College Students Just Want Normal Libraries - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/10/college-students-dont-want-fancy-libraries/599455/ <comment><USER2> In my experience, most college students really just want a good space to work and study, with a mix of quiet spaces and areas for group work. Undergraduates rarely needed to access the physical books, since they're told to buy almost all the books they need for each class anyway. In 4 years, I think the only books I ever checked out were novels I was reading for pleasure, and I could have easily gotten them from the city library instead.

From an average undergrad's perspective, the ideal "library" is probably something more like a WeWork.

Grad students and researchers have different needs, though.

<comment><USER3> Oh goodness yes this.

I've never been able to study at home. I don't know what it is. But in libraries I'm totally in the zone.

It's unfortunate because library hours are so limited. I'd love for there to be a 24 hour library that always had enough seating.

I actually had an idea starting a private membership 24hr study space that would serve primarily as a quiet study space for students. Tables, wifi, strict rules on noise...essentially using the gym business model. But I'm broke and know nothing about running a business but we can all dream.

<comment><USER4> At UC Davis the Sheilds library has a 24 hour room, and during finals week at the entire library has extended hours.

I loved the 24 hour room back when I was a student. It was super quiet and was so starkly ugly you had no business being there unless you were getting some serious schoolwork done.

<comment><USER5> All I remember about that room was that it was nearly impossible to find a seat during finals (about 12 years ago!). We used to drive to a 24 hour coffee shop in Dixon instead. Nice to get a few miles away from Davis during finals, but even that place was jam packed with students.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the biggest benefit of physical libraries, often overlooked by students, are the professional reference librarians that staff them. I was a competent researcher in college, but if I had difficulties, if the catalog looked like it didn't hold anything I could use, I went to the reference desk, and never was disappointed.

One particular project involved correlating & comparing prison funding & criminal recidivism with education spending in the state I was in. Books held nothing on this, and the government documents section massive, dense & daunting. The reference librarian saved me many hours of work by getting me directly to what I needed, and suggesting other resources as well.

The internet has made casual research extraordinarily easy, but it's like an 80/20 split. The average person can get 80% of the way there, but these reference librarians are professionals in their field, with all the connotations that being a "professional" comes with.

<comment><USER7> And I think chances are, these reference librarians will have masters degrees! They're incredibly knowledgeable, and at least every librarian I've ever met has been not only good at what they do, but incredibly passionate too. And if anyone's looking for ways technology and libraries intersect (besides information storage/retrieval), I recommend the Library Freedom Project [1] (I linked to Wikipedia because their main page seems to be blank.) It's a program that works with libraries to teach librarians about things like digital privacy rights.

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

<comment><USER8> it would be very hard to become a university librarian without a master's degree in library science, and a lot of subject librarians will have two master's degrees! librarians are a great time-saving tool if you have serious research needs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > "Google can bring you back 100,000 answers," as the writer Neil Gaiman once > said. "A librarian can bring you back the right one."

I only did one year of law school, but taking this piece of advice (swap in Lexis/WestLaw/Bloomberg for Google) was a _massive_ win. The librarians at the law library were _so_ knowledgeable, and there was no rule against them using prior experience with the exact question to help the student out. They could also understand _why_ you wanted a particular source.

Example: "I'm looking for the most binding precedent for _random set of issues_ , as well as the 10 most recent cases that discuss the issue at hand. Also, are there any other sources or cases you know of that would be particularly relevant to the issues I mentioned?"

Lexis: Can probably find most binding precedent if you're good at navigating/filtering. Can definitely get you the 10 most recent cases, but you'll have to read them all to judge how useful they are . Can definitely get you other sources, but you'll have to do a general search and read through pretty much everything to filter. This will probably take at least a day just to collect everything and filter it to what's useful.

Law librarian: Might know the right precedent off the top of their head. If not, is an expert in Lexis and can find it much faster than you. Same for recent relevant cases. For other sources, not going to be able to get you a comprehensive list, but likely immediately knows of 5-10 places that are highly likely to be relevant. This will probably take 2 hours, max.

<comment><USER10> This almost feels like cheating. If school staff is helping this deeply, are you actually learning how to research?

<comment><USER11> Part of researching is learning to use the tools you have available. Experienced researchers familiar with the domain are wonderful tools.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. Also, while not their only function, a part of the librarian job description is to help people find the right resource as easily as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel like libraries should probably be compartmentalized more. A room for the main catalogue of books, a room filled with outlets and empty tables for studying and working, and a room with computers / empty desks with outlets for those who need them + the printers.

I feel like libraries try to do too much all in the same space. The computer people bug the 'study-ers' with their typing, clicking, and audio. The printers are loud and disruptive. The desks are sprinkled throughout the aisles of books, wherever space could be found -- which makes it harder to navigate around to find the books you need. There's no need to be surrounded by books once you've gotten the one you need.

They're forcing 3 entirely different sets of people into the same space. If people are visiting with 3 different goals just separate the space according to those goals. Have a dedicated and separate computer lab, a dedicated room to rows and rows of books, and a dedicated room for studying -- with side rooms for group studying.

<comment><USER13> I suspect the study spaces are quieter embedded in the shelving areas, than they would be if the same square footage was used to clump all the study space together.

<comment><USER14> My old unis main library was a model. Massive grand reading room that was dead silent (with felted chairs to keep them silent) and a statue of an angel without a head to motivate you. Open collaborative areas. Computer labs in separate wings.

It also had a dozen floors of stacks in a tower with little tables and cubicles shoved in on the edges and near the elevator because as you said, the shelving muffles noises.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > a library that sometimes looks empty might be a tempting target for > administrators trying to maximize the use of space on their campuses,

College Administrators are responsible for much of what is wrong with modern college campuses. Virtually all the growth in expenses go to these dweebs, who sit around dreaming up new ways of feathering their beds while producing a generation of morons.

I used to use the local college business library quite a bit; they sent literally all the books to storage and turned it into a glorified open office plan. One among many reasons they'll never get another nickel from me.

<comment><USER14> Last year the administrators decided we needed a new wireless projector interface across campus rather than the standard hdmi/dvi+box of dongles present in every room.

No one is able to connect to it on the first try. Some laptops work via airplay, others not at all. I haven't seen a windows user successfully connect to the display (it involves connecting to a room specific wifi network, connecting to an IP address, and typing in a constantly changing password).

Some laptops work in the morning when the prof tests the room and not in the afternoon when the prof holds the class. The previous connected users screen will remain frozen on the display and sometimes, when you connect your laptop, it will move into a split screen configuration with the frozen display of the last user taking up half the screen real estate.

And best of all is that IT got rid of all the wired connections because some salesman told them that this was better than what has been working perfectly for the last 15 years. It is now October and the situation is not any better than during syllabus week and IT has absolutely no idea what to do.

<comment><USER15> Last time they tried to get a buck from me: they were bragging about building a "twitter like app" so students could ask lecturers questions without raising their hands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The library at my university had four floors and a basement. The higher the floor the quieter you were supposed to be, so you were welcome to talk on the ground floor but would get glares or carefully chosen words on the top floor. I loved this system. If I wanted to work but didn't mind the chit chat then I was fine on the ground floor, but if I needed to concentrate then I could move.

I recall using a library book for research _once_. Other than that, I made use of the public computers to work on projects that were stored on Google Drive.

<comment><USER17> Sounds like the ugli at umich

<comment><USER18> Fellow UMich grad here. Shapiro library (formal name for UgLi) was always a great place to study because you had plenty of noise isolation from other people, especially the upper floors.

On North Campus, CS majors had two major study spaces: the Beyster computer lab/atrium, and the Duderstadt Library. Course staff would provide office hours in Beyster, and if you wanted to study in a more collaborative environment, that was the place to be. Duderstadt had a mix of collaborative spaces (in closed rooms) and quiet workspaces (the benches near the stacks). I studied in both locations, depending on my needs at the time. Was a pretty effective setup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> DC-3 I'm a CS student in the UK and one of my favorite parts of my university is its library. I will sometimes go in there between lectures, just to browse the shelves aimlessly and enjoy the peace and quiet. In the past I have found myself perusing books of haiku and the like - things unrelated to my course which I would be unlikely to encounter online or anywhere else in any non- superficial way. I certainly don't want it to become a trendy makerspace or ideas lab or anything of that nature.

</comment><comment><USER19> the thing I love most about really big high quality university libraries is the ability to go find a place somewhere in the back of the stacks, and then to walk around finding a collection of a dozen books that sound interesting of themes you like but are not necessarily conversant with.

then browse those books for the next 5+ hours. Really used to get the gears of the brain moving. Of course this was also before the internet and before having any money and after 5 hours I was lightheaded, starving, and not necessarily sure what I was going to eat - but in a good way for me.

<comment><USER20> Intermittent fasting before it was cool

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Some school libraries don't even have the required course textbooks. A community college I went to did have 1 or 2 copies of required course text books, you just couldn't check them out of the library. 4 year university did not even have them, making sure you paid for a personal copy of your course books from the university book store. It seemed really strange a library wouldn't have the books students needed most.

<comment><USER22> Textbooks go out of date too quickly to meaningfully contribute to a collection. This is (of course) by the design of publishers to wring as much money out of students as possible.

<comment><USER23> Also, it would require faculty members to actually tell the library what textbooks they're using each term. One might be surprised at how rarely and inconsistently this happens.

<comment><USER24> At our university, you are required to submit a reading list when the course is ratified, and each year after that. Students complaining that the library didn't have the books would come back to bite you as the lecturer did not telling the library which books to have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I used to go and work at our City's Cathedral library: access was free to students, it was in an awesome building about 700 years old and most importantly didn't have WiFi so there was no distraction :)

It was also cold - I find most libraries to be warm and stuffy which makes me drowsy and unable to concentrate.

<comment><USER26> Originally libraries were cold because fire and books don't mix well, and they needed massive windows because fire was the only other way to light them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The college I attended has an interesting dynamic in this area. The way the university is laid out, there is a historical "main" campus with a very traditional library, and a much newer "engineering campus" with a very new and modern library. Both buildings are massive and used extensively, but I definitely preferred the modern one - even if some features of it were kinda cheesy (the massive basement with a book-fetching robot being one that was cool in theory - but not often used).

The traditional library had about 10 stories of "book stacks" with quiet areas to study and lots of tables. Unfortunately, each floor only had one conference room and there was a lot of competition for room reservations. The downstairs common area was mostly workstations, and student services, some places to eat too. I liked this library for my first few years of studying, but I felt like it was really hard to collaborate here.

The new library has a ridiculous number of conference rooms which is amazing. Lots of white boards that move around, more variety in seating options, some rooms equipped with specialized stuff (music studios, VR dev spaces, 3d printing), and the layout just feels more optimized (there is a dedicated quiet area upstairs that has beautiful views and tons of space too). The wifi and outlet situation is also better at the new one. The biggest downside is honestly that it's so "different" it becomes a tour destination for random people, which can be a distractions.

All that said, the number one draw for me to both libraries: 24-hour access. Being able to work through the night without interruptions is what made libraries so important to my college experience. I actually really miss that, and I miss that one library in particular.

<comment><USER28> Michigan? This seems to exactly describe that.

<comment><USER27> North Carolina State actually - Hunt Library in particular ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Hunt_Jr._Library](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Hunt_Jr._Library))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm not a student anymore, and I would love to have access to a decent library where I could actually focus for hours at a time. Anyone have any recommendations in SF? I'm happy to pay.

I've already checked out the private Mechanics' Institute library, and I didn't like it. The best thing I've found so far is just going to fancy hotel lobbies.

<comment><USER23> I would expect any public university library to be open to the public. Consider trying UCSF or SFSU.

[https://www.library.ucsf.edu/use/spaces/](https://www.library.ucsf.edu/use/spaces/)

[http://library.sfsu.edu/hours](http://library.sfsu.edu/hours)

<comment><USER29> Ahh one of those reservable group study rooms would be perfect. I wonder what's the least I'd need to spend to get UCSF student status for access. Probably not an option until I have an employer that has tuition reimbursement as a benefit. In the meantime, I'll check out the other UCSF/SFSU libraries. Do you have any recommendations?

<comment><USER23> Libraries often limit use of group study rooms to groups, even with student status you may not be able to use them individually. The spaces that indicate they are open to the public and are categorized with the "considerate" noise level would probably be much quieter than the hotel lobbies you're currently using, and you can access them now, without student status.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If I was a college student I'd just want them to focus their technology spending on eliminating noise. The library for me was just an escape from the constant stimulus of being on campus

</comment><comment><USER31> "A 2016 survey of students at Webster University in Washington, D.C., also illustrates limited use of digital resources, finding that just 18 percent of students accessed e-books "frequently" or "very frequently," compared with 42 percent who never used them."

I have lived in Washington, DC, for forty years, and until this had never heard of Webster University. Given the size of Webster (about 2400, it says), and the number of campuses, I wonder exactly how many students were surveyed.

<comment><USER32> 1085 students, 226 staff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> In college, IRC chat rooms with bots serving books from an FTP server were a life saver. I don't think I bought 5 books throughout my entire college career.

Me and my buddies also built a textbook scanner that saved us a ton of money. ( webcam x2 + buttons + easy page turning mechanism )

I always thought the price of college textbooks were ridiculous and put unfair pressure on a broke college kid like me.

</comment><comment><USER24> One of the essential features of a university library as far as I'm concerned is to actually have on hand a sufficient number of copies of the books required for each course. This was done very well at my university in the UK, but from what I've seen in the US, students are expected to buy (oftentimes many) books for each of their courses. I have a problem with that in the days of high tuition and bloated administration. Libraries should not be profit centres.

A university library to me is a place which has access to academic material such as journals and various scholarly databases, a good selection of relevant books, a nice place to study, and very high speed internet.

I didn't extensively use the library during my studies as most of our CS course materials were available for free, but I did use the space a lot. Additionally, whenever I encountered a book that I might want, the library would process an interlibrary loan, or just buy the book. Purchase requests were easy and fast.

<comment><USER34> Courses at university in the UK (or at least mine, and at least when I did it) don't really have textbooks. You are advised to read three or four books during the course, but there isn't one single book that you absolutely must have. Lectures had notes, and referred to those three or four books and you could find relevant material in each, in basically any edition.

I think I bought maybe four text books during a four year degree, and those were the ones I really liked and wanted to keep after I graduated. The rest were just checked out of the library.

How come this isn't possible in the US? Why do you _need_ that one particular textbook and a specific edition and nothing else is suitable? There's no undergraduate subject I'm aware of so specific that there is only one book in existence on the topic - many are suitable. What's the blocker?

<comment><USER35> > How come this isn't possible in the US?

depends on the course, major, and school. in my CS major you could pretty easily get away with not purchasing the "required" textbook for most classes unless they assigned problems directly out of the book. even then, professors would often distribute PDF scans of the relevant problem pages. everything you actually needed to know for the exam would almost always be included in the monstrous PowerPoint lectures, so you could just study these if you didn't need extra help understanding the material.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The biggest problem I always had with the library at my alma matter (ucla), was that thousands of square feet dedicated to books people rarely ever touched while simultaneously failing to have even proportional amount of space dedicated to desks. Furthermore, any furniture frequently doubled as people's bed away from home.

<comment><USER37> The purpose of a library is not to have books people are sure to read, but to have references people might need. A (good) library is necessarily a long-tail institution.

The rarely touched book is a treasure. The study space a concession to the modern student body that lacks any meaningful silent space.

The student sleeping in said study area is a gross oversight by the librarian to ensure the sacrosanct space isn't violated (and, unfortunately for some of those sleeping at the library, another housing failure in S. California :S)

<comment><USER38> Indeed; a good library is a long-tail institution. The Harvard Library system has a large collection of books at the various on-campus libraries, but an _immense_ catalog of infrequently accessed books at a "depository" warehouse off-site. Scholars can request items from the Depository and receive them within a day.

This split-storage model may a sensible solution for other universities going forward: prime and expensive library buildings on-campus can be reserved for quiet study areas and a few commonly-used books, with the main collection of books retrievable from a nearby location where land is less expensive. It also has the advantage of allowing books to be stored in the ideal climate for their preservation.

Fun fact about the Harvard Depository: books are organized not by topic, publication date, or anything resembling the Dewey decimal system, but rather by a metric that makes sense for high-density: physical size. Books are stored in barcoded boxes by height. Here is an artsy documentary, "Cold Storage," about the Depository:

[https://vimeo.com/116603551](https://vimeo.com/116603551)

or in interactive form:

[http://librarybeyondthebook.org/cold_storage/](http://librarybeyondthebook.org/cold_storage/)

<comment><USER14> Pretty much every library has an off campus facility for books. USC has a warehouse on grand avenue. Not sure where UCLA's book repository is, but it is definitely somewhere.

However, I wouldn't want the stacks in the main library (doheny) at usc converted to study space. I think there are better rooms to gut for study space, namely the random faculty offices they've shoved in every library. You can build an office across the street from campus if you need the space. The ceiling in the stacks is maybe 6.5' tall, it's musty and the HVAC is deafening, and extends 6 stories down into the earth. I couldn't imagine a more disheartening study environment, but there are some tables and chairs and sad graduate students down there nonetheless.

<comment><USER36> Stacks is exactly the place that came to mind when I was writing my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I used to love camping out in my college library. The old computer science books were some of the most fun to leaf through. It may seem comical to a methodologist of today, for whom Agile is the end of history and Object- Oriented Design the pinnacle of human achievement, to read about Jackson Structured Programming, but JSP was the cutting edge of enterprise development in the 1980s and really helped a lot of people deal with tricky data flows in a systematic abstract way.

Of course some notions from back then are still silly. One book described a "software engineer of the 1990s" who sat in a lounge chair and described specs out loud to a HAL-like AI, which transmuted them into flawless code. Kinda like George Jetson and RUDI.

</comment><comment><USER9> Personally, I want a traditional library with physical books, as well as ample digital access. I did research in college involving attempting to find and summarize every mention of a particular topic by a Congressperson during the 1970s. This meant I grabbed the (massive) books of Congressional minutes, checked the indexes, and paged through them for weeks. I could have done this in days with a digital archive.

At the same time, there was a lot that I preferred to read a physical copy of, and I saved a ton of money by only buying books that weren't on reserve at the library, meaning you could check them out, but only per visit. I also definitely would prefer they remain as a spacious, quiet spaces for study.

</comment><comment><USER40> It took me some time to realize this, but now I wholeheartedly agree with the argument that physical paper is better for reading.

Now I can only envision an ebook reader that's made up of a 1000 paper-thin eink panels bound into a book that's A4 size.

</comment><comment><USER41> We need more quiet spaces. Not everyone is an extrovert. And even us extroverts occasionally need some head's down time.

When I become king, companies will also have library inspired quiet rooms, like the graduate school library Even rustling sounds get stern looks. Eye contact and other social interaction is frowned upon.

When I become king, we'll also have cafes for students and other laptop campers. Food service and cashier towards the entrance. Library style big rooms with big tables in the back. No public music. No conversations during "dark" hours. No kids. No dogs.

</comment><comment><USER42> It is true that as a comp.sci student, I did most of my reading online. But one of the best things about library for me was to get a tour of all the other discipline books. See what students from other branches were studying and look at their library books. This is definitely much richer experience than just going crawling on the web. It was also a quiet place to study and prepare for tests/exams. It was also the place where we got all our printing and photocopying done. I don't see these needs going away no matter how much we rely on our connected phones, tablets and laptops.

</comment><comment><USER43> My alma mater, Purdue, built a giant building that was simultaneously a library, a collection of very large lecture halls/classrooms, and a study space. Lining the exterior walls of the building were classrooms. And in between, the majority of the building is essentially an open floor plan study space with no separation between the floors (since the center of the building is an enormous unenclosed staircase and large unenclosed stairwells lined every wall). Consequently, the entire building (aside from the enclosed "library space" and classrooms) was useless for quiet studying. My school shut down 3-5 smaller libraries (all of which were super cozy and quiet, albeit dated) and to form this new library building. The new building is much more aesthetically pleasing, but it's a much worse study space in my opinion from the traditional, drab university library.

Some photos: [https://www.jconline.com/picture- gallery/news/college/2017/0...](https://www.jconline.com/picture- gallery/news/college/2017/08/03/a-look-inside-the-wilmeth-active-learning- center/104268478/)

[https://www.bsalifestructures.com/project/wilmeth-active- lea...](https://www.bsalifestructures.com/project/wilmeth-active-learning- center)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhX8kV1SbDs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhX8kV1SbDs)

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm at a school where most classes have all of their materials online for free. Usually a professor will post lecture notes and/or slides online and recommend an optional reference textbook.

When I do need textbooks, I generally buy them instead of checking them out from the library, and most of the reason is that the library isn't open 24 hours a day. 90% of the time I can get by with only using books for class during the day, but if I end up having to pull an all-nighter to finish a paper or a pset, or if I've been procrastinating and need to do the readings for a class after midnight, I'm screwed. It's valuable to me to have the mental overhead free, instead of needing to plan when I'll be able to access the books I need. (As a bonus, it's a good start for building up a reference library, and I can mark up my personal copies however I want, but these are secondary reasons.)

I still use the library for studying, finding materials that I only need once and don't want to buy, and checking out items like USB CD drives. (You can also check out soldering irons and small power tools from our campus libraries.) I also made frequent use of the piano in the music library when studying music theory. But I'd probably use the library a lot more if it were staffed between midnight and 6 am.

</comment><comment><USER45> It is possibly the fondest memory I have of college life. Years wandering through stacks, finding things I never would have seen otherwise, some of which I hold on to still.

<comment><USER45> And one of the fondest memories of childhood. I grew up in a small Texas town where I could check out things in grade school itself. While I had some mishaps like checking out Jaws at 6 years old and having nightmares thereafter, on the whole I think libraries are an uncontroversial good.

The size of the library matters less now.

What has been an issue lately is that the budget cuts do not hit the number of staff or budget for books -- they just shorten the hours -- often, again, in smaller Texas towns and no doubt elsewhere, cutting the hours down to as few as 5 days a week, with hours as short as 9 am to 5 pm or even 4 pm, so that it is often nearly impossible to get there after work or school.

</comment></comment><comment> yoz-y Several people mention having to buy many books for the courses but do they need to be bought new all the time? As in, does the school change the books required for courses every year? Why not buy or pass them from senior students down?

My school was maybe different because we didn't actually any books, we were given printed support for class or just had to take notes during lectures.

<comment><USER2> Textbook publishers release new editions, at which point they stop selling the old editions (so university bookstores can't easily stock old editions). Instructors then pretty much have to assign new editions.

Students looking to save money can buy old editions or international editions online, but then have to deal with page numbers, chapter order, and exercises being different than the book used by the rest of the class.

Frustratingly, publishers do this even for topics like calculus, which has not changed a lot since the last edition of the textbook!

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> As an undergrad & grad about 10 years ago, I absolutely loved our university library for working and studying solo (although rarely, if ever, did I need a physical book).

But being surrounded by huge shelves of books, gave a sort of muffled/muted ambience that was perfect and hard to find outside of a library. Coffee shops are close, but they're either much noisier or empty therefore all too quiet.

College libraries were the sweet spot for deep work/study for me.

</comment><comment><USER47> Not sure if I should brag or be ashamed, but during my studies I visited library once - to take paper confirming that I don't owe them anything.

I guess that's the beauty of IT

<comment><USER48> In the olden days as an undergrad I used the engineering library a little bit, mostly for the periodical indices and study nooks.

The main ugrad library was for napping in between classes.

Later in law school, the only time I did anything with the library was a onetime legal writing 'scavenger hunt' assignment that forced us to use different resources. I studied in other libraries because they were more convenient for me (less crowded)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I don't agree. I have never used the university library as a library. But I always work there because I can concentrate in libraries way better than in my room. I can't see myself being this concentrated alone in my room, I get distracted very easily. In fact, nearly everything I did for my studies, I've done in the various libraries and nothing alone in my room.

Acknowledging this and building stuy-centers with real coworking-spaces for group work/stuff, isolated rooms with whiteboards to discuss things and quite study spaces complemented with a café in the basement to take a break would be way better than all the new libraries being built by the universities. Something cozy to read also be great. We have a library that's open for 24 hours a day, every day. I've found this very, very useful and would like to the 24 hours aspect replicated elsewhere.

I have also never bought a single "real" textbook in my studies. The need to buy these hugely overpriced books [1][2] has to disappear, which I think will start the real decline of libraries used by the usual students.

[1] I don't mean books per se, just these massivly overpriced textbooks. The ability to get a small physical copy for a few bucks is great, i always try to get my stuff printed in the university printing-center or just buy the pre- printed script. But some studies force students to buy certain books. This needs to get adressed by the state, at least in germany.

[2] I would like to see a law that forces every professor paid by public money to make their teaching material accessible for the public to read and to modify, including making the source accessible. I don't get why this is not the case right now.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm going to guess that parents as well as alumni have a fondness for new fancy libraries; kinda like having a great football or basketball team, but different.

Such libraries might also help with recruiting new profs.

I'm not defending the added expense, only trying to explain it. Perhaps.

</comment><comment><USER51> Yes, I love the space of regular libraries but too much of the space is devoted to old books. I like the romance and the smell, but if I can't find a place to sit what good is that?

<comment><USER52> Part of the reason libraries are quiet is you have fewer people and a lot of sound absorbing materials (that also happen to hold really important information for the right people). Removing books and replacing them with more seats will just make it an open office.

A library is supposed to house knowledge and make it accessible, not primarily to give everyone a study spot. You can always check out a library book and take it somewhere with more seats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> This article does not jive with my experience whatsoever. I graduated from school this year, and I paid for exactly 2 textbooks in my entire college career. The rest were online pdfs. I also only checked out one book from the library in college, everything else I read online. That's just me, but I also don't observe a lot of my peers checking out books. Wish I could find the survey showing 92% prefer print to digital text: that seems preposterous to me.

</comment><comment><USER54> The first college to swear off all digital books will get first consideration on my kids college application process.

<comment><USER55> Digital books are fine. It's the terrible way they've been monetized that's the problem. College textbooks simply aren't worth $150 anymore but the publishers are desparately trying to hold onto that valuation.

<comment><USER56> 100% and that's before adding all the temporary access, unique codes, platform specific access, etc rackets.

<comment><USER57> Yeah, it's absolutely terrible. Sometimes it's 100 dollars for subpar online software that you need to do homework, particularly in subjects such as Biology and Chemistry. Absolutely frustrating

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Books, desks and a comfortable place to nap.</comment>


RubyConf tickets just went on sale - <AUTHOR> http://rubyconf.org/

<comment><USER2> Being fairly new to the Ruby community, is this conference worth the ticket price?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, you'd get the opportunity to see me speak (cf: Better than ROT13), so I might be a little biased. =)

If you're looking for a job, then the answer is "Absolutely." I can pretty much guarantee that over 50% of the attendees will represent companies that are hiring.

If you're not looking for a job, then you'll still get the opportunity to learn from the masters of Ruby. Just be sure to put your laptop/tablet down during talks. =)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for details! I just booked my ticket to RubyConf and look forward to your talk on OpenSSL, definitely a topic I have very little knowledge of.</comment></comment></comment>


The Truth About Alcohol - <AUTHOR> http://www.leangains.com/2010/07/truth-about-alcohol-fat-loss-and-muscle.html

<comment><USER2> Doesn't mention the #1 objection to drinking alcohol while on a diet: Drunk people don't pass up the peanuts.</comment>


Uber is being sued for avoiding VAT in the UK - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/937255/uber-is-being-sued-by-jolyon-maugham-for-millions-of-dollars-for-avoiding-value-added-tax-in-the-uk/ <comment><USER2> I can't believe this has taken this long. I've never understood how Uber has got around this.

Even if they say that the drivers are under the VAT threshold, what about the service fee that Uber takes? Surely that is VATable? Or is it some weird EU reverse charge VAT, but even that requires a VAT invoice to be generated showing it?

for example, Airbnb do provide a VAT receipt for their service charge (and charge VAT).

TBH I still don't know how Uber get around it, even if they were under the VAT threshold. Just because some of your subcontractors don't charge VAT, doesn't mean you don't charge VAT on the entire amount. If the full fare went directly to the driver (and not through them) I could understand, but that clearly isn't the case.</comment>


Barendregt on Consciousness: belief and hypothesis - <AUTHOR> http://184.108.40.206/search?q=cache:YqgDdhS5lTQJ:ftp://ftp.cs.kun.nl/pub/CompMath.Found/belief_and_hypothesis.pdf&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

<comment><USER2> "This is what I believe: to have consciousness, or rather to be conscious, and in spite of being sure of this, it should be considered as a proper belief, since one cannot formulate exactly what is meant by this, leave alone prove that it is so."

WTF!?

Eric Berne, founder of the bizarre 1960s psychotherapy called Transactional Analysis, had a name for that kind of writing: the Berkeley Subjunctive. "In the extreme case, the title reads, 'Some Introductory Remarks Concerning Factors Involved in Gathering Data Toward a Theory of...'—a very modest title indeed, since it is plain that it will take about two hundred years before the theory itself is ready for publication."

Is there any content on that page, beyond "Uhh, maybe consciousness exists and maybe it doesn't"?

</comment><comment><USER3> That whole text is beautifully information-free.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe you mean that it's fact-free. Information is the knowledge acquired through experience.

Disclaimer: If you don't see any value for a hypothesis deduced from something other than facts, don't click. I found it as yet another interesting read to keep me from falling asleep at my cube.

EDIT: Perhaps something of more interest (and facts): ftp://ftp.cs.kun.nl/pub/CompMath.Found/harvard.pdf</comment></comment>


Writing a Fast JSON Parser - <AUTHOR> https://chadaustin.me/2017/05/writing-a-really-really-fast-json-parser/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting read. Sometimes it's hard to keep in mind that software development can actually be a fun pastime.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW: the two years old discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14421215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14421215)

with some comments from the author.

</comment><comment><USER3> (2017)</comment>


America's Best Performing Cities in 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/work/2015/01/americas-best-performing-cities-in-2014/384336/

<comment><USER2> Is dividing up the bay area really that meaningful? Seems like every article does a different division. Why is San Mateo county, or parts there of, sometimes grouped with San Francisco and sometimes with Silicon Valley? I generally consider most of San Mateo the same continuous sprawl with Silicon Valley and San Francisco somewhat separate. Is Facebook really a San Francisco company rather than a Silicon Valley one? Or Sun before it? Where does Oakland end and Silicon Valley start? Fremont? Milpitas? I would generally prefer the entire by area considered as one population center unless the division is really, really meaningful and not just an excuse to fudge the data a little bit...

<comment><USER3> It's the difference between a census "combined statistical area" and "metropolitan statistical area". The CSA combines all the metro/micro statistical areas in a general area. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose-San_Francisco- Oakland,...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose-San_Francisco- Oakland,_CA_Combined_Statistical_Area) .

<comment><USER4> What's odd is that the Bay Area's "metropolitan statistical areas" in the article don't align with those listed here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistica...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas)

The wiki page suggests that these are based on social and employment connections that are inferred in part from commute patterns.

Perhaps the pairing of SF and San Mateo reflects growing social and economic links between the Peninsula and SF in a way that eclipses SF and San Mateo's historical affinities with Oakland and San Jose respectively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Denver, Boulder, Greeley, and Fort Collins, Colorado all made the top 20 with separate entries. They're all along a 60 mile stretch of the front range.

I find Greeley particularly surprising. It's mostly known for the afternoon smell due to the stockyards (cattle) in town. My best guess is it's due to the fracking-powered oil boom in the area.

<comment><USER6> I noticed the same thing. Denver specifically has seen signifiant growth over the last few years, with downtown real-estate prices rising rapidly. It will be interesting to watch how the potrepreneur money effects these trends moving forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> No way - I am very surprised to see Lubbock that high. I suppose people are taking a liking to the flat cotton fields and occasional dirt storm? I live here, just uncertain how the city performed that well.

<comment><USER8> Oil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly enough, I just moved from the top-performing small metro to the top performing large metro.

While national articles like this are quick to attribute Fargo-Moorhead's success to energy, I'm a little more skeptical. The region's economy was seeing good growth even before the oil boom, mostly driven by a strong agriculture economy and lots of higher education. Oil has no doubt been a bit of a catalyst, but I think the region would be seeing prosperity even without it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great to see Lubbock, TX on here!

</comment><comment><USER11> yay Nashville! Affordable, centrally located, and has okay food.</comment>


Cops can ignore Black Lives Matter protesters. They can't ignore their insurers - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cops-can-ignore-black-lives-matter-protesters-they-cant-ignore-their-insurers/2016/05/04/c823334a-01cb-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory <comment><AUTHOR> _city could have lost its liability insurance if the chief kept his job_

It'll be interesting to see how things like this end up interacting with due process and blacklist sorts of things, once it's better known and been gone over a few times.

<comment><USER2> In the US, the insurance industry has essentially driven building and construction safety for more than a century. For example electrical devices are required by building codes to be listed and Underwriter's Laboratories [UL] is one of the most common listings. Even further, local governments frequently build new fire stations in order to secure insurance rate reductions for local industrial uses. Historically, the National Fire Protection Association [NFPA] was organized by insurers and created requirements for fire sprinklering risky occupancies [where "risky" is to a non-obvious degree about the fire hazard a building imposes on neighboring buildings].

Anyway and although I am not a lawyer, local governments receive high levels of judicial deference in matters absent clear statutory requirements particularly in matters of staffing under the tautology that government make decisions based on politics. Without clear regulatory guidance such as state or Federal employment law, the only place due process would enter the equation is in the form of an individual or collective employment contract.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Asking what you did wrong in an interview? - <AUTHOR>

I've only tried this a few times and I seem to get silence in return.
This is only after the phone interview; after I get a "Thanks but no thanks" email I've asked in polite terms why I got passed over. I've heard back only once out of the few times I've done it and I felt that it really was a kind of hard decision for them to make.
Is it impolite? Is it a legal concern? Do they not like me that much? What? <comment><USER2> The times I have asked I have not received a response or the response I got was generic and dismissive, rather than helpful which is what I was hoping for.

I'm guessing the lack of a response is because:

1\. They don't feel they have to justify their decision. 2\. They don't want to get into a dispute/nit-pick. 3\. They are just bad hirers and don't know how to provide adequate feedback. 4\. They are trying to hire someone, not help people they are not hiring.

Conversely, when I have turned down an offer those companies have never asked me why.

\- James.

<comment><USER3> Yeah. It's really just a kind of a protocol. A game with quirky rules, but which we kind of have to play anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would not engage in this conversation with an interviewee if someone asked me that question. It sounds like an invitation to an argument or a lawsuit.

Chances are it's not something you did _wrong_ , it's just that other people who had the same phone interview seemed like better candidates to move to the next level of screening.

If you want feedback on your phone interview, have a friend/colleague sit in the room with you and listen to your side of the conversation - or, more likely to be illegal, record the conversation and have someone you trust listen to it afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whatever "it" is, it's _way_ more about them than it is about you.

It hurts, but the best thing really is to just take your lumps, and try to detach yourself from the the idea that the rushed, off-the-cuff judgements that utter _strangers_ make of you in the heat of the most awkward of social contexts imaginable has any relation to you as person.

That is to say: _do_ take inventory of what happened, and do try to learn from the situation and do better next time... but please don't take it "inside" you as a person.

Life is just way too short for that.

</comment><comment><USER5> You're not likely to get it from the hiring manager or the people which interviewed you. However, if you went through a recruiter and have good rapport with him/her, you may be able to get answers to your questions about "why" and what their reservations were. Whether or not this knowledge _actually_ helps you in the future is another, perhaps more interesting, question.

</comment><comment><USER6> If someone tells you the one or two tiny things you did wrong, you will just fix those two tiny things and interview again and maybe make it through instead of building the broad skills necessary that would have made those two things non-issues.

For instance, if your resume says something like that you want to be CEO within five years, the interviewer could tell you that they can't take you seriously. You will just fix your resume and reapply to some other job. However, all that telling you accomplishes is that there is now a person out there that has completely unrealistic expectations but knows not to put it on his or her resume.

</comment><comment><USER7> Large companies have canned responses and HR coaches interviewers to avoid providing direct feedback. Given the liability of someone providing inappropriate feedback, don't expect a candid answer. Good luck!

<comment><USER8> This isn't actually true for all companies.

At my (large) company HR only gets involved once a decision to hire has been made. They make sure the background check is performed, vet the offer to make sure it is within guidelines (or the guidelines have been waived by someone In Charge) and then handle the huge volume of paperwork that must be signed in order to formally accept the offer.

Following on-site interviews the hiring manager will collect and sanitize feedback from all the interviewers to give to the candidate. Sometimes the message is something generic, like "not a good fit" or "lacking required experience" because some feedback just can't be sanitized.

If the deficiency is in skills (technical or soft), rather than personality or demeanor, then we generally provide solid feedback. For a candidate that is borderline we will sometimes invite them back (or out for a drink) to ask them how they would address the perceived deficit if we were to hire them. Not only does it give them a chance to recover, it lets us see how they handle critical feedback.

I don't believe there is liability exposure here, unless someone were to refer to gender, race, religion, disability or ethnic background as a reason for not hiring. Since those are never the reason for not hiring, this isn't an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One employee at my work (I will not name it) was initially passed over for a job because he called the company by the wrong name in his cover letter. He emailed and asked what he could do better for his next job interview. That email got him the job.

He was fired some time later for messing up too much on the job. [I couldn't imagine that there would be any kind of predictor for that] ... I suppose it just depends on who you ask and when you ask them.

</comment><comment><USER10> I frequently 'name a price'; that is, I disclose my current salary without remembering that it locks me in for later negotiation.

<comment><AUTHOR> It never gets that far when they tell me 'no'. Maybe someday i'll have that privilege.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Perhaps it's very basic- in the Time Moneyland article on 8/8 ([http://moneyland.time.com/2012/08/08/how-not-to-sabotage- you...](http://moneyland.time.com/2012/08/08/how-not-to-sabotage-yourself-at- work/)), it's suggested that the very tendency that you care enough to ask is why they didn't hire you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had assumed that it was something I did or some area I'm inadequate in that makes me not get a callback. I just want to know what I can do to improve.

<comment><USER11> Perhaps (and this is just based on my impression of your approach from a computer terminal 1000 miles away; could be way off), an approach of needing things to make sense, needing information, needing closure is coming across as a negative personality trait that makes the interviewer think you're going to be high maintenance, a drain on their time, and self- and team-sabotaging.

Nobody likes getting passed over for a job, with so much prep work and so much on the line, but it's part of the game of interviewing and working for somebody that you can keep that aspect of nervousness in check. I'm not saying this is you, but if the roles were reversed, and you had 20 candidates for 1 job, and out of the two finalists, one may have higher technical marks but is so nervous during the interview, wondering how they're doing during the interview, even seeking your approval before they even get the job, which one would you hire?

The basic value proposition for working for someone else is that you generate a net positive financial and time outcome for them; if you take weight off their shoulders, you pass. Seeking approval adds weight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> the one time I asked for this I actually got a detailed list of notes each of my interviewers had made, I found it very helpful

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the sort of thing I was hoping for. I genuinely want to improve my shortcomings. "Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points." -- Knute Rockne

<comment><USER3> But even if they felt they could, they wouldn't really have much to say about your shortcomings, because... they're not _you_. They don't know anything about what makes you tick, or the path you took to get to where you are now. And they certainly don't know where you'll be in 10 or 15 years, regardless of their current impression of you (+ or -).

All they have is this fleeting impression of how you "performed" in this one weird, pretentious moment. Which doesn't have much to do with anything, really.

<comment><USER13> Their opinion matters in the sense that you can use some points that you probably agree with but do not notice as being an issue for others.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's my take, basically. Business, as well as casual social rejections are (important) data points to be processed. But in most cases, just not worth taking personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I once interviewed a potential hire in person and at the end of the process he asked 'How did I do?' then pulled out of list of questions in the expectation of forensic debrief as to where he could improve his interview technique!

Frankly, interviewing is a game with many unwritten rules - one is if you don't get the gig, you are expected to politely accept the decision and move on. Another is the interviewer will often decide in the first 60 seconds if you're getting hired, so asking for feedback on where you 'went wrong' is a waste of everyone's time.

Remember, when you interview, your potential employer has every intention of hiring you _assuming you tick a few boxes_. This is also part of the game. Can you figure out what those boxes are? Put yourself in their shoes. What would _you_ like to see in you? As long as you continue to land interviews, don't become disheartened - keep going and you _will_ get hired.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Another is the interviewer will often decide in the first 60 seconds if > you're getting hired

OK. But why 60 seconds? What did I do wrong in that span of time?

<comment><USER14> It's important to get over the idea that you have done anything _wrong_. Think of it as a percentages game... if you have been invited to interview then your potential employer is definitely interested. So if the interviews keep coming, be assured it is just a matter of time until someone makes you an offer.

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, that's a good point. thank you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Use Probability Models to Predict Pebble Sales (and win a Pebble) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.custora.com/2012/04/competiton-projecting-pebble-sales/

<comment><USER2> I seem to recall reading somewhere that most kickstarter projects get the bulk of their support at the very beginning and end, with a "trough" in the middle. It seems like a good prediction model would take this into account, perhaps by integrating data from a number of similar projects that have finished funding (big-$$ games, other hardware projects, etc.)

<comment><USER3> My suspicion is that the wave of support at the end is for projects that haven't yet reached the funding threshold (thus, backers have an incentive to push friends/family/twitter followers to also fund the project).

I'd be somewhat surprised if said final wave occurred for projects like this, which blow past the threshold well before the deadline.

<comment><USER4> On the other hand it may be people who are on the fence about supporting or not and with the time whittling down decide to go for it.

<comment><USER5> As well that many people end up wanting to see if this is really going to get the support and actually happen, because only then is it really worth pledging their money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I make the best guess by just looking at the current chart without using any tool/model do I qualify for the prize?

</comment><comment><USER7> My guess is $10m. We shall see what we shall see. I will extrapolate post facto.</comment>


Things To Fix: Hiring Software Developers - <AUTHOR> http://sparklewise.com/?p=462

<comment><USER2> it is funny to see that you go for a masters degree but want actual coders that have experience. in my experience hireing developers you are on the wrong track. if you want good coders in the mid cost tier you go for those guys that dropped out of uni and actually did coding for a while compared to those that did uni but never touched an editor. also, if you want good guys, think of maing them. expecting to get only the good ones without investing into education is a bit arrogant in my view. get the most promising ones and get one really good senior guy who mentors the rest. a team of heros will never get anything done ... they only fight for the best algorhythm :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well first of all, I don't dictate the hiring strategy at my company. I try to help in that department but i'm a developer myself. There is indeed an emphasis on academic requirements but I think other successful companies (google) have this bias. Management at my company tends to think that people with no university are "too close to the code", meaning they don't have the ability to abstract things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There is no easy solution to the problem, but I can tell you that if your standards are already high and strict, adding yet more elaborate screens to vett suitable candidates isn't going to do much more than create more work for you.

The best way to get people is to network. Are you and your developers going to conferences and being active in developer communities?

Perhaps de-emphasizing "php" and emphasizing hardcore functional descriptions of the work you do might attract better people? In other words, is what you really want a "php guy" or do you want a capable developer who knows the core material. Can a competent front-end guy with demonstrated ability become quickly productive in a php shop even if he hasn't work in php? I think so.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think we're not active enough in developer communities in general. Whereas facebook, 37 signals & co must have no problem finding software developers, it's harder for companies that didn't make a name in the developer community yet.

However, the focus of my blog post was more to identify what things a startup could do to help software companies finding talent. Easing the workflow or adding some screening steps are examples of what a startup could do to solve this problem, which is a major one for tech companies and where a lot of money is spent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I got fed up trying to hire team members quickly. It got me to the point that I am working on a solution to that problem. It is too early to talk about it, but it will kill the spam of irrelevant applications common to normal freelance sites and provide real-time view into availability of talent pool.

I agree on de-emphasizing PHP in general. You want to know what framework that person is comfortable with and why it's their method of choice.

Look for people from C# or Java or Python background. They can write PHP if they have to.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the advice. And keep us posted on this project of yours, or I will have to build something myself :-)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please review my homepage. Just relaunched - <AUTHOR> Link: www.innertrends.com
I would appreciate very much if you could take a few seconds to open the page and then comment by answering these questions (a few words for each will do):
1. Is it clear for you what InnerTrends does? 2. Is it clear for you how it differs from other products on the market? 3. What's the first question that pops in your mind after seeing the page? <comment><USER2> Main useful point: the CSS doesn't look quite right on Firefox for Android.

As a non-startup guy, so not your core demographic:

I have barely an idea what "growth hacking analytics for SaaS" means, same for concepts like "churn". I know your core audience does, though, so that's not necessarily a bad choice of words. The product tour seems to me clearer, for some reason. If I had to convince my boss, I would send that page.

I have no idea how this product differs from others on the market. I mean, it's pretty clear what your product does, but it doesn't strike me as unique - based on the website, I'm confident I can find someone else to offer me the same functionality. Maybe someone here will say "Oh, but they do X, that's super hard!", and I'll concede the point.

The first question that pops to me is "how much would this cost?", so I checked the menu and voila! There it was. That was a positive experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Really appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's looking good. I am fan of "brandon-grotesque" which you used as your heading in homepage.

There is an issue in 2nd section with id #answers_not_reports. In that section you have used bootstrap class row without warping it inside container which is causing horizontal scroll in webpage. Wrap it inside a container. If you want full width container in bootstrap use .container-fluid class instead of .container class.

it seems like you have used three different font-faces "paralucent", "Open sans" and "brandon-grotesque". Using too many web-fonts can make your site load slow. I think "brandon-grotesque" for heading and "Open sans" for body will be good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1) InnerTrends summarizes user behavior from signup to customer. 2) I can't find competitors on crunchbase. Off the top of my head - the difference is that you are specialized on onboarding analytics. 3) Even if I know (what users do) can I take good actions based on it? or could I just critical think and ask some questions

I am a 1 man company. Took 30min during which I read your website and learned the concepts. Based on your price I am not your target

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Dan. I really really appreciate the time you took. Indeed we target bigger companies. I have a lot of experience with smaller companies also. If there is anything I can help you let's have a chat. I'd like to pay back.

<comment><USER4> Ok, I added you on skype.</comment></comment></comment>


Meeting 150 Venture Capital Investors in just 100 days - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-ive-learned-after-meeting-150-venture-capital-investors-sharka <comment><AUTHOR> My two cents on the experience I had meeting with Venture Capital Investors!</comment>


iPhone 5s Teardown - <AUTHOR> http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+5s+Teardown/17383/1?revisionid=HEAD <comment><USER2> Interesting notes:

The battery is even harder to remove now and is glued in with excessive amounts of adhesive.

There is no "M7 co-processor" [1] chip in the device - possibly it's just marketing for some part of the A7?

The new fingerprint censor is a bunch of small capacitors. Possible cause for concern if you plan to keep using the fingerprint access for the life of the phone.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/15/apples-m7-motion-sensing- co...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/15/apples-m7-motion-sensing-coprocessor- is-the-wizard-behind-the-curtain-for-the-iphone-5s/)

<comment><USER3> > There is no "M7 co-processor" [1] chip in the device - possibly it's just > marketing for some part of the A7?

Not sure why the iFixit guys jumped to the conclusion that it was possibly marketing fluff. It is an SoC after all, the M7 doesn't have to be a separate chip on the logic board.

<comment><USER4> The wording and the slide images at the 5C/5S presentation were definitely calculated to give the impression that M7 was an actual chip with its own package [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZac8af1L4E#t=619](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZac8af1L4E#t=619) . Phil Schiller even explicitly says "the M7 chip" at 11m52s in the video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZac8af1L4E#t=11m52s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZac8af1L4E#t=11m52s) .

<comment><USER5> Not really no. And anyway, it's not like that's a discussion worth having. Where the M7 is does not matter at all. What matters is whether it's there or not and whether it does what Apple says it does. It being on the same die as the A7 does not prevent anything Apple said it would do from happening.

<comment><USER4> Not really? So Phil Schiller saying "the new M7 chip" is not really meant to suggest that the M7 is a chip? Pull the other one. Of course it doesn't really matter, but evidently it mattered enough to Apple marketing for them to lie about it.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure they "lied."

[http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/20/a7-processor- manufacture...](http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/20/a7-processor-manufactured- by-samsung-m7-is-standalone-processor-from-nxp/)

<comment><USER4> Ok, then they truthfully claimed that the M7 is a separate chip; excellent. Hopefully now we can stop pretending that is not what they claimed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Glue: technology shared with a $1000 and a $5 device but none in between.

I've just replaced the battery on my Lumia 820 after 9 months. They don't last forever. Glue is inexcusable. If they had a half decent mechanical design, foam pads would secure it in place when the device was assembled and allow replacement.

I'd probably buy new Apple products if they weren't held together with glue. I'm not investing lots of money in something intended to be disposable. My last MBP (2010) was at least servicable. Now replaced with Lenovo kit as it's possible to strip it down and replace anything.

<comment><USER8> "replaced with Lenovo kit as it's possible to strip it down and replace anything."

Spoiler Alert: Lenovo Ultrabooks have glued in batteries. In fact the Ultrabooks from almost every company (HP, Samsung, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo, Acer) have glued in batteries. This is because glued in batteries are a useful innovation.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I know that. I buy T-series. No glue.

They're not a useful innovation - they are an abhorrent consumerist "disposalism" decision to pump sales, a safety nightmare (isolate it? nope), purely a cost cutting exercise for the manufacturer and make it even harder to recycle the nasty chemicals.

Don't give me the shit about it allowing smaller devices to be made either. You can make smaller devices with removable batteries fine.

I'm a qualified EE for ref.

<comment><USER9> Just playing Devil's advocate... (because I happen to agree with you that batteries should be user-replaceable, especially with phone battery life as bad as it is)

> I've just replaced the battery on my Lumia 820 after 9 months.

If your Lumia's battery needed to be replaced after 9 months, it was already under warranty and should have been replaced by the manufacturer.

> a safety nightmare

You know what's also a safety nightmare? Batteries. Which is why stopping third-parties from replacing certified batteries with random bought-off-eBay batteries is definitely a good idea.

> purely a cost cutting exercise for the manufacturer and make it even harder > to recycle the nasty chemicals

Apple does have a recycling programme where you can bring your old electronics for free (and they'll even pay you for it with some products). [http://www.apple.com/recycling/](http://www.apple.com/recycling/)

As for the glue itself, I imagine it's trivially removable by qualified techs (there's probably a solvent that brings it right up?). And the excessive amount we're seeing now could be equally due to initial assembly issues (c.f. thermal paste a few years back) as much as any conscious decision.

I would definitely be interested in hearing more about why glue is bad though!

<comment><USER7> > If your Lumia's battery needed to be replaced after 9 months, it was already > under warranty and should have been replaced by the manufacturer.

It was. Nokia service sent me a new one out for nothing after a 5 minute phone call.

> You know what's also a safety nightmare? Batteries. Which is why stopping > third-parties from replacing certified batteries with random bought-off-eBay > batteries is definitely a good idea.

The problem is more power isolation. If you get a short when you damage the device etc (compression/impact/waterlogging), your typical LiPoly cell is going to catch fire or at least knock out extremes of heat. This is very hazardous. Removal batteries at least have a chance of power isolation.

My specific example here is my 2010 MBP which the battery was not glued (but inaccessible). This got waterlogged after a drink was spilled on the table. Turning it upside down revealed that capillary action around the base plate had sucked up the water. It rained on the logic board. About 30 seconds later, it caught fire. My only resort was to throw it in the garden and watch my £1249 investment burn up.

> Apple does have a recycling programme where you can bring your old > electronics for free

Yes they do but perhaps if you could replace the battery out of warranty, you wouldn't need to recycle it :)

<comment><USER5> Apple will replace the battery out of warranty no problem. Their laptop batteries are competitively priced (no idea about the iPhones), i.e. replacing the rMBP battery costs $199 (including labor), a comparable battery from Lenovo for T-series laptops costs $179.

<comment><USER7> Well it's not comparable. I'm sitting on a new 9-cell that cost me $129 equivalent and has 8.5 hours left :)

When that runs out, I can take it out and stick the other one in out of my bag.

<comment><USER7> Downvoted by an Apple fanboy no doubt!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _The sensor technology, developed by AuthenTec and bought by Apple a year ago, reportedly stores your fingerprints locally, so giving your iPhone the finger will not make it all the way back to Cupertino._

</comment><comment><USER11> iFixit is awesome and they're building a new office right next to mine. Go SLO, go Poly!

<comment><USER12> As soon as they finish building their new offices, they must do a teardown and score it for repairability.

<comment><USER13> We're actually fixing up an old, old building. So the project is really the biggest repair we've ever attempted. And we're doing everything we can to leave infrastructure exposed so it's easily repairable.

But the cabinets will be nailed to the wall.

<comment><USER14> Just don't glue down the flooring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They seem to have to just embedded a Youtube video ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzuRDujwb_A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzuRDujwb_A)) but cut off the bottom of the video so that you can't jump around in the video or tell that's it's from Youtube. I can't see the bottom of the image or some of the text. Not cool.

<comment><USER16> If you click on 'read more', right bottom of the video, you'll be able to see the controls.

<comment><USER15> I didn't see that. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anyone have any explanation for why the different color iPhones (gold vs silver) would have different batteries?

<comment><USER12> Redundancy of supply. It would be insane for Apple's supply chain to be halted because the supplier of one part failed to deliver for whatever reason. Nearly every major and minor component in an iPhone would be second-sourced, else they'd need to accumulate a month's supply of that part in a warehouse...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_source)

It's the same reason MacBooks can ship with displays from either Samsung or LG, with SSDs from either Samsung or Toshiba. It's pretty much a lottery, and you won't know which till you run _About This Mac_.

<comment><USER18> I don't see the name of the manufacturer for the display or SSD in "About this Mac". Am I missing something?

<comment><USER19> hit the 'System Report' button.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> To kill the TouchID sensor, but keep the home-button functionality intact, and keep the design the same, does anyone know if one can just cut that TouchID cable?

In other words: Where is the physical home switch located, inside the TouchID assembly or below it, on the main board?

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm very confused by their 6/10 score.

They gave tons of phones and other devices just as difficult to teardown far lower scores than that, some as low as 1:

[http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/HTC+One+Teardown/13494/1?sing...](http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/HTC+One+Teardown/13494/1?singlePage)

Just compare that HTC One teardown with the iPhone 5S, while the HTC One is "worse" there isn't much in it. So if they were being consistent the iPhone 5S should have no more than a 2-3 on their scale.

Then we have the Nexus 4 which got the same score (6) as the 5S but doesn't have things like glue holding the battery in place and a taking it apart requires "minimum effort":

[http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+4+Teardown/11781/3](http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+4+Teardown/11781/3)

The iPhone 5 got a fixit score of 7 which is even more odd. I guess they knocked off one point for the glue, but again seems like Apple's scores are getting bumped by 2-4 points relative to other teardowns they have done.

[http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+5+Teardown/10525/1?sin...](http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+5+Teardown/10525/1?singlePage)

<comment><USER8> You complain about the other articles but did you even read them or did you just ctrl-f for 'glue' and base your conclusions on that?

"compare that HTC One teardown"

HTC One link:

 _absence of any exterior screws_

 _remove large foam padding_

 _With no clear path to entry, we decide to get a little more creative with our approach…for a good half hour._

 _Last time we checked, "gutting" is not a term that shows up very often in the service manual of a repair-friendly device._

 _We won 't lie, getting to this point was an arduous and daunting task. The amount of work required to separate the rear aluminum case and the front case was immense._

 _copper shielding is a pain to deal with during reassembly_

Etc.

"Nexus 4 which got the same score (6)"

TFA: _Nexus 4 Repairability Score: 7 out of 10_</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you control distrebuted multi project app configuration - <AUTHOR> Hello all
i like to know how do you manage the subject of configuration when you have multi project
application ( many clients ) an the application composed from distributed servers .
which each server has its own configuration .
in simple words . i have core product which have configuration A
Then i have clients which using the core project but which specific configuration to the client .
the result is i have Dozens versions of the configuration which leads to total mess.
what is the common way or methodologies to handle such mess ?
Thanks <comment><USER2> why all the configurations is it access to screens or resources? like role based security?

or personalization?

different functionality that should maybe be a different app?

Environmental. pointing to different resources in test versus prod?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well combinations of all Some main roles like apis and user access are in db But functionality , personalizations are in confit files sometimes it is more then 1 for app Like : 1 for thread pools and db connections 1 for logs 1 for functionality Now each client has different config Total mess</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best distro for Web Servers - CentOS or Ubuntu ? - <AUTHOR>

Please share your experiences. <comment><USER2> Based on administering some 15 or so servers at work, I'd full-heartedly recommend Ubuntu Server. We started out with CentOS but are now (slowly) migrating to Ubuntu Server.

Ubuntu has a wider selection of more up-to-date packages and lots of handy helpers (like tasksel and other config wizards) that will make your life a lot easier.

For anyone who suggests that Ubuntu is for desktops, not servers, remember that the Wikimedia Foundation runs Wikipedia exclusively on Ubuntu servers. [Citation: <http://www.ubuntu.com/products/casestudies/wikimedia>]

</comment><comment><USER3> I've found the stock ubuntu repositories tend to have more up to date packages. For centos I end up needing to add external third party repositories to get basic LAMP-stack stuff current. That said, I still use centos for most things mostly because current centos is supported by the virtualmin install script, and I use virtualmin for many projects.

All said, there's not a huge difference between centos and ubuntu for basic web server administration - you still need to understand the underlying tools - apache, mysql, dns, etc. regardless of the OS chosen.

<comment><USER4> Agreed - I've worked at RH, have the odd bit of code in the distro, and prefer RHEL in other situations (mass deployments at corporates) but for my own projects, the sheer volume of packages in Ubuntu beats EPEL (the RHEL extras repository)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is much more important to do a good job administering the boxes then it is which distribution you pick.

From my _personal_ experience and from those two choices I would pick Slackware ;) If _forced_ to pick something other then probably debootstrapped Debian.

<comment><USER6> Agreed, both are based on the linux 2.6 kernel so you cant really go wrong. I use Redhat in the production environment, CentOS in development and Ubuntu for desktops. When it comes down to it, its preference, which do you prefer to work with? apt-get or yum. Do you prefer the layout of the ubuntu file system or centos? Which is easier for your to administrate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> personal experience, we consider ubuntu as desktop class operating system.

go for debian stable releases, some of our servers have ran for over a year without rebooting/OS upgrade on Amazon EC2, or maintenance.

ubuntu is based on debian, so your transition will not be tough

</comment><comment><USER8> Gentoo or FreeBSD

</comment><comment><USER9> *BSD

<comment><USER10> Well, at least you don't have to compile java anymore. That used to be a few hours of wasted time.</comment></comment>


Impact of the world drug problem on the enjoyment of human rights [docx] - <AUTHOR> http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session30/Documents/A_HRC_30_65_E.docx <comment><AUTHOR> A PDF version of this study can be downloaded here: [http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/30/65](http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/30/65)</comment>


Ask HN: Can Bitcoin mining fund OpenSSL? - <AUTHOR>

Is it feasible to add crypto-currency mining to open source projects like OpenSSL as a way to generate donations? If everyone running the libraries are prepared to have it run a few single digit %'s slower and allocate those cycles to mining it could perhaps solve the funding problem. I would personally be happy to have my OpenSSL run 5% slower if I know the project is getting funded because of it. Are there ways to get past the security concerns? Could this be practically implemented?<p>Competing with ASICs is probably not practical for SHA hashes (i.e. Bitcoin) but it seems feasible to target scrypt based currencies like Litecoin or Dogecoin where CPUs are relatively stronger. <comment><USER2> I think it would have to be a cryptocurrency that was amenable to CPU mining. That rules out most of the existing ones, although it's possible to create a new one specifically for this.

The cryptocurrency would not be tied to the project in any way. Users could obviously disable the mining code, and many would. How would this be different from just suggesting to people that they could mine cryptocurrencies however they like and donate the proceeds to the project?

edit: I'd also be concerned about the power usage...

</comment><comment><USER3> The conclusion i have come to after reading about Heartbleed is, that OpenSSL's code is a giant monolithic mess and does everything on its own from the ground up in a highly optimized way for each and every platform, thus breaking the simple rule "do not trust the client, ever" could stay undetected.

Adding a Bitcoin miner to the mix would worsen the problems.

I think OpenSSL needs professional structure - organization and code-wise to gain funds and harden the system. This was discussed in other threads on HN already, i am of the opinion that they could pull this of, if they wanted to invest time into it.

For consumers i could imagine a system library or framework, which applications could depend upon. This way the mining would be encapsulated. The user could get some control options and some information dashboards. The apps would then talk to the miner and ask for a share.

</comment><comment><USER4> An interesting idea, I doubt an established project with all the personalities involved would adopt it easily - but certainly an idea for a new project that doesn't want to be ad or donation independent.</comment>


Coronavirus: Captain Tom Moore's NHS fundraiser tops £10m - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52303859 <comment><USER2> At the risk of being told off I've resubmitted the story with a link that includes his age and feat in the title.

</comment><comment><USER2> 12 million now and rising, what a guy.</comment>


Trump Administration May Put Amazon Foreign Sites on 'Notorious Markets' List - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-weighs-putting-amazon-foreign-sites-on-notorious-markets-list-11575654650 <comment><AUTHOR> [http://archive.is/KKtov#selection-1903.5-1903.89](http://archive.is/KKtov#selection-1903.5-1903.89)</comment>


A magic getopt - <AUTHOR> http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2015-12-06-magic-getopt.html <comment><USER2> This is really cool (I've been wondering how to do a string-switch for a while now), but I don't think getopt is a great use case, because getopt still results in imperative argument parsing and this always results in pain.

I've been working on libargs for the past year; it's a declarative argument- parsing library for C: [https://github.com/mcinglis/libargs](https://github.com/mcinglis/libargs)

The main idea is that each argument is by default parsed and stored as a string, or you can optionally specify a function of the type `void f(char * name, char * arg, void * dest)` to parse the argument string and store it in a well-typed destination. This way, you can have an `int` argument by passing `int__argparse` as the parser, and if the user passes a value outside the range of `int`, then an appropriate out-of-range error is printed to the console. Similarly with `uchar__argparse` or something like `point__argparse` (e.g. taking some format like `{x,y}`).

libargs is quite flexible and has worked well for me so far. Automatic help text generation can be added in future while maintaining (non-ABI) backwards compatibility.

The main disadvantage is that it depends on other libraries I've developed that are essentially Jinja-templated C source files that function as makeshift generic types / typeclasses in C. Your inclination towards this approach depends on taste; personally I much prefer deferring the pain to the build system, as opposed to the source code.

<comment><USER3> Fun fact, C++ reserves double-underscores anywhere in names for the implementation. It's highly unlikely that you'll run into anything colliding with your names in the wild, but if someone wants to use your library in C++, it's technically bogus.

<comment><USER4> It's similar in C. C11 Standard chapter 7.1.3:

 _> All identifiers that begin with an underscore and either an uppercase letter or another underscore are always reserved for any use._

I doubt the library is usable in C++ though, since longjmp doesn't play well with the destruction of local objects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone who designs command-line interfaces for GNU/Linux should read this: [https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Command_002dLin...](https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Command_002dLine- Interfaces.html) and this: [https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Option- Table.ht...](https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Option-Table.html)

If you are using C++, Boost.Program Options is a solid choice. It is one of the relatively few command line argument parsers in the world which supports close to a full set of (GNU-like) behaviors without custom workarounds. It also enables type safety in the sense of disallowing decimals where integers were expected.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for the link. It contains this tiny gem: a glimpse into a path that CGI applications have not taken:

> CGI programs should accept these as command-line options, and also if given > as the PATH_INFO; for instance, visiting > '[http://example.org/p.cgi/\--help'](http://example.org/p.cgi/--help') in a > browser should output the same information as invoking 'p.cgi --help' from > the command line.

<comment><USER5> Regardless of CGI, I do advocate writing web services that respond to "GET /help" with a developer-facing synopsis of available routes. Pretty much the same thing.

<comment><USER7> I advocate using "OPTIONS /path" for that.

<comment><USER5> That prevents people from loading it with a plain-vanilla web browser. "GET /help" is more accessible, therefore more likely to be used. By humans, I mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can use getopt in POSIX shell too - [https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/knowledge/blob/master/unix/sh...](https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/knowledge/blob/master/unix/shell.md#command- line-switches)

<comment><USER9> To add to this, here's a full example of conditionally using getopt that still works without it. It also includes an example of the recommended-by-GNU help and version options, which jzwinck mentioned.

[https://gist.github.com/pdkl95/363d48999e9df027a99c](https://gist.github.com/pdkl95/363d48999e9df027a99c)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've found LLVM's solution to be the fastest/slickest method I have thus far discovered. [0] I love that it is declarative and works across TUs. I've thought about making a standalone distribution for some time.

[0]: [http://llvm.org/docs/CommandLine.html](http://llvm.org/docs/CommandLine.html)

<comment><USER11> That looks very slick - although it seems to be C++ only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Answers to some questions here: [http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2015-12-07-design-of- magic-g...](http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2015-12-07-design-of-magic- getopt.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> One word: docopt.

<comment><USER14> Not sure why you were downvoted. This is the way to go IMO. Declare your options like writing a man page. Let docopt generate your option handling code. There is an implementation for C. [https://github.com/docopt/docopt.c](https://github.com/docopt/docopt.c)

<comment><USER15> That's a generator for docopt parsers, written in python, targeting C. The closest docopt (variant) in C that I know of is the one I wrote: [https://github.com/jaroslov/docoptc](https://github.com/jaroslov/docoptc) . Although, at best, I'd say that code is "looking for a maintainer".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As I am not the first one to shamelessly self plug: I made ngetopt.awk[0] an argument parser for GNU awk that handles long options as well.

I've been using it quite a bit, to transform a three-liner awk program into a full fledged command in little effort. Very nice to share with colleagues.

[0]: [https://github.com/joepvd/ngetopt.awk](https://github.com/joepvd/ngetopt.awk)

</comment><comment><USER17> Shameless plug: I wrote a Python library that not only lets you declaratively define all your options, but also works with config files too. Don't write your own logic for this. Just use [https://github.com/ipartola/groper](https://github.com/ipartola/groper)

<comment><USER18> For Python, I remember docopt ([http://docopt.org/](http://docopt.org/)) being a big deal for a while - never used it, but sounds much nicer than writing out lots of code to construct your options parsing. Any reason why groper is a better option?

<comment><USER17> groper is better in several ways. First off, you specify all your options in Python, not a DSL that won't be checked until compile time. I mean, sure you could add code highlighting for docopt to your editor of choice, but chances are it already supports Python and works well.

Second, with groper each module is free to define its own options. You no longer need to have a centralized place where all the options are defined, and you don't need to do the plumbing through your application to give the right values to the right modules. This way your server.py can say "I want a host and a port" and your logger.py can say "I want the verbosity level and the filename" and the two don't have to know about each other (but can).

Third and most important, groper supports config files, which no other argument parser does. Chances are that if you are creating something more than just a simple command line program, you'd have too many options to specify on the command line. Instead, it'd be lovely to have a config file, and be able to override some of the options via command line args. Python's ConfigParser is a mess, and it's a mess that works completely differently from argparse/optparse/getopt. I also don't consider something like config.py to be good practice either.

So basically, groper is your one stop shop for getting config files and command line options right. Oh, and it can generate sample config files for you if you want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://github.com/clibs/flag](https://github.com/clibs/flag) is yet-another approach, more like Go's flag package. Docopt is awesome too.

<comment><USER7> docopt is _almost_ perfect. It needs to support optional flag arguments (á la `--color[=WHEN]), and having the first un-indented line after `Usage:` be treated as prose. The latter is on `master` of the Python (reference) implementation, but hasn't landed in a release or a spec.

Also, better errors for when the programmer screws up the formatting of the doc string.

<comment><USER20> Shameless self-plug: you may be interested in my version of docopt at [https://github.com/ridiculousfish/docopt_fish](https://github.com/ridiculousfish/docopt_fish) . Its syntax is more forgiving, it's capable of expressing more usage specs, and it has excellent error reporting for doc strings.

<comment><USER7> Very cool! I'll definitely keep it in mind (though I've been tending to use Go for greenfield projects recently).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Almost totally unrelated, but taking the opportunity to rant. If you use OS X, your getopt is fully POSIX compliant (as are many BSDs, I think), unlike most Linux distributions. This means globs (files arguments) must come after optionals.

For example:

ls -la * .txt

OK

ls * .txt -la

Not OK

This drives me mad.

<comment><USER12> Yes, I deliberately did not implement that GNU bug. I also avoided implementing the --prefix-of-long-option bug.

<comment><USER21> It makes me very happy that you refer to this as a bug :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can recommend CCAN's opt module: [http://ccodearchive.net/info/opt.html](http://ccodearchive.net/info/opt.html)</comment>


Google Adds Pirate Bay Domains to Censorship List - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/google-adds-pirate-bay-domains-to-censorship-list-120910/

<comment><USER2> I think censorship is a bit of a strong word.</comment>


I fixed a bug today - <AUTHOR> http://thelittleengineerthatcould.blogspot.com/2016/09/debugging-software.html <comment><USER2> I can also relate to this. Sometimes it helps to explain the problem to someone else, slowing down the thought process gives you a chance to take a step back. Its that whole forrest for the trees problem.</comment>


Ask HN: Single Topic vs. Multi-Topic Personal Blog ? - <AUTHOR> I'm planning to start a blog for some time and I'm seeking advice regarding the  (amount of) topics that I plan to cover. I mainly want to write about technical stuff, but I also wanna share reviews about books I'm reading and some articles about my previous startup (that failed). Is it a good idea to mix all these topics on a single blog? Do you know successful blogs that cover 2-3 topics? <comment><USER2> Just write.

Seriously, the biggest problem that most people have with blogging (myself included!) is blogging regularly. From a traffic perspective, you'll want inbound links all going to the same site as that helps in general.

If you tag things well, that will solve 90% of your (described) concerns.

For successful blogs: Think of many news/opinion sites like HuffPo, TechCrunch, Forbes, and hundreds of others.

</comment><comment><USER3> Plenty of successful bloggers blog on multiple topics. The main thing is that you write a lot; the most common way of failing at blogging is writing two or three articles then quitting.

</comment><comment><USER4> I personally blog on more than one topic because there is more than one topic that interests me. I think there are enough publications out there to submit your posts to that why not write on more than one topic?

As long as your content is interesting and thought provoking, go for it. If you are just going to crank out half assed things, don't do that. Write meaningful content that is beneficial to your reader.

</comment><comment><USER5> As a writer, I like to talk about different topics.

As reader, I return to single topic blogs more often than blogs which are allover.

So for now, I am got multiple blogs, but it is harder to manage.

</comment><comment><USER6> That should be fine to share. If in doubt, have multiple clear categories and separate pages and feeds for them, so someone really only interested in one thing can look at just that.

</comment><comment><USER7> ongoing.org

Tim's been doing this -- and/or his own thing -- for years.

Some technical. Some photography. Some about "the kid" \-- or more so, thoughts "the kid" raises.

Write about what interests you. Be careful to say something others will be interested in, and do so with some thought -- if you're interested in "growing" an audience.

Be authentic.

<comment><USER8> You probably meant [http://www.tbray.org/ongoing](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing).

<comment><USER7> I definitely meant Tim Bray, yes. Don't know why I thought he had that domain; haven't been over there, lately.

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Perfectly fine to write about more than one thing.</comment>


Silicon Valley's Unicorns Are Overvalued (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/silicon-valleys-unicorns-are-overvalued <comment><USER2> "Some unicorns have made such generous promises to their preferred shareholders that their common shares are nearly worthless."

Yup.

</comment><comment><USER3> it doesn't help that they use square as an example which had its last raise at 6 (they said that was overvalued) and now is worth 30 on open market

<comment><USER4> current valuation is irrelevant and doesn't hurt the article at all. once a company is public you don't have to become a private investor and worry about valuation. you can just buy shares on the open market.

the only thing that matters is the price at exit. and their point is made quite well with square.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's obviously a truism that the preferred shares will have a higher valuation than other shares. And if you multiply the preferred share valuation by the total number of share you'll end up with an "overvalued" number. That doesn't tell us whether anyone is investing in at an overly high valuation though, since they're actually investing in preferred shares...

<comment><USER6> What sort of preferred shares are they? the one I know of effectively a form of debt with no voting rights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is based on the observation that the valuation "...doesn't accurately reflect the preferred treatment some investors might get, the researchers say."

Which is irrelevant if the unicorn does well enough anyway.

<comment><USER8> That's not really the point of the article. It's saying that multiplying share price from the last round by all outstanding shares overvalues the company. The effect is increasingly relevant the further back in line you are for payout.

<comment><USER4> i don't think that's correct, in that you (and the article) is lacking nuance. the "valuation" is different for every investor. in fact for preferred shares the value may be accurate. but for common shares it is not. before a company goes public, there isn't a single valuation. there's a set of valuations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> article is 2017 but the paper was revised may 2018</comment>


Tesla X-Mas Tree - <AUTHOR> http://www.funforever.net/archives/tesla-x-mas-tree/

<comment><USER2> Given the level of effort involved in such a construction and the low quality of this blog post I suspected this post to be ripped off. A quick Google later revealed the original and much more awesome source:

<http://tesladownunder.com/Xmas.htm></comment>