Ask HN: What are your note-taking techniques? - <AUTHOR> Being swamped with projects and wanted to find a better note-taking system to manage all my information. My plan is to eventually transfer over to something digital - looking at Excel or OneNote for a GTD system.<p>My constraints are that I'm in an enterprise environment so cloud solutions aren't viable. <comment><USER3> I have a personal wiki powered by Org-mode[1] that includes several thousand documents containing the notes I've taken. I keep all the documents open all the time, and I use Ido[2] to access any document in under two seconds. A high-speed note-taking solution like this is necessary for me because I refer to and take notes up to hundreds of times per day. When I last evaluated note- taking solutions (2012?), no solution was both fast and feature-rich like Org- mode.

One example of a feature that Org-mode has that the other solutions I evaluated didn't was support for plain text spreadsheets[3]. This feature is very helpful to me because many of my notes include small sets of tabular data that I strongly prefer to include directly in my wiki documents rather than in a separate Excel or LibreOffice spreadsheet.

[1] [http://orgmode.org/manual/](http://orgmode.org/manual/)

[2] [https://github.com/emacs- mirror/emacs/blob/master/lisp/ido.e...](https://github.com/emacs- mirror/emacs/blob/master/lisp/ido.el)

[3] [http://orgmode.org/manual/The- spreadsheet.html](http://orgmode.org/manual/The-spreadsheet.html)

<comment><USER4> What is the directory structure you use for managing all of your org files?

I've been converting my note taking to Org-mode over the past few months and am still trying to find the ideal directory/file layout to put things in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I went paperless in college.

My method is Notepad++ with either a cloud storage solution, or a shared network drive. I take my laptop to all meetings and take what notes I need, then store those in my cloud/network storage. (In certain situations, I'll use my phone instead of my laptop)

I use Excel heavily, and it's a great tool for many uses - managing and manipulating lists of servers and data quickly, better grid formatting than Word/Outlook, script generation automation (using VBA to create Powershell scripts), and other uses. But it's a terrible note-taking platform to me.

I've had a love-hate relationship with OneNote. It works best for me from within Sharepoint. Others make much better use of the tool than I do, and hopefully you'll be able to do so too.

<comment><USER6> I have considered going paperless in lectures/etc., but I'm hesitant because of research that shows typing leads to less retention than writing, even in the absence of distractions [1]. This also conforms with my own experience with written notes and typed notes.

[1] Meuller, Oppenheimer, "The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking," Psychological Science, 2014 [http://zetesis.org/wp1/wp- content/uploads/2014/08/MuellerOpp...](http://zetesis.org/wp1/wp- content/uploads/2014/08/MuellerOppenheimer.PS_.20140423.1-10.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've done a bachelors degree in electrical & computer engineering, half a bachelors degree in chemistry, a year of grad school, and have been in the workforce now for a few years.

In this time, I have never been able produce legible or useful notes much less come up with a personal note taking system that works for me.

My studying habits in school boiled down to showing up to class and pretending to take notes and then going home to spend hours outlining textbook chapters until I had everything I needed to do well on exams.

At work, I take notes in meetings for the exact same reason I took notes in college - so I won't be judged for not taking notes.

<comment><USER8> so tl;dr: ...you don't really take notes, everything goes in your head?

<comment><USER7> I wish I were that smart, but no - I have to spend extra time revisiting / researching concepts on my own time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My secret: optimize for writing, not for reading/finding. Write now, organize later, and use search to find stuff.

My setup is on OneNote, which does a really great job of indexing everything you throw into it.

\- Start with one notebook, call it "Work" or "Main" or whatever. Put it on OneDrive or some other web-accessible location if you want (or don't - <USER2> may be proprietary, but it's file-driven and you own your data). Create a section in it called "Unfiled". Create another section called "Unfiled Archive."

\- Customize the system notification icon to create a new quick note when you click it.

\- In OneNote Options > Save and Backup, set the Quick Notes Section to the Unfiled section you just created.

Need to jot something down? Click the notification area icon and you get a new note. Most of your day-to-day can live in the Unfiled section until you get a little down time, which you can use to organically sort and organize as you see fit. If something's old and you're not sure if you need it, drag it to the archive section. Over the years I have grown one huge notebook called "Learning" with tons of sections on every conceivable subject. My main "Work" notebook primarily consists of the Unfiled section plus a few others that have some long-lived stuff in them.

A few other OneNote-specific tips:

\- Win+Shift+S freezes the display and lets you draw a bounding box to take a screenshot. I configure this to send the screenshot to the clipboard; super handy.

\- OneNote has a printer driver. I print stuff to OneNote all the time.

\- Interesting web pages have a habit of disappearing. Use IE's "Send to OneNote" or the OneNote printer driver to capture them. Bonus: the entire text of the page gets put into the OneNote full-text index.

</comment><comment><USER10> My time to shine! I'm a huge note taking nerd and have tried many many solutions.

I first used my Gmail Drafts folder. This was actually really good for a time. Accessible via web or phone, the Gmail app automatically syncs the drafts to any device. However with many notes this gets messy.

I moved to some startup note-taking app after that. I can't remember the name now but it was fairly perfect. Unfortunately they closed down. This was the time I really started lookin triedg and trying many different things.

I settled on plain Markdown files stored on Dropbox. I use the excellent Draft app on Android to edit on my phone, and vim on PC. The only drawback with this, Dropbox's text renderer doesn't do fenced code blocks, so it looks funny on the webpage if I share a note with those.

I have a note-taking nerd friend and he settled on a private git repository.

I've tried Evernote but I hated it.

<comment><USER3> Since you're a huge note-taking nerd, I assume you evaluated Org-mode. What didn't you like about it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For a high task environment: Carry a tiny tiny notebook around, 100 pages or so, that fits into any pocket. Each page for a day when tasks get assigned. A note in the notebook for the task.

When something's done, put a confident line through it. Flick through the book every day for what's not done.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use nvAlt ([http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/](http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/)) and have it write to a "Notes" folder in Google Drive := ubiquitous format + search + syncing

<comment><USER13> Loved using nvAlt. I need to get back to playing with my cross-platform version of nvAlt in Qt. I got as far as getting a search as you type with minimal file create/load/save going and then trailed off to work on other things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://ankisrs.net](http://ankisrs.net)

The number one problem with note taking for me is keeping track of all the notes. In the past, I'd make all these great notes with Zim then never read them. With anki and spaced repetition, that problem is solved. When the memory of the note is on the verge of decaying, anki reminds me, keeping it fresh.

Anki has a web, android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS client, it features online syncing, supports html markup and has extensions support with python. Works for me!

</comment><comment><USER15> My strategy is to avoid taking notes unless absolutely necessary. In a meeting, just engage in the conversation. The only things you need to write down are the things you need to DO because of that meeting.

I know this doesn't work very well for i.e. discovery meetings with clients, but I don't have those anymore (and when I did, I just recorded the audio). You asked what MY techniques were ;)

<comment><USER11> Agree fully. To add: print out an agenda of a meeting, take down any points on that, take a picture of that and email yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I know this is probably not the kind of note-taking you are looking for, but if you're not affraid to take notes without a computer, you should really read about stenography: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand)

</comment><comment><USER17> I use tiddlywiki, a single file javascript app accessed with a browser and stored in dropbox (tiddlywiki.com). Supports some version of markdown, and importantly for me, has many plugins including one for Latex. I think the search and tagging features are what make it awesome.

</comment><comment><USER18> I also went paperless.

I keep track of everything in Evernotes with The Secret Weapon. ([http://www.thesecretweapon.org/](http://www.thesecretweapon.org/))

It is email + evernotes + GTD.

Takes a little bit of effort to set up/ get oriented with but worth it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Cornell notes with pen and paper.

It's not digital, and it'd be tricky to OCR my lousy hand writing.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've been using gingko, its changed the way I take notes! Awesome tool.

[https://gingkoapp.com/p/note-taking-app/](https://gingkoapp.com/p/note- taking-app/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Online solutions like Evernote and Onenote have always just been tricky to get into. At the minute I have pieces of paper dotted around everywhere and occasionally use Google's Keep app.

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't trust Google Keep. I used Google Notepad for a while and had great organization, then they shut it down.

Never again, Google. Keep is an easy way to sync our shopping list to my partner and that's it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> related question: any good note-taking techniques for work? how to organize notes so it'll be easy to refer to in the future?

currently I organize notes by having a .txt file for each project, but sometimes that still doesn't work because stuff adds up, so it's hard to find the how-did-i-do-this-last-time steps

<comment><USER22> ^ Real talk.

This [https://cloudup.com/clkR99FLNgC/f](https://cloudup.com/clkR99FLNgC/f) is becoming a nightmare - I'd also value how other people keep their notes organized and understood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Plain text files and indentation.

<comment><USER24> Ironically, one of my final projects was a personal organizer/notepad in C# that was going to be awesome... until I realized just having a tab open in Sublime Text was just as good. So now I just have a ton of text files on my laptop about random things.

</comment></comment><comment> introv-preneur text file + evernote app + email

</comment><comment><USER25> vim-orgmode</comment>


FAA faces dilemma over 737 Max wiring flaw that Boeing missed - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-faces-dilemma-over-737-max-wiring-flaw-that-boeing-missed/ <comment><USER2> Such are the externalities of taking the opinion "It isn't illegal if you don't get caught."[1] It is interesting that had Boeing not pushed the edge on the re-training re-classification rules they would not have had the crashes, nor the spotlight on them, nor this "new" problem.

As a result I have no empathy for managers who are not getting their bonuses this year, or executives who get fired, or corporations who have to take loans on unfavorable terms in order to weather the storm of consequences brought on by trying to avoid following the rules and incurring the expense such rules incur in their execution.

I do feel bad for the engineers who were fired or moved out of the company by pointing out that management wasn't following the rules. I do feel badly for the employees whose livelihood depends on their working on building these amazing machines being put out of work because the consequences are playing out. And I feel a little bit bad for the airlines suffering from carrying a bunch of planes they can't fly. Hopefully people are learning life lessons in this process and the pendulum will swing back into a safer mode of rule following from the current risk taking behavior.

[1] This philosophy, sadly way too common in my opinion, is that "rules" are for idiots, and since we're not idiots we need only concern ourselves with the risks _as we understand them_ of why the rule should be followed, and ignore said rules when we believe we have no risk of both getting caught nor having the "bad thing" the rule prevents happening (at least on our watch while it would reflect on us.).

<comment><USER3> > It isn't illegal if you don't get caught.

Illegal seems like the wrong word for this sentiment as it's legal status does not depend on being caught. If I were to rob a bank, it would be an illegal act whether or not I'm caught.

Problem seems like an apt substitute.

<comment><USER4> The phrase reflects on "illegal" being an act for which you are punished by a court or regulatory authority. There is never any question that laws or regulations are actually being broken. View the phrase as exercising poetic licence and using "illegal" as a shorthand for "leading to a conviction and causing the actor to face punitive action." The backwards logic is that _I didn't face punitive measures therefore what I did is not illegal_.

Thus in your example robbing the bank is technically illegal but you aren't going to court if you don't get caught.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For once, I think Boeing does have a point here. This is the same wiring used on the 737NG, which AFAIK is considered the safest (or one of the safest, at least) airliner ever. The point about rerouting existing wiring introducing it's own potential hazard also seems like an entirely reasonable consideration.

I know it's automatic that we assume Boeing is either nefarious or retarded in everything they do, but it's hard to see this as _that_ big a deal when considering the bigger picture.

<comment><USER6> Not to be pedantic but I believe the Airbus A340 is actually regarded as the safest airliner ever, with zero fatalities over the course of its nearly 30-year operational history.

<comment><USER5> There are several airliners, including models from Boeing and Airbus, that have had no fatalities. But they are low production models like the A340. It's arguably impossible to come up with a "safest" if you don't have some way to account for the fact that 20 times as many 737NGs have been produced as A340s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Put it another way: do I rather fly with the wiring that was tested for 200M hours in the NG, or do I want the configuration that is retrofitted in a hurry to meet the standard? It's not obvious that trying to "fix" this defect is a good idea.

<comment><USER8> False dilemma.

<comment><USER9> "Do we do our jobs and regulate Boeing, even if it means we can't get cushy jobs there later?"

The dilemma is real.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm seriously impressed that the distance between the source conductor, command conductors, and presumably return conductors is considered.

As a power systems and controls engineer we make Some effort to separate wires carrying different voltages eg 24v and 480v, but positive and negative run in the same cables or conductors in the same raceway all the time with nary a second thought.

<comment><USER11> The FAA and its sister agencies around the globe are very good at root-cause analysis. Where a single fault could cost many lives, there's strong incentive to follow any failure all the way back.

I'm guessing that your systems don't experience anything like airplane levels of vibration, or have anything like airplane numbers of fatalities if the controls fail, yeah?

<comment> drunken-serval In the US, the NTSB does root-cause analysis and makes recommendations to the FAA.

There's a separation of concerns. The NTSB is solely concerned with finding out what happened. The FBI handles criminal investigations. The FAA is concerned with running air traffic control, regulations, and research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Since the wiring standard under discussion here was only introduced in 2009, an obvious question is: how many _other_ aircraft models currently in service, besides the 737 (and not just the MAX), have a similar issue that has not been caught simply because no updated analysis of their certification was done after 2009?

</comment><comment><USER13> > "There are 205 million flight hours in the 737 fleet with this wiring type," > a Boeing official said. "There have been 16 failures in service, none of > which were applicable to this scenario. We've had no hot shorts."

This is appalling as this company exhibits the same excuses as before "there was no problem yet". Persistence in unfit behaviour at its best.

<comment><USER12> _> This is appalling as this company exhibits the same excuses as before "there was no problem yet"._

Saying "there was no problem yet" about something that's only been in service for a relatively short time, yes.

Saying "there was no problem yet" about something that has been in service _since the 1960s_ , not so much. If the FAA were to force Boeing to change this wiring on the 737 MAX, to be consistent, they would also have to change it on _every single 737 of every model that is still in service_ \--including many airplanes that have been in service for decades with no problem.

That's a very different argument from "the FAA skimped on the MAX before, so we shouldn't let them skimp on it again".

<comment><AUTHOR> Those 16 failures happened with the NG. It was fortunate they didn't happen in a way this standard was created to prevent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _potential for an electrical short to move the jet's horizontal tail uncommanded_

I think this is a reference to the stabilizer, because the elevators are controlled by cable connected to the yoke and are hydraulically powered. Since stabilizer (trim) can overpower elevator force, uncommanded changes in this control surface could be really bad, depending on how a short manifests into control surface movements.

I can't assess the relative probabilities: a short happening vs the fix inducing some other problem. But I do wonder whether there's another way to mitigate it.

<comment><USER15> Today it's mitigated by the pilot. Runaway Stabilizer is a memory-item. [1]

This is the same memory item Boeing thought would mitigate MCAS, since that is essentially a runaway stabilizer trim, although in retrospect behaving in a very different manner making it much harder to diagnose.

[1]: [http://www.b737.org.uk/runawaystab.htm](http://www.b737.org.uk/runawaystab.htm)

<comment><USER16> Runaway Stabilizer / MCAS cases can be mitigated by the pilots (they can use cutoff switches and do manual trim), but not this kind of electrical short:

> Furthermore, the electrical power in that wire could circumvent the cutoff > switches in the cockpit that, in the event of such a stabilizer runaway, are > used to kill electrical power to the tail. Theoretically, the pilots could > be unable to shut it off.

<comment><USER17> It's not a great mitigation, but the last thing on runaway stabilizer's memory list is to "grasp and firmly hold" the stab trim wheel.

<comment><USER18> The electric motors can apply more power than a human can resist. So that's not exactly helpful.

<comment><USER17> The system is engineered so that an operator holding the trim wheel wins, via a clutch mechanism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Since Boeing has taken the path of seeing what they can get away with the only appropriate response from the regulators is not to allow them the slightest deviation.

If the 737 Maxes can't be adequately fixed then send them back, refund the purchase price.

<comment><USER12> It's not enough to just regulate this on the 737 MAX. This wiring is the same on _every single 737, of any model, that is in service_. That includes airplanes that have been flying for decades with no incidents. Do you want to ground them all?

<comment><USER3> You're point is addressed already in the article when they stated that the original 737s were grandfathered in before the new regulation came into effect. So no, they've successfully gotten away with it on older models but I do agree with the GP that regulatory agencies need to set a firm precedent to deter other manufacturers from playi g fast and loose with the rules.

<comment><USER12> _> the original 737s were grandfathered in before the new regulation came into effect_

Yes, I know that. Presumably the same would apply to other aircraft models certified before 2009 (when the new wiring regulation was issued) that might have the same problem (as I posted elsewhere in this discussion, it's quite possible that other aircraft types certified before 2009 have the same problem --we don't know because nobody has looked).

However, if we're willing to not do anything to all those planes, even though we now know they have a potential issue, then we can't just insist on doing something to 737 MAX planes either, since the cost-benefit calculation in both cases is the same: we have a bunch of planes already in service, we now know there's an issue with them, do we fix it or not?

 _> regulatory agencies need to set a firm precedent to deter other manufacturers from playing fast and loose with the rules_

For any 737 MAX aircraft that have not yet flown, I would agree with you. However, tearing apart aircraft that have already been flown to fix this issue might cause more problems than it solves. The teardown would be extensive and any repair that extensive risks introducing some other issue that didn't exist before and which could cause problems in the future. That makes it a different cost-benefit calculation.

I certainly agree that Boeing should not be the ones making that calculation. It would be nice if the FAA didn't either, but had some other agency such as the NTSB do the root cause analysis to estimate the relative risk of doing the repair on already flown planes vs. not doing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure what the dilemma is here. They made the rules, should they apply them or not?

<comment><USER21> I think the dilemma is "but money". I agree, the situation is ridiculous.

<comment><USER22> It's not just money; there is always risk in any hardware rework. If the rework is not done correctly and a plane crashes, even if on a test flight, then your "safety fix" has made the world a worse place.

In this particular case the fact that it is aviation standards for wire separation at issue, when those are typically stupefyingly conservative, means that "doing nothing" may well be the safest course. But I am NOT an expert in this area, so don't trust me!

One way to help make the decision is to try and get money out of the equation. If the two options are "pay for the rework" or "pay a fine equal to the cost of the rework", then any company that opts for the fine might actually believe in that approach.

<comment><USER21> > there is always risk in any hardware rework

I get your point, but isn't it ultimately about money anyway? If they can wire a plane correctly when they're building it, they surely can rewire a plane later - they might have to remove more stuff, worst case scenario reverting the plane to the same state it would be for an original rewire, and I suppose the reason they don't want to do that is money.

I can't understand the decision to "ship" with a potentially catastrophic failure that would cost many lives otherwise. I don't think this should be a dilemma. IMHO the two sensible options from a regulator point of view seem to be _" make the plane safe to fly, and if that's expensive, tough luck"_ and _" don't fly the plane"_.

<comment><USER23> It seems to me they could disassemble every Max, re-certify every part as stringently as they would certify a brand new part, throw away any part that was out of spec, then build "new" Maxes from those re-certified parts. (Except doing this would cost huge amounts of money.)

<comment><USER12> It's not enough to disassemble every Max. This wiring is the same on _every single 737, of any model, that is in service_. That's a much, much, much bigger effort, plus you'd be tearing apart airplanes that have been in service for decades with no incidents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's a lot of misunderstandings in the comments here.

When you're dealing with complex wiring harnesses and wiring runs, there are always problems. For example, the A380 and one of Boeing's new airliners were delayed because stuffing the wiring harness in the nose didn't work.

In the case of airplanes, things flex and bend, causing wire chafing.

So there's no black and white answer to, "Is the wiring perfect?"

The only good solutions are:

1) When new airplanes are made, improve the wire layout

2) When old airplanes get a heavy maintenance check (D-check), possibly inspect and redo the wiring then.

3) Consider using conduit for safety-critical runs. Makes it harder to inspect, though. :)

Anyway, the Swissair 111 fire/crash was because of new gambling screens igniting flammable materials. Sure that was an electrical fire, but from adding entertainment equipment.

Swissair 111: "flammable material used in the aircraft's structure"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111)

Source: commercially-rated pilot

</comment><comment><USER25> Boeing is right but the FAA can't afford to give them a waiver because reciprocity agreements might go up in flames.

Boeing will pay twice because their incompetence highlighted the incompetence of the FAA.

Not that I particularly care. I hope Boeing goes bankrupt.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Not that I particularly care. I hope Boeing goes bankrupt.

That'd be said. I hope their top 3 or 4 management layers go to jail. For a long time. They've been criminally negligent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Whenever it is approved, 737 MAX is likely going to be the safest aircraft that Boeing would have produced. There has been so much scrutiny after the past 2 crashes that at this point every remote possibility has likely been considered and taken care of.

<comment><USER27> On the other hand: There was so much hackery, bad engineering decisions, rush to market, cover-up and likely a lot more shenanigans that haven't yet come to light.

The whole engineering approach reeks of management mandating to "just fix it with gaffer tape", if it costs time or gets expensive.

Boeing's despicable behavior in the whole sordid affair also doesn't exactly help.

While I'm sure that there's a lot of scrutinity going into the recertification of the plane, such systems are so immensely complex that it begs the question: What else was missed?

I, for one, would be extremely reluctant to step into anything 737 after the NG. Even at the price to forego a direct connection.

<comment><USER28> Completely agree. Whatever mitigations are applied, this is still ultimately a plane built by suits and bean counters, not engineers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Articles like this speak as of thr FAA has the sole authority to bring the Max back into service.

Doesn't it require other agencies in Europe and China to do the same? How useful is a fleet that can't fly in large segments of the world?

<comment><USER30> I don't know about China but there is certain reciprocity between the US and Europe regarding airworthiness. [1] one of the damaging parts of the 737 MAX fiasco is it has caused many countries to rethink this agreement

[1] [https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/repair/media/easa_us_roadshows....](https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/repair/media/easa_us_roadshows.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't know what the point of salvaging this plane is at this point. I'm never going to get on board one of them.

Could they convert the entire fleet into cargo jets, or does the configuration not match that role?

<comment><USER32> Passenger planes make many flights per day, thus a lot of attention is made on the costs of usage (ie, the plane is not cheap to buy but it will be cheap to operate per flight).

Cargo plane fly mostly twice per day (base to sorting center and back), so they use older planes. They use more fuel per mile, but acquisition costs are low.

You can't just repurpose brand new planes for cargo use, it's not economically viable.

Plus, it would mean the safety of cargo pilots is less important than the safety of passengers...

<comment><USER33> Sadly, at least in the US, we have lower safety standards for cargo than passenger aircraft.

For example, crew rest requirements adopted in 2010 don't apply to cargo: [https://ttd.org/policy/ensure-one-level-of-safety-for-all- ai...](https://ttd.org/policy/ensure-one-level-of-safety-for-all-air- operations/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What about this is something that's too complicated to retrofit? Why would they even need to tear into existing wiring harnesses to fix this? Just run another wire through the new pathway isolated from everything else and decommission the old circuit by cutting the ends of the wire and slapping a heat shrink cap over them. Sure, fix the harness on new planes but is there really too much red tape to come up with a safe retrofit plan that doesn't involve messing with the existing harness?

<comment><USER28> > Just run another wire through the new pathway

That's likely a big part of the problem. Fishing a new wire is generally very difficult, and there are probably rules that say it has to be secured every X meters. Airplanes generally don't use much conduit, so I suspect they'd have to at least partially tear apart the plane to do this right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think the main dilemma could be a bit different.

It's true that the wiring harness is already proven with 737 NG. And it's probably true rewiring 737 MAX is a higher risk than doing nothing.

But IF this issue causes an accident without attempt to fix it, Boeing as a company might never recover. Even one such case could be enough.

So both not doing anything and fixing it carry a huge risk. Not fun to be Boeing these days...

</comment><comment><USER36> I suppose Boeing could just cancel the whole 737 series and file for Chapter 11.

<comment><USER23> A reorganization is possible but I really doubt the American government would allow Boeing to be truly imperiled. The US Military has thousands of Boeing aircraft, particularly _all_ of the large tanker jets used for aerial refueling are made by or supported by Boeing (some were made by McDonnell Douglas, before Boeing bought them.) Some of America's military aircraft are even derived from the 737.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Glad Boeing isn't in charge of anything important.

</comment><comment><USER38> The situation is pretty clear. They need to fix the wiring issue. Stick to the regulation or don't regulate...

It's also shocking to me that the MAX may be rectified when depending only on one angle-of-attack sensor (the one that caused the two prior crashes). They should mandate that at minimum 2 redundant sensor must exist, at minimum. Really it should be 3 sensors for flight critical input, as has been the case for all modern airplanes.

<comment><USER12> _> They need to fix the wiring issue. Stick to the regulation or don't regulate..._

Fixing the wiring issue would mean fixing it on _every single 737 in service_ , not just the 737 MAX. Many of those airplanes have been flying for decades with no incidents. Tearing them apart to rewire them might make things worse overall, not better, since any repair always has the risk of introducing some other problem.

<comment><USER39> > Fixing the wiring issue would mean fixing it on every single 737 in service, > not just the 737 MAX.

No it wouldn't as 737 was certified before the new regulation. It is in the article:

> That earlier 737 NG model didn't have to meet the current wiring-separation > standards because they came into force long after that jet was certified.

Just like with cars - you can drive a car from 70ties without airbags or crumple zones but you cannot buy a new car without airbags as it won't be able to pass the latest regulations.

Imo in this case the main issue is not the safety (seeing how the older planes aren't falling out of the sky) but setting a precedent where the certification authority has missed an issue which is not according to regulation - do the manufacturer gets a free pass or it is their responsibility to make the item according to regulation in the first place and it doesn't matter if it was missed during the certification process.

<comment><USER12> _> No it wouldn't_

I know the previous 737 models were grandfathered. What I am questioning is the argument that, even though we accept this wiring flaw on all grandfathered 737s, it must be fixed on the 737 MAX just because Boeing made a different mistake (MCAS) on the 737 MAX. (If they hadn't made the MCAS mistake, the FAA wouldn't be reviewing the certification of the MAX and wouldn't have found the wiring issue.)

 _> setting a precedent where the certification authority has missed an issue which is not according to regulation_

Is this the first time the FAA has missed a certification issue? I don't know, but I doubt it.

If the FAA has missed certification issues before, has the manufacturer always been forced to rework all affected aircraft when the missed issue is discovered? Again, I don't know, but I doubt it.

In any case, these certainly seem like relevant questions to ask before coming to a conclusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Expecting Boeing to regulate itself is like expecting a dog to not eat from its bowl when hungry. It ignores basic human nature and the incentives companies have to make profits at any costs, even if those costs are hundreds of human lives. I'm sure there are plenty of other things overlooked on this plane and others since the FAA gave up their oversight duties, their major reason for existence. When a company like this is unaccountable to anyone, we've seen what happens, yet there is still a question as to whether regulations should be enforced? How many more people need to die needlessly before the government steps in and does its job?</comment>


In Defense of Elon Musk - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a23508636/defense-of-elon-musk/ <comment><USER2> This is the post I needed to see today, and from Popular Mechanics it makes it that much sweeter.

The Tesla Roadster gave me hope back when I was younger and despairing over the soaring prices of gas. I loved cars, but how could I justify spending so much damn money on fuel each weekend while driving my local canyon roads? Not to mention the nasty effects that gas-powered cars have on the environment and on people's general health. Electric and hybrid cars -- the obvious (to me) evolution of the car -- were dull and pathetic, which meant that owning a fun, fast, well-handling car would be a thing my parents enjoyed but I could not. Wanna be a modern gearhead? Forgetaboutit.

THEN I saw an article about some guy with a company named after a pioneer of electricity supply systems who had an electric car that was designed in part by Lotus and was _fast_. I was over the moon. Who cares that its price tag was way beyond my reach? The point was that technology would eventually become common place and trickle down to me.

Hope is a precious commodity. Elon Musk and his first Tesla roadster gave me hope, and then sprinkled in some joy, and added a bit of optimism and excitement about the future. Classify me as a fanboy or cultist if you want, and I'll wear that label proudly. I don't see any other billionaires out there trying to solve problems beyond "how do I effectively shelter this income stream from the IRS?" So, quit picking on the guy and let him do his thing. Eventually we'll all benefit.</comment>


Berkshire Hathaway 2018 annual letter [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2018ltr.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Nice to read without the digital marketing beautification or "doomization" from the headlines</comment>


10 Lessons From The Pwn2Own Hacker Contest - <AUTHOR> http://threatpost.com/en_us/slideshow/10-Lessons-From-The-Pwn2Own-Hacker-Contest <comment><USER2> "Despite the survival of Google Chrome and the fall of Internet Explorer 8 (running on Windows 7), all the browser hackers at the contest maintained that Microsoft's browser is by far the most difficult to exploit. For starters, IE 8 is the only browser to fully -- and properly -- implement ASLR (see explanation from Nils)"

</comment><comment><USER3> I blame reckless use of native code. Would a browser within a bounds-checked typesafe VM have any of these flaws?</comment>


Pext: Python Extendable Tool - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Pext/Pext <comment><USER2> This is pretty cool. I've been looking for an example code base for creating a simple GUI tool.

This seems a bit too specific to lists though. Would it be possible to write module for manipulating tree data, e.g. something like a filesystem? (drag and drop files to move them between folders)

Do windows users need to have Python installed or does the installer come with Python build-in?

Also, what does the installation story become if the modules require python libraries that are not in stdlib?

<comment><USER3> Hey, Pext dev here :)

It is indeed very specific to lists now, but theoretically more things could be added. The standard deal though: full-time job and no other contributors.

Windows users don't need to have Python installed. Python (with pip) ships with the installers, so you can also use any module in pip by specifying it in requirements.txt file, with standard pip syntax. Check the pass module for example to see how that goes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, OP here, I am the one who submitted the readme patch yesterday. May I ask a "non of my business question"? I realized that you created this account just for this reply, but I wounder how do you reach this post? Did it popup in somekind of rss filter or something.

assuming that you are not a regular HN reader

<comment><USER3> Oh, hey, well, now I know who posted this :)

I have Google Alerts set up for the word Pext, "just in case something interesting pops up". There's nothing more awesome than seeing people talk about your code, so when that happens, I don't want to miss it.

I check Hacker News about once a week in general I'd estimate, so I wouldn't really consider myself a regular no :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmmm, interesting that google picked up the post before it even reached ~10 votes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> TBH right now the functionality looks very close to Alfred (not sure about Quicksilver or anything else that's open-source). Except, dunno if it's possible here but afaik in Alfred plugins can generate the results on the fly in response to what's entered. That opens surprisingly many possibilities, and specifically Alfred serves as a keyboard-driven tool that replaces GUIs to some tasks: e.g. weather is shown right in the result list; you can search in apps like Evernote via their APIs, or you can add content to them, etc.

From the usability standpoint, one thing to note is that such an app needs only one global hotkey while providing functionality via more easily remembered commands, akin to the command line, with completion on the fly. It's often quicker for me to summon an app with a few letters from its name than to look for it in the cmd-tab list.

<comment><USER5> On Windows, check out Keypirinha [1]. It's powerful and has fantastic Python plugin support. For example, I've written a plugin that loads all your Steam games [2] into the database and allows you to launch them quickly, and another to port your Launchy config over [3] (for those like me who used Launchy before). It has many other plugins [4] too.

[1] [http://keypirinha.com/](http://keypirinha.com/)

[2] [https://github.com/EhsanKia/keypirinha- plugins/tree/master/k...](https://github.com/EhsanKia/keypirinha- plugins/tree/master/keypirinha-steam)

[3] [https://github.com/EhsanKia/keypirinha- plugins/tree/master/k...](https://github.com/EhsanKia/keypirinha- plugins/tree/master/keypirinha-launchy)

[4] [http://keypirinha.com/contributions.html](http://keypirinha.com/contributions.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wrote something similar in the past. It's tailored for my need but the idea behind it is very similar. It brings up window with hotkey allows to write simple command and params and run it.

[http://netrix.org.pl/index.php/2016/01/09/nassist/](http://netrix.org.pl/index.php/2016/01/09/nassist/)

I'm using it up to this day but I think I'll give a tray to Pext because it seems more mature.

<comment><USER3> Oh cool, you even went for Python 3 + PyQt5 and a module idea. Interesting! Seeing how your post was from January 2016, we may have started our projects around a similar time, even though mine started as a simple front-end for [https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/), back in December 2015, starting to support other functionality in, interestingly enough, also January 2016.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So if I understand this tool correctly, the idea is to allow the user to search an item from a list, and then execute an action on it.

Is this correct?

For example, I could use this to open common text files, maybe open different notes, run scripts, play video files, etc?

Edit: Now that I think of it, this would be similar to the search bar in Windows or the Unity thingie in Ubuntu (at least 16.04), except that you would have specific modules instead of a general "search", correct?

<comment><USER3> Pretty much, yeah :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why don't all this projects have a singular protocol for writing plugins, this way evreyone can benefit from something. just like all the IDEs are starting to support microsoft's language server protocol: [https://microsoft.github.io/language-server- protocol/specifi...](https://microsoft.github.io/language-server- protocol/specification)

[https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server- protocol](https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-protocol)

</comment><comment><USER9> I still sometimes write a few line tcl tools to guify a specific task. Not sure if i would like to dig into a bigger python code base.

For re-using existing modules I doubt pext would scratch my itch in the way I like it. I.e. the password module in the realms is not appealing.

<comment><USER10> Do you know that Python has native Tcl/Tk bindigs? If you are familiar with it and it works for you, just keep using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks interesting, thx!

p.s. u may want to scrub the code for api keys.

<comment><USER3> I'm aware of the API key included in one of the modules. The reason for this is that having people get their own API key just to try it is a bit of a hassle. The account isn't coupled to a credit card or anything, the worst someone can do is push it up to the rate limit, at which time, well, people will have to get their own API key. Thanks for the heads up though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a simple man. I see something promoting QML, I upvote.</comment>


Tactile pixels let you 'feel' textures on touchscreens - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2011/07/08/tactile-pixels-let-you-feel-textures-on-touchscreens/

<comment><USER2> I've been waiting for this for a long time. I think that the tactile feedback is the main thing holding back touchscreen keyboards from competing with hardware keyboards, for instance. Having this in a tablet would, I expect, make it much easier to type blind if I wanted, or to find buttons when I'm distracted with something else.</comment>


Facebook updated the terms for Custom Audiences - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/customaudience <comment><USER2> I don't really get this? you can advertise through our system to pretty much anybody if you pay enough but if you want to buy a list of doctors and advertise to them that's out of the question. Or high net worth people etc.</comment>


Spain Has a Tenured Faculty Problem - <AUTHOR> http://bhargreaves.com/2013/04/spain-tenured-faculty-problem/

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of rent-controlled housing (in San Francisco). Once you're in, you have to do (i.e. pay) a lot less than the going rate, locking up spots indefinitely.

</comment><comment><USER3> I disagree with the article, it's quite easy to move countries actually.

</comment><comment><USER4> Real (not estimated) figures for 2011 and for 2012 & 2013 would be shocking (there have been a lot of firings of non-permanent workers).

</comment><comment><USER5> Those graphs do not tell the stories that he claims they do. Or at least, not without a lot more explanation than he gave.</comment>


How I Won Facebook Games Without Hard Work - <AUTHOR> http://kevinwang.us/cheating-a-guide-to-achieving-high-scores-without-hard-work/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is the first thing involving writing I've ever published, so I'd appreciate any comments about my writing. Please let me know what you didn't like or did like about it!</comment>


My HN Dinner Party #6 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/my-hn-dinner-6/

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure if this person is looking for work.

The site doesn't have an easily accessible 'about' section, a CV, or any way to contact the author. Just 3 pieces on the homepage that could be considered a portfolio.

Edit: I went ahead and googled 'email' within the site's domain. The content I was looking for was hiding under the link 'social interaction designer'. The 'about me' pages are blog items that one would find by chance using 'related posts'. The author ought to make these important posts much more visible...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, sorry, all of this is happening rather quickly so I haven't had time to do all the more professional things necessary to prepare to look for work.

Fully aware of how unusable the site is right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Though I am far from a foodie, I've really been enjoying these posts, so thank you!

</comment><comment><USER4> Pictures, much better.</comment>


Progress in censorship circumvention: overview of Tor and Pluggable transports - <AUTHOR> https://www.maikel.pro/blog/progress-in-censorship-circumvention-tor-and-pluggable-transports-an-overview/ <comment><USER2> Interesting. That puts it into perspective how toy-like the Russian internet censorship really is, despite all the local noise about it.</comment>


It's official: Playing as Oddjob in 'GoldenEye' was cheating - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/23/n64-goldeneye-oddjob-cheating/ <comment><USER2> 'Cheating' is an odd word to apply to playing the game as designed & delivered, without using an exploit. That one of the developers considers it cheating is interesting, but ultimately not determinative. Playing a poorly- designed game within its rules is hardly cheating.</comment>


Why SICP Matters - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/sicp.html <comment><USER3> I took Brian Harvey's SICP course, what I didn't realize until I read this article is that I was in the first class he taught in 1987. I remember helping a friend in the course. We stared at five lines of code while I tried to explain it, he had a really hard time with it (some type of recursion I assume). I still hold the lesson from that tutor session. Write code to be easily read by the average joe. Python, Ruby, etc are great because they are easier to read by more people. Languages are about people not machines. p.s. I am still writing code today, and loving it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I studied ME and my only computer course was Fortran but over the years 70% of my work has become programming. For me SICP was a great introduction to CS. Up to then I had the typical practitioner's view that computing is all engineering and no science but SICP changed my view.

</comment><comment><USER5> Slightly off-topic : You can download the epub version of SICP from here. <https://github.com/ieure/sicp>

</comment><comment><USER6> SICP is a masterpiece. I took the old MIT 6.001 in Spring 1986 where we burned through the entire book in about 14 sleepless weeks. Sussman was the lecturer and Rod Brooks was my recitation instructor. I was like 19 years old at the time and it was the most intellectually beautiful thing I had ever experienced. I ended up acing the course and went on to get a PhD in CS. I've never read a better book on programming.

<comment><USER7> I wish that had been my experience with it. I did well in the class, but I didn't learn nearly as much as I should have. To be clear, that was entirely my fault, not the class's; I was lazy and got away with a lot of shortcuts. And even when I learned real stuff, I shrugged it off as "not actually how you build programs in the real world; can't I have for loop?" (so, sooo dumb). After years in the industry and a slow, organic rediscovery of all the great concepts I should have taken to heart as a college freshman, I cracked open SICP and said, "holy shit, this is what I was being taught?" 6.001 really was incredible, had I only been smart enough to see it. Eat your veggies, kids.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Universities are communities of people from very different sub-disciplines, with every person considering their own sub-discipline or course the most important one, and as a result the curriculum is diluted and hurried to please the greatest amount of people. It might have its benefits, but if training great computer scientists is really the goal, I think it is a bit of a pity you cannot go to a place where you could just do a mix of SICP, algorithms and mathematics for full three years, spending much more time with a single instructor on a single broad topic.

<comment><USER9> Actually, you can do something really close. The trick is to study mathematics and specialize from there, e.g. in algorithms or mathematical optimization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "In my experience, relatively few students appreciate how much they're learning in my course while they're in it."

That quote describes me to a T.

The University of Minnesota taught a sophomore class on OO using SICP. At the time, C++ was hot (this was about 1991 or 1992) and I distinctly remember someone raising their hand and asking "Why are we learning this language that we will never use again? Why isn't an OO class taught in C++?" And I remember thinking to myself "Who cares what language it's in? I'm kind of excited about learning another language." And I truly was.

It wasn't until much later, after being in industry for a decade (currently starting my third decade now ;) )that I recall thinking to myself "You know, that book had a tremendous impact on how I write software and program in general, I need to pick that up again, what was it?" And I re-found it and am on my third reading of it as I write this, mostly just to refresh the ideas in my mind (since I mostly work in Java and JavaScript these days), but I have never truly finished the whole book. The class took us through chapter 3 and then sort of a mixed bag of topics from later in the book, so I've never truly read the whole book, but certainly enough of it to help me.

I didn't realize it was a famous book at the time, it was just our text book. I still didn't realize it was a famous book when I re-bought it a decade later. And now I know why it is a famous book, it is that good. And though the third re-read is very familiar, I still enjoy it and find it profound.

<comment><USER11> I'm intrigued that anyone would teach OOP using a language other than Smalltalk. As well as giving you the bits you need to build objects, it puts them together in a dispatch system and class library, fully thought out and tastefully designed, then gives you the tools to take it apart, study how it works, think about why parts of it are clumsy, and consider the consequences of fixing them. Perhaps graphical workstations were too expensive for universities in 1992?

<comment><USER12> I don't recall there being an open source graphical Smalltalk in 1992.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> SICP videos are also great. The first part of the Lecture 1A, talks about "computer science". From the first moment, we learn that computer science is also not really much about computers.

"...when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use..."

"...Well, similarly, I think in the future people will look back and say, yes, those primitives in the 20th century were fiddling around with these gadgets called computers, but really what they were doing is starting to learn how to formalize intuitions about process, how to do things, starting to develop a way to talk precisely about how-to knowledge..."

<comment><USER14> "...when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use..."

So true of so many fields, namely photography. Can't tell you how much camera gear I bought before I finally sold it all and started taking photographs.

As it is with computers. Languages mean nothing, it's the concepts that matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wish my school had used this book. The first year of CS at my school was futzing around with operators and basic data structures. No tie-in to the big picture.

</comment><comment><USER16> Here's the previous thread for this article, from 5 months ago:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4784827>

</comment><comment><USER17> I started an SICP study group at work, where a few of us get together and watch the MIT video lectures given by Abelson and Sussman. People were a little skeptical at first, given that they consider themselves top-of-the-line l33t hackers and this is an introductory course, but after the 3rd lecture, nobody questioned the value of it.

It's a timeless course.

</comment><comment><USER18> I didn't discover SICP until after I had graduated from a good CS school. Its clear and away the best programming book I've ever read, even for an experienced developer.

<comment><USER19> Yep... I was coder for many years before I discovered it. I'm mad at my university for not forcing it on me!

<comment><USER14> Ha, this is exactly it! As an 18-year-old interested in computers, you just want to start writing iPhone apps and making the next big web service, but quite often those old geezers know better than you.

Catering to the things that 18-year-olds want has never really gotten us far in society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was working through the coursera functional programming course on scala which is modeled on SICP. While the content is really good, it suffers from the same problems pointed out by Dr Harvey. Getting used to scala syntax takes time while Scheme was a breeze.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, Scala is the new C++ - immensely powerful but there's ten different ways to do everything.

I like the language, but I'm simultaneously disgusted by it.

<comment><USER21> "there's ten different ways to do everything"

I believe this observation is a bit misleading. Indeed, Scala does offer some alternatives, but these are helpful in the transition from other languages with less powerful type systems. Idiomatic Scala is not really a hodge-podge of choices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hi everyone, is there a kind of video/guided tutorial through Scheme and SICP? I have tried picking the book up on my own but have had a hard time retaining the information.

<comment><USER23> There is a video of the lectures from SICP, which was produced for HP. [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- comput...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs- spring-2005/video-lectures/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am revisiting SICP at the moment, because a friend uses it to learn programming. But I have to say, I am not nearly as impressed with the book as I used to be. Wadler's critique "Why calculating is better than scheming" ([http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/dat/miranda/wadler87.p...](http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/dat/miranda/wadler87.pdf)) fully applies, and the book can be rather confused and ad-hoc in some places, e.g. section 1.3. A stronger focus on data structures would have been useful, instead of ad hoc recursion schemes, like version of `accumulate', `sum' and `product' they make you write in the exercises in that section, which are essentially unfoldr and foldr rolled into one---and would be better written as a composition of those functions.

`How to design programmes' (<http://www.htdp.org/>) leaves a better impression as a beginners' book for me.

If you can already programme then "Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation" (<http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/>) is a great follow-up.

<comment><USER24> Thinking on "Why calculating is better than scheming" vs SICP I realize that there is an axis where most programmer's ways of thinking can be placed, with 2 extremes:

\- the _mathematician-programmers_ : the thinking in terms of "what is" extreme, or mathematical thinking inspired programming: people closer to this like to think in terms of types and usually dislike dynamic languages, they also like to be able to properly reason about all aspects of a program, to have defined "states" they can think about. These people tend to like MLs, Haskell, OCaml, F#. The "mathematical beauty of perfect code" is their ideal and favorite metaphor. _And I think they are right that teaching a Lisp to a beginner pushes ones mind away from "what is" oriented programming._

\- the _Schemers_ : the thinking in terms of "what transformations to apply to something (it doesn't matter what "something" actually "is") to get something else or somewhere else" programmer: these people like to be able to transform everything, including code itself, they like homoiconicity or macros in general, they prefer thinking in terms of "how to compose/cahin transofrmations" instead of types, they tend either no know or not value category theory too much and they are ok with seeing code as an "organic entity" that can't always be reasoned about. These people tend to like Lisps, Smalltalk and dynamic languages. The "programming as magick", in the sense of "controlling the spirits (processes) inside computers" is their favorite metaphor. They also like to maintain a playful mood and their "it's ok that paying customers get shafted every now and then" may have had a reason for businesses' dislike for "schemer" types and "schemer" realted technologies. As an offside paradox, some "schemers" tend to also like OOP, though they understand it should not be overused (I consider Alan Kay, usually mentiones as the father of OOP to be a "schemer"). _I think that exposing a young learner to Lisp pushes one mind towards this direction, and this is why I love SICP. If you are a competent engineer you surely have a serious amount of math knowledge, so you can easily switch your mind to what-is/math mode and see the mathematical beauty when there is one to be seen, but most "mathematician- programmers" never seem to be able to love this "ruleless organic beauty" of the "schemer way"._

I consider myself a "schemer" and I am biased to this side, but I understand and appreciate the value and arguments of the other - I'd rather fly in a plane with the control systems coded by a "mathematician-programmer" than by a "schemer" like me :)

<comment> qu4z-2 Interesting.

I prefer the "programming as magick" metaphor, and would say I have a playful mood regarding programming, but I still like static typing. Having said that, I love higher-order functions and macros as well.

Defining it as a continuum feels like I should be either on one end, or somewhere inbetween on the various traits, but I have rather strong attachment to some traits from each side.

I think you're right that a lot of the traits you mention tend to be clustered together in programmers though.

<comment><USER24> ...anyone grows to love static typing sooner or later, after endless debugging sessions in dynamic language codebases :)

But I think that higher-order functions don't belong to one extreme or the other - anyone uses them, even weekend-coders that do javascript or have been exposed to php 5.4's new features end up using them - they are something so basic that any language has it in one form or another, even C has function pointers. Macros, otoh are a very different creature: they may seem similar to higher order functions in Haskell where you can use hof for what you'd use macros in Lisp, but they are a whole different ball game because _you can't reason (formally, or informally but within the "what is" mindview) about code that transforms/generates code_ (or you can, but it's just TOO HARD), and I guess this is why so many developers are afraid of them and language-designers omitted them or added them as an extra feature and not as core language defining features from day 0 (for example Scala - I bet the language would've been very different if macros would've been there since version 0.1, been more "usable", and used to build more core language features on top of them...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> But an average student might need the exposure to other "common" paradigms from C, Python, or Java, before getting introduced to SICP, to "fully appreciate" the power of functional language.

<comment><USER26> Pedagogically speaking, I think this is backwards. SICP isn't a course in functional programming; it's a course in programming. And the use of Scheme is critical, because it doesn't waste time on nonsense like classes and structs and other ephemera -- you just jump right into the conversation with the computer.

<comment><USER27> When I went to Berkeley, those with no programming experience were encouraged to take CS 3 (Simply Scheme) before taking CS 61A (SICP).

<comment><USER26> At Chicago in 1990, there were two intro classes; if you wanted to study CS (a math major at the time), you took 115/116, which were basically 6.001.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> For those turned off by its mathiness, one of the coauthors explained, "There's a tremendous amount [of math] in this 6.001 book. That's partly because we were writing it for MIT. You want to talk about higher-order procedures, so the obvious thing you can do is you can express the idea of an integral. So that's an obstacle for lots of places. Remember, at MIT the context we were writing in is every person who took the course had just had a semester of calculus."

<http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/hal-abelson/>

<comment><USER29> That is really a wonderful interview. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER28> You're welcome. You might also enjoy Rich Hickey's interview, as I did. <http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/rich-hickey/>

"And, once there [writing only code that matters], you are able to achieve a very high degree of focus, such as you would when playing Go, or playing a musical instrument, or meditating. And then, as with those activities, there can be a feeling of elation that accompanies that mental state of focus."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have to confess I just discovered you can order a relatively cheap copy (well, compared to Amazon) of SICP direct from MIT.

I have only skimmed so far, but combined with the lectures I have to say that I really wish that had been my introduction to programming. Maybe it is just because of where I'm at, but it really feels like in the first 3 lectures some of the more elusive topics of programming are at least touched. Sure, you will need to seek out more, but it is not as hidden behind "but for this language, you have to do this" kind of crap.

<comment><USER31> Years ago, I was very interested in having the physical book to read, but too cheap to buy a new copy. Every once in a while I would check half.com and book shopping comparison sites looking for a cheap used copy. One day in December 2006, there was a rift in The Matrix and Barnes and Noble was selling the hard copy 2nd edition for ... $7.00 (new). I ordered two copies and as soon as they were physically in my hands, I tried to order more. Alas, the glitch had been fixed by then. Sometimes I wonder if there shouldn't be a general price scanning app that will alert on wild changes in the price of a popular book.

<comment><USER32> Like camelcamelcamel.com? I set up price alerts for big wishlist items; it's a great service.

<comment><USER31> I hadn't heard of that site, thanks! Back in 2006 or so, I was a heavy user of Addall.com for comparing prices across various book sellers. I would point people there and mention that it must be "Amazon's worst nightmare." Fast forward a few years and Amazon used books ate their lunch. Addall.com gave up so completely, their site often returns two hits for the same item, the short and long ISBN. There can't be much profit for Amazon to sell used books, but I suppose it is important to keep even the used book buyers "down on the farm."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Excellent article. I'm immensely glad and lucky to have had Brian Harvey as a professor, and this echoes exactly what he taught us and the general teaching at Berkeley: that the concepts of programming and computer science were of paramount importance, and that you should understand them in the abstract.

To this day, this is why I value a good theoretical CS education, why I value university education, and why I continue to look back on and use my supposedly theoretical and impractical CS education with great respect.

This is so true: "learning another programming language isn't a big deal; it's a chore for a weekend. I tell my students, 'the language in which you'll spend most of your working life hasn't been invented yet, so we can't teach it to you. Instead we have to give you the skills you need to learn new languages as they appear.'" Can you imagine how valuable it was to be told that from the start?

He's right about scheme too: part of the value of using Scheme or Lisp is its inherent crazy unfamiliarity to the great majority of students. The first thing when you see all those parentheses and weird paradigms is "woah, this is unlike anything I've seen before." And that's _perfect._ You don't get lost in things you think you already know—you learn concepts fresh and the language, because it's so weird and wild and totally abstract and you can't imagine using it for any real project—is as malleable and temporary as modeling clay. You get to make things with it that teach you about art, and how to look at things, how to see infinity—not about the properties of the materials in your hands.

For this reason among others, it's profoundly disappointing to me that Berkeley has switched their introductory language to Python. As great as it is, it's no Scheme, if only for the fact that its popularity and usefulness as a language detracts from the underlying concepts. I have to think Brian Harvey fought this change, had he not retired and lost some influence.

"Every five years or so, someone on the faculty suggests that our first course should use language X instead; each time, I say "when someone writes the best computer science book in the world using language X, that'll be fine.'"

SICP was, in retrospect, a masterpiece of education. Someone sat down and thought about exactly these concepts and how best to elucidate them without getting in the way of the connections being made. The new trend toward applications-focused education feels to me like the wrong direction, and I don't think I would get as good an education today as I did learning abstract concepts theoretical computer science taught as the most important part.

Sure, it's fun and attractive to think about applying what you learn to the revolution at hand quickly, making mobile apps and designing robots and putting everything together into useful applications, but you can learn all that stuff after a couple semesters of awesome CS core theory anyway. And while you might get frustrated for those 2 years as an 18-year-old hotshot upstart startup-minded student, in 10 years you'll look back on it and think, "wow, that really was the most important part."

<comment><USER33> Sounds like Berkeley are making a huge mistake and losing sight of what a University is there for. They seem to have moved to a more practical approach than theoretical approach.

This is the type of approach that is more appropriate to a Technical College than a major University. This new approach almost seems like teaching civil engineers how to weld and rivet in order to build bridges, rather than deeply understanding the mathematical theory behind stress and vectors.

<comment><USER34> Does MIT even use Scheme for their intro CS courses anymore? Harvey's article makes it sound like they switched to Python when they went from a "curriculum organized around topics" to a "curriculum organized around applications" - <USER2> seems to be the trend everywhere.

<comment><USER35> MIT did indeed switch from Scheme to Python for their introductory courses (though I've heard they still use Scheme in some more advanced courses).[1][2]

However, I recall that a little later some MIT graduate students started teaching their own version of the classic SICP-based course. I can't seem to find a link to it now, unfortunately. I wonder how that turned out, and if they're still teaching it now.

[1] - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=602307>

[2] - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530605>

<comment><USER36> Brian Harvey was also teaching his own version of the old CS61A last I heard, but he may be retiring after this year. (I've been hearing about him retiring pretty much since I started at Berkeley 5 years ago, for what it's worth).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> When I was student, my school has decided to stop using Ada as teaching language. They were hesitating between CAML Light and Scheme. They asked me my feeling because I was one of the rare student to know well both of them. I like both of them, but I choose CAML Light. Scheme has a lot of parenthesis that makes it look very old fashion. Scheme type system was also outdated. Programming in CAML Light was more fun for me, the syntax was simple and pleasant. The currification was cleaner in CAML Light. 20 years latter, CAML Light does not exist anymore, but I still think that my choice was right. My school has choosen CAML Light.

<comment><USER38> Dynamic typing is outdated?!

<comment><USER9> Yes, since at least 80s or so. Languages based on Hindley-Milner type system (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindley%E2%80%93Milner>) are static and nice to work with. E.g. OCaml or Haskell.

I have some professional experience in rewriting Python and Ruby programmes in Haskell. I make the same amount of stupid mistakes in Python as in Haskell. But whereas Python blows up at runtime / test time, in Haskell it's the compiler yelling at me. The nice thing: that's much faster to detect, and also saves me writing about half the tests.

Don't get me wrong, dynamic typing beats inane static typing like C's or Java's. But good static typing beats dynamic typing.

<comment><USER38> I wrote a simple OCaml compiler for a class in college. I particularly enjoyed using different operators for floating-point and integer math — brilliant usability there, really sold me on static types. Haskell does better with its type classes, except my four attempts to understand monads and arrows have, so far, met with rather mixed success.

Static typing has its place in some people's hearts, and I respect that, but saying that dynamic typing has been outdated since the 80s is (1) trolling, and (2) happens to also just be, like, your opinion, man.

<comment><USER9> If you want to have another go at it, I recommend Learn you a Haskell for Great Good (available online for free at <http://learnyouahaskell.com/>) for your Haskell learning needs. Don't stress the Monads and Arrows so much. I know what arrows do, but can't spot their applications in practice. And still I get paid for writing Haskell programmes.

Oh, and please excuse my snarky tone. Your ancestor comment seemed to ask for it. Yes, they are, even now, languages around that are even worse. But better ways have been around for ages. A similar example is garbage collection: It, too, has been around since basically the dawn of programming languages, but only made serious inroads into the mainstream in the last decades.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/fda-surveillance-of-scientists-spread-to-outside-critics.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> Did the NYTimes article change its title? The HN article reads "F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics", but the NYTimes article's title is "F.D.A. Spied on Its Scientists' E-Mails in Bid to Cut Criticism".

The new title seems more accurate. It's still no good at all (obviously), but it doesn't appear that they monitored any computers except their own employees' computers. Of course, that ends up intercepting both sides of any conversation, which may often include non-employees; but that's generally the case when any employer monitors their employees' email (as many do). The questionable part would be whether this violated whistleblower protections, i.e. it was done in retaliation for a complaint.

(I'm more generally wary of employers reading their employees' email, but afaict it's widespread and legal, if not done in some kind of prohibited retaliatory manner. At least, that's the case in the U.S.; I believe some other countries may have privacy laws that restrict what employers can read.)

<comment><USER3> They might be running some automated A/B testing to find the most effective headline. Currently the headline is for me "Vast Effort by F.D.A. Spied on E-Mails of Its Own Scientists", while the page title is still the "F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics".

<comment><USER2> Curious. Disappointing if they really are doing A/B testing! Those headlines all have significantly different connotations, so it would seriously lower my opinion of the NYTimes' journalism if they're choosing them based on linkbait potential, and not taking into account accuracy.

<comment><USER4> Headlines were bait before there were hyperlinks. Nothing new there—you're just seeing the process for the first time. Also, this doesn't take away from the substance of a very well-reported article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm hoping, with the expectation of ultimate disappointment, that someone will soon reign in this Do What The Frak We Want Because We Can attitude of officials within the U.S. government. At the least it's despicable. I'd venture a guess to say this behavior by the FDA management is illegal. However, I'm sure they'll prove to be untouchable.

<comment><USER6> _However, I'm sure they'll prove to be untouchable._

That remains to be seen. The New York Times reporting points out that the FDA administrators spied on correspondence with members of Congress of both parties, who are appalled that that spying happens. That's a dangerous mistake to make in an agency funded by appropriations from Congress.

<comment><USER7> How many drugs and/or medical devices that are on the market do you think are going to lose their FDA-approved status? Probably zero. At most the one or two that are mentioned in this article. But the chances of having a systematic review conducted on all of the approved drugs to look for wrongdoing is basically zero, despite the fact that the ethics problems and corruption within the FDA are systematic.

<comment><USER6> _How many drugs and/or medical devices that are on the market do you think are going to lose their FDA-approved status? Probably zero._

Counterexamples to your expression of personal belief are the drugs and medical devices that have already been withdrawn from the market for all indications or for some previous indications by the FDA. The list below is far from exhaustive.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temafloxacin>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fen-phen>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terfenadine>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglitazone>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegaserod>

(See also page 45 of an FDA report.)

[http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/CDER/Wh...](http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/CDER/WhatWeDo/UCM078935.pdf)

Other drugs have been withdrawn voluntarily from the market by the companies that make them when problems have appeared in their use.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerivastatin>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rofecoxib>

Other drugs approved in other countries never received FDA approval in the first place.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolrestat>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ximelagatran>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimonabant>

The FDA continues to review other drugs with a view toward withdrawing approval from some of them.

[http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/uc...](http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm222580.htm)

The FDA also nudges companies to withdraw drugs on their own part.

<http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm277114.htm>

Further, the FDA recalls drugs and medical devices if particular manufacturing batches are shown to have defects.

<http://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls/default.htm>

The simple fact of the matter is that the FDA, like any regulatory agency in a democratic country with a free press, gets pushed from all sides. Sometimes criticism of the FDA takes the form that it is too slow to approve drugs or medical devices that are already approved in other countries. Simultaneously there is criticism that the FDA approves some drugs or medical devices without full information from the companies that make them.

I have lived in another developed country with a national health insurance system (for which I was eligible as a foreign resident with a visa that included work permission) and highly educated physicians and some central government regulation of drugs and medical devices. Sure enough, there were drugs there available by prescription that are not available in the United States, and the other way around. Each country's political system balances risk and benefits in its regulatory framework, subject to political pressures of various kinds and trumped in the end by the clinical facts of who lives or dies while taking various drugs or using various medical devices. My son the hacker spent last summer working for one of the large medical device companies in my town, and EVERYTHING about his work was stringently reviewed by the FDA, so much so that the work he completed will probably not see the market for a few more years yet.

Alex, I see you are part of that minority of HN users who joined much earlier than I did (which is what I recalled before I checked your user profile). I appreciate many of your posts. I don't know if anyone else here has told you this, but just as you see that I post in a lot of threads about medical research or medical practice regulation (because my mother was a nurse in a research hospital, and indeed was one of the first persons in the entire world to learn how to assemble and disassemble a heart-lung machine), I see that you post a lot on those issues. You appear to come to HN with a worldview that regulation of prescribed drugs has mostly failed, and medical practice in general is ineffective. And yet you also seem to have a view about controlled subtances that is not fully consistent with that point of view, because street drugs that have had no rigorous studies of safety and effectiveness (and are known to put people into hospital emergency rooms from time to time with deadly symptoms) are sometimes championed by you in other posts, while prescription drugs that have been carefully studied in that regarded are doubted in most of your posts.

I would suggest to anyone reading this that it would be more consistent to subject ALL of your beliefs to the test of evidence and to find out if ANY drug, prescribed or illicit, really provides benefit to the user, and if ANY seller of drugs, "Big Pharma" or your favorite local dealer, has any other motive in mind besides making money. The commonplace HN meme of "drugs approved by the FDA are bad," while "drugs prohibited by the DEA are good" is unlikely to be true in general on its face, and anyway has to be tested with good evidence on a case-by-case basis.

<comment><USER7> I appreciate your perspective. To address some of your points:

1) "The simple fact of the matter is that the FDA, like any regulatory agency in a democratic country with a free press, gets pushed from all sides. Sometimes criticism of the FDA takes the form that it is too slow to approve drugs or medical devices that are already approved in other countries. Simultaneously there is criticism that the FDA approves some drugs or medical devices without full information from the companies that make them."

I think these are good points, and I'm aware that drugs lose their FDA approval or get pulled off the market from time to time. This is generally good. My issue is that a lot of drugs that get approved do so on really shoddy science. I've documented this extensively in previous posts, but some of the highlights:

\- To get approved, you generally only need to show that a drug is safe and effective for one indication for six weeks or so. There generally isn't any requirement to show that drugs are safe or effective for longterm use, even if they are generally marketed and prescribed for longterm use. A good example of this is with various psychiatric drugs, as Robert Whitaker documents in his book Anatomy of an Epidemic.

\- There have been many, many cases of pharma companies faking their research data, hiding bad results, bribing doctors to prescribe certain drugs, etc. And the most these pharma companies ever get is a slap on the wrist, usually a fine much less than the profits they have made over the years.

\- There is currently to mechanism is place to get FDA approval for non patentable drugs. The number of non patentable drugs that make it into the marketplace is effectively zero, even though there are many non patentable drugs that are potentially more safe and effective than drugs that can be patented.

\- Many of the new drugs approved are simply evergreened versions of existing drugs, designed solely to extend the patents of pharma companies. I wouldn't have a problem with this if these drugs were genuinely better, but usually they aren't. The FDA generally goes out of its way to allow drug companies to market their evergreens as being more effective or having less side effects, even if there isn't nearly enough research (or no research at all) to believe that these things are though.

\- Many of the epistemological assumptions behind the current paradigms of pharmacology are highly dubious. (Again, I have made my case for this many times elsewhere so it would be largely a waste of everyones time for me to go into this again here.)

My attitude toward the FDA isn't that it should be abolished. I firmly believe that government regulation is needed, I just think the FDA is doing a really bad job currently.

2) "...medical practice in general is ineffective."

I generally try to be careful not to make statements to that effect, even though I am critical of the medical system in the vast majority of my posts. Basically in order to say that you would need to know:

\- What percent of the time are doctors able to make a diagnosis? What percentage of the time are patients diagnosed correctly?

\- What percent of the time do they get the appropriate treatment for their condition?

\- What percent of the time are patients better off as a result of going through the medical system?

If you have better research I'd love to see it, but the best and most current information on this I've been able to find is as follows:

"Perhaps the most striking revelation to emerge from this review is the surprisingly small amount of systematic knowledge available on the quality of health care delivered in the United States. Even though health care is a huge industry that affects the lives of most Americans, we have only snapshots of information about particular conditions, types of surgery, and locations of care.

The dominant finding of our review is that there are large gaps between the care people should receive and the care they do receive. This is true for all three types of care—preventive, acute, and chronic—whether one goes for a check-up, a sore throat, or diabetic care. It is true whether one looks at overuse or underuse. It is true in different types of health care facilities and for different types of health insurance. It is true for all age groups, from children to the elderly. And it is true whether one is looking at the whole country or a single city."

[...]

"A simple average of the findings of the preventive care studies shows that about 50 percent of people received recommended care. (None of the studies reported a percentage of people receiving contraindicated preventive care.) An average of 70 percent of patients received recom- mended acute care, and 30 percent received contraindicated acute care. For chronic conditions, 60 percent received recommended care and 20 percent received contraindicated care. These values do not indicate exact levels of quality in the United States, but they do provide a quantitative sense of how much could be done in all areas to identify and eliminate overuse and underuse of care. [...]

The United States cannot afford to let this situation continue. A systematic strategy for routine monitoring and reporting on quality, as well as the information systems needed to support such activities, will be essential if we are to preserve the best of the American health care system while striving to improve the efficiency with which high-quality services are provided." Source: [http://www.innovationlabs.com/summit/summit3/readings/Schust...](http://www.innovationlabs.com/summit/summit3/readings/Schuster- McGlynn-Brook_How%20Good%20is%20the%20Quality%20of%20HC_Millbank_2005.pdf) (How good is the quality of health care in the United States?)

I have a lot more research notes on various things related to the healthcare system and the state of health in the US, two very different but related things, and I'm going to publish those notes at some point as sort of a citation vault. (I'll send you note now though with some stuff for you to peruse.)

3) "because street drugs that have had no rigorous studies of safety and effectiveness (and are known to put people into hospital emergency rooms from time to time with deadly symptoms) are sometimes championed by you in other posts, while prescription drugs that have been carefully studied in that regarded are doubted in most of your posts."

I think this is a mistaken belief on your behalf. Almost all of the commonly used street drugs have more research on them than all but the most well studied prescription drugs. And all of the most studied drugs in general are the so-called recreational drugs. For example there are over 20,000 studies on marijuana and cannabinoids alone. Similarly, you'd be hard pressed to find any antidepressant with more research done on it than LSD and Psilocybin. There are many books that sum up the scientific research about specific drugs. For example, the book Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts has a good summary of marijuana, although it's about ten years out of date. The book Marijuana Is Safer also has a good summary of the research, although it doesn't cover every single point. There is a good podcast with an RN about some specific medical benefits that I often link to, which you can see here: <http://www.matrixmasters.net/salon/?p=258>

I actually have some Squidoo pages with extensive collections of research on marijuana and psychedelics, although HN does not let you link to Squidoo pages. (But you can probably find them via Google or through the internal site search engine, and then find the rest via my profile.)

I do occasionally advocate illegal drugs for certain specific issues, but more generally I'm an advocate of more sensible drug laws. I generally believe that virtually all drugs should be legal, the government should regulate the purity and quality, and there should be some sort of drivers license type system in order to get certified to use different clases of drugs. (E.g. there would be a certification for psychedelics, a certification for opiates, etc, as well as certification for different delivery methods.) And if you're not certified then you could still use various drugs under a doctors supervision, either on an inpatient or outpatient basis depending on the drug/dose/delivery method.

Also, as a general rule of thumb there aren't really any safe or unsafe drugs, just safe and unsafe use patterns. Unfortunately I think the government is larger pushing people away from safer drugs / usage patterns and toward more dangerous practices. The book Marijuana Is Safer makes a good case for this for marijuana, but really marijuana is just one drug in a much larger argument.

Hopefully this explains at least a little better about the bigger picture of what I believe and why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The most frightening part here is that at the end of the day, criticisms of this kind have historically led to increases in FDA budgets, because the more the agency fails, the more people cry that it is underfunded in its crucial mission to protect public health. See for example the "Alliance for a Stronger FDA", in which many drug companies lobby for increased FDA funding, both to curry favor with current officials and to exclude competitors.

<http://strengthenfda.org/>

[http://cherryhill.legalexaminer.com/fda-and-prescription- dru...](http://cherryhill.legalexaminer.com/fda-and-prescription-drugs/fda-is- understaffed-underfunded-and-cant-handle-food- inspections.aspx?googleid=255906)

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/fda- funding-b...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/fda-funding- boosted-through-lobbying-effort/2011/11/23/gIQAXHQ6CO_story.html)

As these links show, more failure means more funding, but sometimes also shakeup which reduces the upward arc of a bureaucrat's career and limits them to "just" lifetime employment with tenure (it's called 'career status' and federal employees get it after three years).

So, if this is how they react to cries that the agency is underfunded, can you imagine how the FDA would react to criticism that might result in decreased funding?

<comment><USER9> More failure means more funding... could apply to almost any government bureaucracy. Department of Education comes to mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It seems to me somewhat naive to expect in these conflict scenarios no recording/spying on devices that are owned by the employer.

But I am wondering based on this case: How does "corporate" America regulate the use of private communication devices in general? Are employees who work on non-secretive areas generally allowed to bring personal communication devices into the office (how about a smartphone? a tablet? or a netbook?).

<comment><USER10> or bring kit, leave it in the bag/car pop out to a wifi connected cafe at lunchtime or in the evening after work? I was wondering that as well.

UK: Regulation of Investigative Powers Act and European Privacy Directive might need to be read carefully but I'm pretty sure e-mails of this nature would be private.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Example of Spector360 use in Australia:

[http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/public- serv...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/public-servant- sacked-for-googling-knockers-at-home-20110202-1adue.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> If the FDA has "confidential agency information", they are doing it wrong.

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure I fully agree with that. Drug companies should be able to take as long as is needed to make sure a drug is safe without having to tip their hand early to competitors.

<comment><USER14> How does that work with the idea that patents are only for limited times?</comment></comment></comment>