03/apple_hires_iphone_jailbreak_notification_developer_for_ios_team_at_corporate_hq.html)

<comment><USER8> I'm as hopeful as you are, but they hired Peter days ago. I think his hiring is more about picking up an extremely talented iOS programmer than anything else.

<comment><USER7> They also hired Palm's designer of the WebOS notification system last year, so perhaps they already have something in the works.

[http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/09/designer_of_no...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/09/designer_of_notification_system_for_palms_webos_hired_by_apple.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Cloud storage API: 3rd party apps will have access to iCloud storage as if > it was local on the user's device.

Yeah something like Steam Cloud would be nice, especially if it can be made available from outside iOS, via the user's iTunes Store account. Still, there's the conflicting updates issue to solve.

> Lock screen is bye bye: there was no reason to have the lock screen to begin > with

Some people actually enjoy the idea that their personal data will not be immediately available to anyone taking their phone.

<comment><USER10> _Some people actually enjoy the idea that their personal data will not be immediately available to anyone taking their phone._

No need to play dumb, you know what he means.

The important question is whether a lock screen less iPhone is safe enough from accidental touches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> With icloud, I'm really hoping for shared saves on games between devices. Ie I play a game on my iPad; then when I grab my iPhone I can pick up the same game where I left off.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like the sleep sync.

Mail is allowed to sync whenever it wants, why shouldn't my RSS reader do that too? One problem is the amount of data, but with wifi only, that shouldn't be a problem.

One solution though would be for Apple to host parsing scripts on their servers so that you could parse XML to a very compact proprietary format, or at least compress it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been hearing a lot of rumors and buzz about the ability to use Macruby on iOS, really hoping that it's true.</comment>


Imagine Being on Trial. With Exonerating Evidence Trapped on Your Phone - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/business/law-enforcement-public-defender-technology-gap.html <comment><USER2> Has anyone here used any of the products/services mentioned in the article? I was surprised at how high the prices quoted for the Touch2 and Cloud Analyzer are. With Cloud Analyzer, at least some of the major features, such as exploring location history, seem like they could be easily replicated for free (the Google Maps Timeline feature). Is this right? I wonder if a much cheaper alternative could be easily developed to help defendants put up a stronger defense.</comment>


Tech Rout Sinks Stocks as Lines of Defense Crumble: Markets Wrap - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-01/asian-stocks-set-for-muted-start-to-second-quarter-markets-wrap <comment><USER3> I honestly still can't wrap my head around how (most) tech companies are actually supposed to be making money. Nobody (including advertisers) seems to be willing to pay for any of this stuff, but it still costs a fortune to make. Some of the big players like Netflix and Amazon seem to be making real money from real customers (but still don't appear to be that profitable?) but Twitter? Facebook? Even Google? Where the hell is the money actually coming from? Google has massive operating costs - are there really enough online advertisers to subsidize an operation like that? I've often wondered if the investments in tech have been coming from speculative investors who were hoping to get in on the "ground floor" of something that would eventually become profitable.

<comment><USER4> You very much underestimate how large the size of the advertising sector of the economy is. It's over $550B worldwide [1], 5x Google's total revenue, and enough to pay every current Alphabet employee roughly $6M yearly. And Google and Facebook together are taking up 99% of all _new_ add dollars spent (i.e. all the growth in advertising is going to those two).

In 1988 TV & radio broadcasting (all ad-supported) employed close to 400K people, which is roughly 3x what Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined do.

Remember that these companies are all effectively B2B companies - <USER2> customers are other businesses, and their product is access to consumers. If you've ever worked on the sales & marketing side of a business, you'll know that a.) companies are willing to spend _a lot_ to gain new customers and b.) spending that money with Google or Facebook is a no-brainer today. These facts are largely hidden from the general public, though, because the average person doesn't like being thought of as a product and wants to believe their consumption choices actually belong to themselves.

[1] [https://www.statista.com/topics/990/global-advertising- marke...](https://www.statista.com/topics/990/global-advertising-market/)

[2] [https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/08/art1full.pdf](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/08/art1full.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If there were actually legitimate causes of concern for the market crashing other than Trump trolling on Twitter, then I'd be worried and sell off my stocks. But there's not.</comment>


This wearable promises to reduce stress, improve sleep, enhance creativity - <AUTHOR> http://www.mindfulogy.com

<comment><USER2> This looks really interesting, and I love the simple unobtrusive look of the product.

My bit of feedback (not that they're asking) regarding the website and product, I'd recommend a bit of graphic design work. For a product that is touted as reducing stress, improving concentration, improving sleep, inhancing focus, etc. etc. The logo of zenVibes is quite jaring. It's a shouting brain with a 'staticy' font which grows larger and louder as you read it in bold with a drop-shadow no less (making it more in your face and louder).

I'd want to see a logo that is more focused, considered (and considerate), making me feel like putting on the device is going to bring peace and joy to my life, at the moment it looks more like injecting heavy metal directly into my brain.

Also, the first photo on the website of a very pretty girl wearing a wired swim cap made me wonder if that is what the product looks like. Of course, it doesn't but I didn't know that at that point. I wonder how many people get that far and think, "I'll never put that ridiculous thing on my head".

Just a few thoughts, but looking forward to the campaign.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

That's an awesome feedback ! Thanks, at this stage this sort of insights is invaluable, we'll definetely take it into account, even though it would be near impossible to change the logo at this stage...</comment>


Facebook mistakenly deleted some people's live videos - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/11/facebook-deleted-live-videos/ <comment><AUTHOR> This reminded me of a recent story here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169514)</comment>


Uber Meets Super Shuttle - <AUTHOR> http://blog.randylubin.com/post/21635542675/start-up-idea-uber-meets-super-shuttle

<comment><USER2> I think one of your problems is going to be peak usage times where a lot of people are traveling to or from work in the morning or afternoon. What would be interesting is to conduct a study. Get a bunch of volunteers in different cities to log their departure location and time as well as their destination. Then run then simulation to see how many shuttles it would require and how full each would be.</comment>


Next Generation messaging  - <AUTHOR>

This will be the fastest and most secured way to message.
Need someone with cloud computing experience to join me as the technical co-founder. You will be paid something for the prototype so either way your time is not wasted. We will launch a crowdfunding campaign to gauge interest and raise money to build the full app.
If you think you can help, email me at my HNusername@google mail. THANKS <comment><USER2> I'll try to be helpful...

"Fastest" "Secured" "Cloud Computing"...none of these things is like the other...

If you want to attract potential partners you are going to have to provide more details.

What are you bringing to the table?

<comment><AUTHOR> Bringing money to the table.Plus the fastest and most secured messenger.

<comment><USER2> BY definition it cannot be the fastest AND most secured...

As slater pointed out fastest would be direct client to client with no intermediary and no slow encryption.

Adding encryption to somethings makes it slower...even if it is only by a couple of micro/milliseconds (not to mention the time spent generating keys...)

So is it the fastest, secured messenger? Or the most secured messenger which is also quite fast? Is this a service or a client program?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Mr. Gwanyalla has a track record of starting tiny companies with big ambitions and few clients.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3691963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3691963) [http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/sou- sous.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/sou-sous.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> \- "Fastest" would be direct connection between me and the person I'm messaging, no?

\- "Most secured" (secure?) would be an open-sourced application that's been vetted by others, not a crowd-funded start-up.

\- "cloud computing" \- why?

<comment><AUTHOR> -Yes the fastest person to person messaging. -Build from the ground up with security in mind. Should be a key selling point with the NSA bringing the public's attention to privacy</comment></comment>


Given our current technology would it be possible for someone to become Batman? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Given-our-current-technology-and-with-the-proper-training-would-it-be-possible-for-someone-to-become-Batman <comment><USER2> This is a dupe post... there is one in top 30 already.

<comment><USER3> Link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2234932>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wanted to add a comment to that answer but kept getting run around in circles. Not the first time I'm been perplexed by the Quora UI.</comment>


Where to blog? Medium, Substack, WordPress, Ghost, or roll your own? - <AUTHOR> https://louiebacaj.com/where-to-blog-medium-substack-wordpress-ghost-or-roll-your-own/ <comment><USER2> Static site generator (Hugo, Hexo, whatever) and Gitlab/hub pages/Netlify. No worries.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought about that believe me, it would keep things simple for sure.

There are a lot of features to consider these days though, such as a newsletter and building an audience, the editing process, etc.

You can basically have the power of the NY times with your publishing platform today (paywalls, payments, newsletters) for free using open source software.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Weather site negative temps - <AUTHOR> I noticed the high and low forcast for Monday are reversed when the current temp is negative Fahrenheit. Does anyone else see this? <comment><USER2> Wait until it gets to be negative 40 Celsius. We can be temperature buddies.</comment>


Introducing the ~=~ operator - <AUTHOR> Is there any function or operator in any language that can unbiased without any constants or subjectivity return a boolean TRUE/FALSE if two different noisy sets of integers of the same size are equal?
Examples of desired output:
[0] ~=~ [0] -> TRUE
[0] ~=~ [1] -> FALSE
[84765,193] ~=~ [84765,193] -> TRUE
[84765,193] ~=~ [84765,32] -> FALSE
[1047072,1047216,1047441,1047521,1047682,59102,59361,59583,59818] ~=~
[1047085,1047276,1047471,1047754,1047938,59128,59364,59732,59945] -> TRUE
[1047072,1047216,1047441,1047521,1047682,59102,59361,59583,59818] ~=~ [1047085,1047276,1017471,1047754,1047938,59128,59364,59732,59945] -> FALSE
Rules:
* The operator is not allowed to know anything about the nature of integers it receives as input
* The operator is not allowed to know anything about the world, it must be immutable and without any constants at all
* The operator is not allowed to be in disagreement with humans about what sets of integers are to be considered equal. (Naturally, a stupid human will sometimes make a mistake, so if in disagreement, continue to multiply the group of humans with two and if the disagreement continues forever, the operator is useless and incorrect).
I have "discovered" an algorithm which always returns the same boolean value as a sufficiently intelligent human would return, but I'm sure this algorithm must already exist since it's so obvious.
Hopefully you hackers can tell me what this operator or algorithm is called so I don't have to spend the time to implement it in assembly language, since now I only have a reference implementation in a higher order language. <comment><USER2> This is in Racket, but it has an arbitrary subjective threshold of 1%: (Online version: [http://pasterack.org/pastes/94321](http://pasterack.org/pastes/94321) )

      #lang racket

      (define (~=~? x y)
        (and (= (length x) (length y))
             (for/and ([vx (in-list x)]
                       [vy (in-list y)])
               (define avg (/ (+ (abs vx) (abs vy)) 2))
               (define diff (abs (- vx vy)))
               (< diff (/ avg 100)))))

      (~=~? '(1047072 1047216 1047441 1047521 1047682 59102 59361 59583 59818)
            '(1047085 1047276 1047471 1047754 1047938 59128 59364 59732 59945)) ; ==> #t

      (~=~? '(1047072 1047216 1047441 1047521 1047682 59102 59361 59583 59818)
            '(1047085 1047276 1017471 1047754 1047938 59128 59364 59732 59945)) ; ==> #f

<comment><AUTHOR> Then it's disqualified. 1% is just an arbitrary constant and if it's suitable or not depends on the input. The operator must not have any constants, otherwise it won't work in the general case.

<comment><USER3> Then how would you define what is "suitable" in the general case?

<comment><AUTHOR> That depends on the input, and that's what it must be able to tell, unbiased without any pre-defined constants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've thought a bit more and made a small but important change in how the "equalish" operator works:

The operator should take three (not two as suggested before) sets of integers as input of equal sample size.

The first two sets are already known to be equalish TRUE, as defined by either a human or a previous test of a smaller subset of the integer sets. The third set is a the new sample you want to compare.

Example output:

equalish('{0}','{0}','{0}') -> TRUE

equalish('{0}','{0}','{1}') -> FALSE

equalish('{110,105,120}','{113,107,121}','{110,106,120}') -> TRUE

equalish('{1047072,1047216,1047441,1047521,1047682,59102,59361,59583,59818}','{1047085,1047276,1047471,1047754,1047938,59128,59364,59732,59945}','{1047085,1047276,1017471,1047754,1047938,59128,59364,59732,59945}') -> TRUE

<comment><USER4> Which of first or second input are we comparing the third to? If both, then I don't think you operator makes sense, since that would suggest your ~=~ operator is transitive. Since all inputs are comparable, I assume, that would mean your operator is an equivalence relation.

Due to transitivity:

A ~=~ B ~=~ C and

C ~=~ E ~=~ F implies that

A ~=~ F which would not necessarily be the case.

For instance:

Let X be a large set with many elements. Then a "reasonable intelligent human" might suggest that:

(X `union` {1}) ~=~ (X `union` {2})

And also:

(X `union` {2}) ~=~ (X `union` {3})

...... (X `union` {999999999999}) ~=~ (X `union` {1000000000000 })

which implies

(X `union` {1}) ~=~ (X `union` {1000000000000 })

, even if this is actually the case, you expect it not to be for some large enough number. Then your operator cannot be transitive, but then what use is the knowledge that input #1 is approximate equal to input #2?

But since you already "discovered" the algorithm, why not just show it, or the pseudo code, such that we could discover its true name?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can create an operator that can be made of other operators

cardinal of A intersection B == cardinal of (A) (or cardinal of B : since A~=~B implies card( A )= card( B) ) This is your test re-expressed by using math.

But basically the formula I gave is the shortest non factorable form of this operator in a normal set theory.

And there you have a problem, every truth are biased by a corpus of prejudice called theory and the physical nature : because of the nature of computer you cannot represent any given number. There always be a number that can saturate your computer resources. It is called MAXINT.

Old MAXINT where the size of a register. With Big Int there are the size of your allocatable computer memory (phys + virt)..... on a distributed grid it will be the resulting union of resources. And universe being resource bound there always be a limit to the representation of the integer you can make. So computers will still fall short of resources to represent ALL numbers.

So the absolute operator you call for does not and cannot exists as long as computer are resource bound. So there is a map problem here that cannot draw completly the territory. The playground of physic is bounded, math abstraction/measures are not.

And your way of interpretating data can be wrong : what tells you the input number are not modulo something? Like in a % 2 universe : 2 == 0 [2].

Good software are high context software. There is no such thing as immutable truth and monads is still an elucubration of a monk that ended being burnt by the church for blasphemy. Not to say he was wrong on saying the earth is moving (in fact the solar system)... but to say ignoring context can literally burn you.

PS Noise is defined by the observator. It is measuring the log of the ratio of non of relevant choices over relevant choices (entropy) and entropy varies according to what the observer calls relevance of the data.

What is relevant to someone (random numbers in cryptography) maybe irrelevant to other ones.

</comment><comment><USER6> Define 'noisy' and then what you mean by two sets being 'equal', given that definition.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't get it. The last two examples in your post compare the exact same sets, yet the result of the operator is TRUE in the first example, and FALSE in the second? Or is this a joke that's gone over my head?

<comment><USER8> the second sequence in the first example starts: 1047085,1047276,1047471

in the second example it starts: 1047085,1047276,1017471

The 3rd element is different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why is the last example false? I'm not sure what you mean by equal in this context, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER10> Common Lisp: equalp

<comment><AUTHOR> No. That's not the one. "Two objects are equalp if they are equal; if they are characters and satisfy char-equal, which ignores alphabetic case and certain other attributes of characters; if they are numbers and have the same numerical value, even if they are of different types; or if they have components that are all equalp."</comment></comment>


Estimating objects from serial numbers: How a statistical formula won the war   - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1824525,00.html

<comment><USER2> It doesn't say why this formula works. Does anyone know?

Does it depend on other assumptions about tank production not mentioned in the article, or can you use this exact formula for any problem of this type?

<comment><USER3> It's Order Statistic: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_statistic>

PS: My years and years of studying math are good for something ;)

<comment><USER4> Answering questions online. Oh, how I look forward to my degree in math. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I got this link from Joshua ala delicious's blog. He was saying how auto increment on primary ids isn't a good idea--especially when it's exposed as a part of the URL. Too bad this is the default in Rails.

<comment><USER5> Is it really that tragic if people know how many users you have? Maybe honesty isn't an awful idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it's not exactly that. If primary ids are in order, someone, somewhere, is eventually going to write a script that sequentially goes through and pulls all that data off. While that in itself might not be bad, pinging your servers without throttling it might be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing. I love shit like this.</comment>


What can hackers do for the environment? - <AUTHOR>

I like mathematics and computer science and there is where my strengths are. But I have lately found that things outside the CS-sphere interest me more. Tesla(electric cars), solar power etc. Environmental stuff in general.
So what can a hacker do for the environment? And I mean on a big scale not just sorting your garbage :) (I already do that anyway). Thing is the computer business uses loads of energy.
Hardware guys can: Invent chips, processors etc that run computers using less energy What can software guys do?
Sidenote: I started working on a solar power search engine/prize comparer, anyone think that could be made profitbale? There already are some pretty good ones though naturally but they are lacking and more towards green stuff in general. <comment><USER2> Working on the assumption that making small changes to the largest number of offenders has a bigger impact than making a huge change to a few devices, we're working on making virtualization easier and more manageable. Millions of computers in data centers are sitting idle _right now_ , and they're burning power at 30-80% the rate of a computer doing real work. So, let's get the jobs they're doing consolidated down to a few virtual machines that spin up when they're needed (or run all the time, but when they're idle, other virtual machines on the same physical device can be doing work).

Halving the number of machines in a data center, even if the number and size of disks spinning and amount of memory stays the same (and we're assuming that CPUs aren't working full-time, and just need to be fast enough and plentiful enough to answer all queries quickly), will dramatically reduce power and cooling requirements for that data center. So, it's sort of a CFL model. A virtual machine is a drop in replacement for a dedicated server, but burns remarkably less power for the same amount of usage.

</comment><comment><USER3> i feel like something that software guys can do is find out ways to make telecommuting work more viable for the masses (where viable -- factory workers can't really take part), not just tech workers.

it already _is_ viable, but its not quite that accessible and easy to do for the non-tech-savvy.

this would help to remove the reliance we have upon driving long distances every day for work and help relieve some of our pollution, energy and oil problems.

its not a cure-all, but there isn't one. incremental steps will help fix our problem.</comment>


A site for Picolisp, a very true Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://www.picolisp.org/ <comment><USER2> I'm highly skeptical.

An interpreter-only implementation that performs better than compiled implementations?... Oh, but wait, it says it's better than "some" compiled implementations, so I guess if it beats "some" shitty compiled implementations that's true... How does it compare to, say, SBCL?

As for the "As a consequence [of being interpreter-only], Pico Lisp is the most dynamic Lisp in existence today." part, I don't really see what notable advantages an interpreter-only implementation would have over a _proper_ compiler-implementation in flexibility, given that it's Lisp we're talking about. Unless you wanted to muck with the deep internals or something... Also, I'm in the process of making my homebrewed web framework _more_ flexible by making use of _more_ compilation, thus making it _less_ of an interpreter.

<comment><USER3> This could make sense. In a sufficiently complex language, a single "VM" instruction translates to many native instructions. If you compile a program in such a language into native code, the size of the code explodes, resulting in really poor cache utilization. A tight interpreter on a modern processor (heavy cache fault penalties + branch prediction) can very well perform better than a natively compiled program. Performance is a very tough problem, unfortunately it's very difficult to find a "superior" solution - it just depends on far too many variables.

<comment><USER4> If memory serves me, there are also cases where information available at run- time can allow better optimizations than could normally be done at compile- time--I think the JVM has some tricks along those lines for JITing bytecode into native instructions, but I suppose the same principle could apply elsewhere.

<comment><USER5> Nothing stopping you doing these kinds of optimizations on Lisp code again at runtime when you have the extra info. Just automatically recompile if you know it will save you enough time to be worth it (which is a more difficult problem, of course...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Regarding the quote below... I don't get it. Cells are a linked list spread randomly throughout your address space. Processors don't love that at all.

"A cell is a cell in the same way it was with the original Lisp, consisting on a head and the rest, that is, a CAR part (which may be either a number, a symbol, or a pointer to another cell), and a CDR part (also a number, symbol or cell). As a consequence, it is incredibly memory efficient, and there is little to none memory fragmentation. Processors cache "loves" our interpreter."

<comment><USER7> Let's just say I wouldn't use the spread of allocations across address space as a PRNG. Depends on your allocator of course, but you should normally see some fairly linear patterns. The allocator can be very simple if all (or almost all) allocations are the same size, so you can easily optimise for cache efficiency.

I suspect the cache angle they're playing up refers to memory footprint of each cell. I don't know how big their cells are, they could be anything from 2 machine words up. Integers are supposedly directly represented, and if they've embedded their GC liveness info into spare bits (or stored it elsewhere entirely) then that makes it extremely compact and thus cache friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Gee, what a great interpreter to embed in a program... that's GPLed. Nice option for that niche, I suppose.

<comment><USER9> There are lots of GPL programs around, not really a "niche" anymore ;)

<comment><USER10> You missed his statement about it being embedded into other programs. You see when you embedded a gpl scripting language into a larger program the entire program becomes gpl. This makes it a very bad embeddable program.

<comment><USER11> IIRC, there is another license (guile, maybe?) that's identical to GPL except it doesn't affect the outer program.

<comment><USER6> MIT license is far less restrictive.

<comment><USER11> Of course, but if you want to go with the GPL, you can use exceptions and protect just the part you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Picolisp was a major inspiration for me to start writing my own lisp --- I love the idea of removing lambda in favor of quote. I was constantly frustrated by the dynamic binding, though, and the lack of idiomatic macros --- I guess you can't have everything you want unless you do it yourself.

<comment><USER13> eight looks really cool!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Uh, a small warning, some of the functions in picolisp are a bit "buggy" or at least I wouldn't use them: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1630352/picolisp- language...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1630352/picolisp-language- onoff-question/1652986#1652986)

<comment><USER14> Hey, it's a Lisp that allows something akin to [false become: true] in Smalltalk. That's awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> For some values of true.

While PicoLisp is certainly interesting, the bulk of Lisp and Scheme (and Dylan) implementations since the early 1980's have gone into a different direction.

For me, true Lisps are languages like T, EuLisp, Dylan, Goo and CL of course (their kernels are mostly equivalent, and can be compiled to run well on existing (virtual) machines.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I call it "true" mainly because it faithfully represents the code/data unification in lisp. In picolisp, there is no lambda, because the representation of a function is a list, and can be quoted directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have a copy of an great-but-ancient book called "Functional Programming: Application and Implementation" (Peter Henderson, edited by CAR Hoare).

If you're interested in this implementation, you'll find that book very interesting, and quite similar I think (based on reading the link).

(The book has a now-amusing appendix too where it lists the "object" code for the compiler in sexp-syntax, presuming that you'd have no other way to bootstrap other than typing that in :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also check out the author's site for picolisp: <http://www.software- lab.de/down.html>

</comment><comment><USER17> "Pilog -- PicoLisp Prolog"

I see it obeys the law that every Lisp implementation must have an implementation of Prolog embedded in it.

</comment><comment><USER18> No (non-Cygwin) Windows binary :-(

<comment><USER19> I call it a feature.

Cygwin is the first thing I install on a Windows desktop. At least it makes it look like a civilized environment.

<comment><USER20> Mingw makes Windows civilized AND non-slow.

<comment><USER19> MinGW is a compiler set. Cygwin gives me a full Unix-like environment on top of Windows. It's not an apples to apples comparison.

<comment><USER21> Look into CoLinux, I like it a lot more then Cygwin. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_Linux></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Do you need to know computer science to write code? - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/do-you-need-to-know-computer-science-to-write-code-dd155c517716 <comment><USER2> Do you need a mechanic's license to work on your car (and be good at it)? No.

Does it help? Sure.

That's the beauty of hacking.</comment>


The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/01/the-pebble-steel-review-wearables-2-0-arrive/ <comment><USER2> I find it interesting that the Android app update is being delayed, given that Android has thus far been the platform of choice if you own a Pebble. For the longest time you couldn't do that much with unjailbroken iOS due to limitations. SMS, phone calls, and music control, that was it. Email was unreliable at best (iOS-using Pebble owners know the notification settings "finger dance" all too well).

No worries now that an Android phone is my daily driver. The watch does what I expected it to do when I bought it, and I can wait. Because, frankly, Yelp and FourSquare on a watch display aren't going to have me swapping the SIM card back to an iPhone.

<comment><USER3> Because of iOS and App Store restrictions, the new Pebble Store is _necessary_ for getting 2.0 applications to work on the iPhone. The iOS Pebble app actually bundles the JavaScript-side of every Pebble store application to get around the platform restrictions.

On Android, this hack isn't necessary and users aren't missing out on much because they can use the store on the web and install whatever they want. So there is much less reason to work on the Android app right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know 3 people with pebbles. All 3 have had the screens stop updating properly after several months. Plenty of other folks on the forums also have display problems. I feel like it was an ok level of satisfaction for a kickstarter and proof-of-concept, but nowhere near good enough for me to stick with the platform. I'm just hoping it inspires another company to do a great job of making an awesome e-ink watch now that the market has been demonstrated.

<comment><USER5> Interesting. I know 3 people with Pebbles and have one myself, and none of us have had any problems of the sort. At one point my charging cable broke, probably due to my transporting it rolled up, but that's it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 2.0? That falls fare short of what wearables were doing decades ago.

<comment><USER7> Really? Which wearable, decades ago, had the ability to pair with a smartphone and access the Internet to retrieve information for display?

<comment><USER8> Wearables decades ago were generally big computer bricks on your waist or otherwise strapped to your body, then a separate display up at your head, and often a separate input in your hand like a Twiddler chorded keyboard. They did tend to range in power and capabilities up to matching laptops of the day, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apple is missing big time in the smart watch camp.

Imagine all the NFC possibilities, like the article about hotel check in and stuff like that. PC activation. Car activation. Passcode integration. Lights on/off on enter/leave, etc.

People may react with disdain about the idea, but once smart people start building cool apps, they undoubtedly will follow.

Just do it Apple, damnit, we will build the apps, they will surely come.

<comment><USER10> As someone who buys pretty much every (non-mac-pro) thing that Apple sells, I'm perfectly happy with Apple waiting and letting other people experiment with the first few generations of crappy wearable tech before making something that I'm de-facto obligated to buy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seeing if anyone in HN community has been playing around with wearables by developing apps for them and whats your experience been like so far?

<comment><USER12> I'm a web developer so diving into pebble dev was my first time writing C.

That said, I've really enjoyed it. The SDK is excellent and hacking apps on a watch is terribly fun.

Here are some of the apps I've made so far:

[https://github.com/MilesOkeefe/freedom- clock](https://github.com/MilesOkeefe/freedom-clock)

[https://github.com/MilesOkeefe/magic8](https://github.com/MilesOkeefe/magic8)</comment></comment>


Apple employees kept walking into glass walls at the new 'spaceship' campus - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/911-call-transcripts-apple-employees-glass-walls-spaceship-2018-3 <comment><USER2> What is this a windex commercial?</comment>


Information about Google Code's read-only transition - <AUTHOR> https://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/ReadOnlyTransition

<comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone know what they plan to do with regards to public issue trackers for Google projects? (eg. Chromium, App Engine, etc.)</comment>


A Father is Charged With Murder for Accidental Drowning of His Daughter - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/09/09/wendell-lindsey-murder-drowning-forensic-science/ <comment><USER2> Actual title:

 _A Father Took His 10-Year-Old Fishing. She Fell in the Water and Drowned. It Was a Tragic Accident — Then He Was Charged With Murder._

It's another long-form story/article about a potential miscarriage of justice.

 _Edit: I wrote that when the title was simply "D" \- it's since been changed._</comment>


Show HN: Socca – A virtual café to share ideas and challenge your beliefs - <AUTHOR> https://socca.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone!

I'd like to show you SOCCA, the first project I'm releasing. It is a text-only chat application, centered around philosophical discussions. It aspires to be a platform where people from all backgrounds and horizons can meet up for a few minutes to learn new things, share ideas and challenge their beliefs (although that latter part might be the most idealistic part of the pitch).

It is quite straightforward:

1\. You either go with the Discussion of the Day, i.e. a pre-selected question to discuss, or choose among 50+ topics (an account is required for the latter)

2\. You are matched with a random person with whom you can exchange around the question discussed, and share your experience

3\. You can also vote for the questions that you'd like to discuss next. A new question is selected every few days, based on the votes received. All the questions and their description are also released under CC0 (in the public domain).

On the technical side:

\- The front end is all made with React. I initially started the project without any JS framework in 2019, but in the meantime I started to learn React and decided to remake what I had thus far with it, to get practice.

\- On the backend, it is a Node application hosted on a DO droplet. Socket.IO is used to provide the real-time discussions, although I'd like to refactor it at some point using ws, which is allegedly faster than Socket.IO. I'm using MongoDB to store the relevant information but I'm leveraging Redis as much as I can for the data that is constantly changing, and to get sticky sessions.

At the moment there is no "Connect with" / "Add as a Friend" feature. I understand that people might want to keep chatting with the person when they got a good match and enjoyed the discussion, but I wanted to try with the "randomised only" approach first. That being said, I wrote the backend with the "Connect with" feature in mind, so that can be quickly deployed if there's any interest.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you think, and if you have any questions and suggestions, I'd be happy to answer.</comment>


Ask HN: How important is a CS degree? - <AUTHOR>

I'm currently a journalism major and I do freelance web development work for money. I like software development a lot more than I like journalism at this point, but I'm 4 years deep in journalism requirements. I'm thinking of minoring in CS or switching majors entirely, and my question is, how important is a CS degree? Should I just finish my BA in journalism and then just do software development work, or is it worth pursuing? <comment><USER2> Finish your current degree, work on projects on the side, and read the more technical things discussed here on HN.

Not all these will ever be relevant, but they indicate your level of ability and your areas of interest.

Do you know what the time complexity is of Quicksort, and why? Worst case? Best case? What about Heap sort?

Do you know how to use regular expressions? Could you write a parser for lisp?

Can you write a recursive fibonacci function? Imperative?

Can you find the shortest path in a graph? Can you calculate the diameter of a graph? Its radius?

Can you compute in a random permutation of _n_ elements the probability of a cycle of length _k_ , when _2k >n_? Does that question make sense to you?

Do you know the difference between inner-, outer-, left- and right- joins? Do you understand the implications?

Chase down which of these interest you, and put them into practice. If you are knowledgable and have example code to demonstrate, it actually helps if your degree subject isn't CS.

Sometimes.

(some further questions added in edit)

<comment><USER3> Agreed. The skills are the most important part. In my experience, though, the skills are weaker in those without a CS degree. Personally I'd like every developer to be able to solve some basic discrete math (graph theory, combinatorics, etc.) problems, but that's just me. Probably overkill for most software development, so maybe it depends where you want to work.

<comment><USER2> I initially left those out because I thought I might be unduly biased towards them, but have added them as an edit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Caveat: I have a doctorate in computer science.

Important things to do, regardless of your degree if you want to program for a living: 1\. know what the hell you are talking about 2\. have experience in the things you want to do 3\. become known in the community

Expanding: 1\. If you say that you know what the hell you are talking about, and your O(n^2) algorithm for computing something for someone's app used to work but now falls to pieces with more widgets, then you really don't. Learn how to design and analyze algorithms to fit the task at hand. I don't know how many times I've cleaned up someone's O(n^2) or O(n^3) algorithm to O(n) because either they didn't know the language or just weren't very good, but it's at least 20 times at this point. If you want to self-start, check out MIT's OpenCourseware. It has a free computer science education that will result in zero paper. Lectures are available online for free.

2\. Don't just read a bit about a new technology that you want to get a job doing, actually use it. There are free VM solutions that will run on your hardware and OS combination, which will let you run and test any number of software configurations to see what it's like.

3\. If you're really using the software, and you don't run into a bug, then you're not really using the software. Report bugs, fix bugs, get involved. Every project needs help; the more you help people, the more you are known; the more you are known, the better your resume.

There are people who have never had a problem getting a job without having a degree. And there are some people who haven't been able to get a position, regardless of their degree. Personally, my degrees have opened doors that would otherwise never have been open to me. And the education that I have acquired _in school_ has been invaluable to actually performing my duties as a chief architect. In my experience, there are just some things that you are only likely to have been exposed to during the course of education and related further exploration.

Ultimately it's a matter of what you want. Do you want paper? What if the paper can increase your lifetime earning potential (do you care)? What if you are so good that you can do better without the degree slowing you down? If you were 1st or 2nd year, I'd say switch majors. At 4 years... I'd say go with your gut. If you're guts are wrong, at least you went with what you thought was right, and not what others thought.

</comment><comment><USER5> Having a CS degree isn't necessary but it will still give you more options. There are still jobs which require that "CS or related" piece of paper to get you in the door. Again, it's not necessary though because there is enough work for developers that you probably don't need those other options. Also, some of those jobs will waive that requirement if you have a certain number of years of experience.

The biggest consideration for me in your position would be the requirements to switch majors. I imagine you would be looking at quite a bit more school. Unfortunately, a CS degree requires a lot of classes which build on each other which Journalism doesn't require, so I'm betting you would be looking at another couple of years in school at the least.

Personally, I wouldn't bother, but school wasn't for me. I dropped out to go into web development and I'm rarely asked for a resume and I have never been asked about my educational background. I feel like communication and good writing skills are important for dealing with people, so you should be strong in that area as a Journalism major.

The caveat in this is that freelance web development will eventually get old (stressful, tricky to balance work and life, etc) and I don't consider web development to be software development. If you were to stop now you would likely continue the web development track and perhaps never get out of it. If you were to complete a CS major then you may be presented with opportunities that you would never have thought of as a web developer (job offers on graduation.)

</comment><comment><USER6> One thing often overlooked is the social aspect of getting a degree (CS or otherwise) -- getting a CS degree will give you more opportunities to meet/get to know CS people. This has a soft benefit -- the people around you start to talk programming more (and you pick up a lot of casual knowledge from them). I think this is even more powerful than classes; it 'keeps you in the game' if you will. Of course, this works both ways (as you may lose connections to other people/majors because of this).

</comment><comment><USER7> Depends on what you want to get a CS degree for. If you want one, so you can get a job, i don't think thats that important(but it probably helps). But the valuable part of a degree is the fact that you'll be exposed to topics which you are unlikely to study on your own, for example graph theory, logic programming, compiler classes, discrete math. Learning how to hack php or ruby sites is easy and not that valuable, learning the general principals of computer science is. And its wicked fun!

<comment><AUTHOR> I have to disagree here, only in that learning to hack PHP has been my meal ticket for the last 3 years and it sure as hell pays better than being a line cook. It's also opened up opportunities in journalism that wouldn't otherwise exist for me-- mediocre hackers in newsrooms are as Gods. But I see what you're getting at.

<comment><USER7> Im not saying simple web knowledge is useless, its just a very narrow and shallow view of programming. A CS curriculum(even if you don't learn that much in class) might widen your view a bit. You didn't become a journalist by learning to hack English did you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Your major isn't that important, read anything by Cal Newport. It's better to have a coding mindset, and produce code of your own and/or contribute to open source projects.

</comment><comment><USER9> Honestly, it depends on what you want to do.

If you want to keep doing Web development, I won't lie to you: you are probably not going to use 75% of your CS course knowledge. You'll be hacking in JS, HTML, CSS and some backend language, and will probably only come across a CS-related challenge once every year or so. (Depending on your clients' industry and requirements). Your biggest challenge will probably be scaling, but that's something you may never even run into.

If you're talking about more corporate-oriented desktop or integrated software development, you will probably be using more of your core CS skills.</comment>


When Will Netflix Start Renting Games? - <AUTHOR> http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2009/02/05/when-will-netflix-start-renting-games.aspx

<comment><USER2> never.</comment>


Do you know her Real age? - <AUTHOR> http://mathema-tricks.blogspot.com/2012/02/digging-out-anyones-age.html

<comment><USER2> I can't tell if this is a parody of spam or not...</comment>