Ask HN: What causes a top 10 front page post to jump to slot #79 in seconds? - <AUTHOR>

Seriously mods, this is taking things a little too far.
We went from #9 with a vote, submission time, and comment count matching a current top 10 post to all the way to #79 in the matter of a minute. Linked is the screenshot showing just how disproportionate the ratings are.
http://imgur.com/g3PdsNL
I'm sure some HNers have an idea of how the algorithm works or what went on here. Needless to say I'm very disappointed. <comment><USER2> > Seriously mods, this is taking things a little too far.

No moderator touched your post. It fell in rank because users flagged it.

It's against the HN guidelines to turn questions like this into Ask HN threads. Please don't do that. As the guidelines say, you should email firstname.lastname@example.com instead.

Also: when a post is flagged, a repost counts as a duplicate. Otherwise flags wouldn't mean anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Define flagging. I've been a member of HN for almost 5 years with low to medium activity and all I get is upvote/downvote capabilities. As far as I can see, there were minimal downvotes from me watching (or at least equivalent to upvotes), so the flagging seemed to be a group effort near instantaneously.

Things immediately went from good to bad in the matter of seconds, so there's alot of power in whatever ranking is required to "flag".

<comment><USER3> Flagging is when you click the link that says "flag". Like I just did for this thread.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're funny. Upvote for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It looks from the comments, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985678), that mod(s) thought it was a deceptive post that was more like an advert than a story.

What technically, or in context of startups, is notable about the site/offer? Perhaps you'd be better blogging about pop.co's setup and submitting that if you want to use HN for promotion.

<comment><AUTHOR> The post title was literally our selling point which was the exact features offered. I'll have to reply to the mod.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My guess is an upvote collusion algorithm got tripped somehow. The post is obviously being penalized for some reason.

<comment><AUTHOR> To the point on upvote collusion, I think the mods really need to rethink things a bit. I utilize HN on a daily basis and check it periodically throughout the day. If I see a post of a friend's site, I upvote it. The notion of being flagged because friends or acquaintances familiar with your startup being happy for you is by no means a reason to degrade a post.

What the OPs are really saying is they'll let it slide for their friends and network, but not for those they're unfamiliar with. This is outright unacceptable behavior and I think methods of accountability should be added. If a startup didn't have friends, fans, and followers, than what do they have guys? Nothing. And I'll be damned if I don't work for an awesome startup doing awesome things that earned it's spot on the front page. It's a shame.

<comment><USER6> > What the OPs are really saying is they'll let it slide for their friends and > network, but not others.

OP? Usually, when I've seen that in a forum, it means "Original Poster", the submitter of the post to which the comment thread is attached -- but clearly that's not what you mean here. Do you mean the mods?

And, no, the voting ring detector is, from everything that has been said about it, algorithmic, so its just as wrong for anyones "friends and network" as for anyone else's.

> This is outright unacceptable behavior and I think methods of accountability > should be added.

I'm sure if you ask nicely, YC will refund 100% of the HN membership fee you paid if you are unsatisfied.

> If a startup didn't have friends, fans, and followers, than what do they > have guys?

The idea of HN is that things should be promoted in visibility based on the interest to the community at large based on the content, not based on collusion of groups to promote them. Hence the voting ring detector. There's plenty of venues for promotion that don't work that way, but I don't see why anyone (other than YC) is entitled to demand that HN change.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct on mods, I was ranting too fast. I'll maintain my rights to rant on occasion if something smells fishy. The post had legitimate interest, a comment chain, and votes in both directions. The algorithm seems to be at fault but I won't know for sure without some feedback. I sent an email out, so I guess we'll wait and see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hold on folks, it's now #181. It seems as though some form of exponential decay has been enabled by moderators.

I'd like to propose formal explanations whenever things like this occur. Accountability should be the name of the game. I want to know who performed the action, what action was performed, and why.

<comment><USER6> > Hold on folks, it's now #181. It seems as though some form of exponential > decay has been enabled by moderators.

Time-based exponential decay is the norm. Per the FAQ [1]:

 _How are stories ranked?_

 _On the front page, by points divided by a power of the time since they were submitted._

Also, from the guidelines [2]:

 _Please don 't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to email@example.com._

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> While I understand this, we had a direct comparable front page item I mentioned that goes entirely against the decay. This is a case of accelerated decay enforced by an OP IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> By my manual count, 6 of the 16 comments in the discussion are by you and you are also the person who submitted the piece. I have tried to tell others this and people think I am being a bitch when I do so, but commenting too much in your own submission seems to not be a good idea.

I wrote about my own experience/observations here:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/03/so-you- made-...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/03/so-you-made-front- page.html)

Can't be bothered to read it? The main take away is: Submit your piece, allow yourself between one and three GOOD comments, then stfu and let _other people_ talk about your thingamajig.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll have to take your advice on this one in the future. This crowd is getting as rough as /r/.

<comment><USER7> You know, I am female and I used to really be given hell at times on HN. It took me a long time to understand why that was (most of which is not relevant to this discussion) but I don't think it helps you at all to talk about "this crowd is getting as rough as..." etc type stuff. If I had just been looking to blame people here, I imagine I would have ended up banned. Instead, I took some time off, figured some things out, and was eventually able to return to a much more successful experience. As far as I can tell, that means I am currently the highest ranking (in terms of karma) actively participating female member. And this is a forum that is fairly notoriously unwelcoming of women. So I think I speak from both a place of success and the school of hard knocks on this one.

From what I can tell, there is some sort of algorithm that drops you off the front page if you comment too much in your own submissions. Most likely, the mods have good reasons for that. If you want to do well here, it helps to understand the technical environment as well as the social environment. If you don't want to understand it as a path to improving your performance, if, instead, you just want to blame someone and complain, well, it's been nice knowing you. You won't get far here. That kind of thing does not play well anywhere and it seems to play especially poorly here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mods responded via email and said it was from users flagging the post. I won't elaborate further, but thanks for the words of advice!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Samsung warns profit to fall 60% - <AUTHOR> http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2019/04/06/2003712873 <comment><USER2> Comments here are out of their mind. Samsung's smartphone business hasn't been a profit center for quite some time. Majority of profit came from DRAM and NAND, and profit fall is directly attributable to recent price crash of both.

<comment><USER3> I just had a conversation with somebody who asserted that Apple was bad (proprietary etc) and Samsung was good, and that Apple was 3rd phone maker behind Samsung and Huawei.

He may be right about Apple being 3rd, but Apple looks to be the only one making a decent profit from their phones.

How do they manage that when they have to pay for both hardware and software development, when all the others get the software for free?

<comment><USER4> > How do they manage that when they have to pay for both hardware and software > development, when all the others get the software for free?

It's their ecosystem, all their hardwares work very well between each other. You have Apple messenger on a macbook connecting to your iphone. For android you need to download pushbullet. I'm not in the ecosystem I prefer Android but I can see why people such as consumer would continue to buy Apple stuff. I'm not entirely sure about their laptops though...

Also Apple make a lot of money from services such as itune and their app store. Itune made more than Spotify. It all works together with their close ecosystem.

It's a real pain to move from apple to android because text messages goes straight to apple server. You need to sign off and jump a hoop to get text message back to android. Also getting mp3 off of itunes or getting bandcamp mp3s on to itune. It's like LA fitness, at least in 2010, where if you want to cancel your gym membership you need to download the pdf from their website and then mail it to the provided address and then they'll charge you anyway one extra month.

<comment><USER5> You're saying Apple's making the money from the ecosystem, but that's not what the parent is asking. The parent is asking how Apple is making a money on each individual iPhone, which they absolutely are. Even if you never buy into the rest of the Apple ecosystem, merely purchasing an iPhone means Apple is making a profit from you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Signals to the end of an era, smartphones have matured and are becoming ubiquitous like laptops. Moreover, the most profitable smartphones belong to Apple which held 86% of smartphone profits generated in the industry in 2018. Samsung was competing more in the mid to affordable segments so it was bound to start losing once others started catching up, especially since its Chinese competitors are basically giving up profits for growth in the affordable to medium segments.

[https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/17/apple- grabs-86-of...](https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/17/apple-grabs-86-of- smartphone-profits-globally-iphone-x-alone-seizes-35)

<comment><USER7> > Samsung was competing more in the mid to affordable

I assumed Samsung's android phones were the top of the range. Who do you think is the high end android phone brand

<comment><USER8> They make high end phones, but their sales volume doesn't make up for the margins. In terms of manufactured phone volume, the Galaxy line makes up a tiny fraction of their total sales.

I feel like the vast majority of the Android ecosystem foot gunned itself pushing its way out of reasonably priced device segments. There really are no modern equivalents to the Moto G or Nexus 5 or even early One Plus phones in the $150-$350 range. Its garbage up through $200, then a giant gap to $1000 phones.

Especially in the tablet segment. I can get why Google didn't want to try to single-handedly prop up the form factor with first party devices, but the last good (and reasonably priced) Android tablets remain the second generation Nexus 7 and Nvidia Shield from half a decade ago.

<comment><USER9> Nokia does what you want. See eg [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/02/guidemaster-the- best...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/02/guidemaster-the-best-android- phones-from-budget-to-flagships/)

<comment><USER10> I wish Nokia would release a cheap phone with an AMOLED screen, eg, like the Oneplus X 4 years ago...

Until there's another sub 300$ phone with an AMOLED upgrading seems pointless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Samsung's problems are just beginning. They're getting destroyed on every front, and basically all comes from China.

On the phone front, they were used to selling phones at premium pricing only relying on their brand name. You don't have to look past Nokia or Blackberry to see how that will end. They're not really innovative, and while their devices are generally quality, they've pushed the price point too high. Xiaomi does 90 percent of it for 30 percent of the price. Huawei does 200 percent for about the same price.

On the chip front, TSMC has been outpacing them for years, and is getting all the contracts.

The only thing I can think of that Samsung does better than anyone else is OLED, and others are catching up very quickly.

I think Samsung will join the ranks of HTC and LG as also rans in short time...

<comment><USER12> I won't recommend Xiaomi to anyone I like, and the demise of Samsung phones in China is more "emotionally" driven, yes Samsung phones are expensive, but so do Oppo and Vivo.

They are more out-marketed than "out-tech-ed".

<comment><USER13> The high-end Xiaomis usually match the other flagship androids at half the price. My Mi5 S Plus has outlasted many of my friend's phones that were a lot more expensive. It cost just HK$3k (US$380).

<comment><USER14> I've had zero issues with my Android One Xiaomi. Best value I've ever had in a phone for $169. Easily a better value than the $349 Nokia 7.1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not clear what they are talking about, Samsung Electronics, Samsung Electro Mechanics (their components business,) or the whole Samsung Group.

<comment><USER2> It's about Samsung Electronics. Samsung Electronics (roughly) has telecommunication division doing smartphone business and component division doing DRAM and NAND. Samsung Electro-Mechanics does semiconductor packaging, not semiconductor itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Moore is less, I guess? People holding on to older phones longer.

<comment><USER17> Why should I upgrade my Huawei P9 I got in 2016, when it works perfectly fine* and has the adequate power to run everything smoothly.

* I did change the battery twice though. Too bad it's not as easy as taking the back cover as on a Nexus One...

<comment><USER18> A lot of people get phones as part of a contract (here in Europe at least), and that's usually a year and a half or two years. After that you might as well take the phone upgrade.

<comment><USER19> Keeping the phone and going SIM-only is much cheaper

<comment><USER18> Sue that's why I do but I think I am in a minority with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Been using a Huawei 3i phone for more than a month now. I literally could not tell if this was Huawei or Samsung if I was given this phone without prior knowledge.

Although, there are rumors that Huawei are working on their own OS. And it would be interesting to see whether they would also introduce an OS for their laptop series.

<comment><USER15> "own OS" mentioned there is just another linux distro

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Winter is coming</comment>


Study on job interview or work on small side project for more income? - <AUTHOR>

If I want to earn more income in addition to my main job, should I study on job interview questions to companies such as google, amazon, etc. in the hope of getting a job there with a higher salary (i know it's extremely difficult...), or should I be a one-man team and spend the time to work on some small side projects such as mobile or web apps, knowing that it'll take lots of time, research, learning, trial and error, no guarantee on any kind of significant income stream...what would you do? Any recommendation or advice? <comment><USER2> Door number two is more likely to lead to door number three.</comment>


PJON network protocol stack specification v3.0 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/specification/PJON-protocol-specification-v3.0.md <comment><AUTHOR> Ciao, I have specified and implemented this network protocol from scratch with the help of the internet community in 7 years of intense work. Many good points now embedded in the protocol specification come from here, so I hope to know what do you think about it and how you would use it :)

Happy tinkering and happy new year!</comment>


Angry Bird's "overnight success" only took 8 years. - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/03/11/angry-birds-overnight-success-only-took-8-years/#disqus_thread

<comment><USER2> It's a lot of fun to look into the little unknown games that large, successful, games companies made before they hit the big time.

Blizzard for example had mild success with Rock n' Roll Racing and Lost Vikings prior to Warcraft 2.

Nintendo made lots of arcade games since 1973, many being blatant clones of successful titles, before striking gold with Donkey Kong in 1981. Some of these may have sold fairly well, but the titles are ignored today so they couldn't have been all that good.

Pokemon developer Game Freak seems to have had it pretty rough prior to hitting the big time with Pokemon. The company has existed since 1989 and they put out a number of relatively unknown games before Pokemon in '96. Pokemon wasn't a strong seller at the beginning either.

According to wikipedia (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Tajiri>): "Pokémon Red and Green took six years to produce, and nearly bankrupted Game Freak in the process; often, there was barely enough money to pay the employees. Five employees quit, and Tajiri did not take a salary, instead living off of his father's income. Investment from Creatures Inc. allowed Game Freak to complete the games, and in return, Creatures received one-third of the franchise rights."

<comment><USER3> You may want to go back a little further with Nintendo, which started as a playing card company.

<comment><USER4> In 1889. Took 92 years, 2 world wars, and the invention of the computer before worldwide success.

<comment><USER2> That's maybe a bit too unfair. Nintendo as we know it has only really existed since Hiroshi Yamauchi became CEO and took the company public in 1962. Prior to that point they were merely a card company, and from what I've read feels like they were a very successful card company. They were the largest, and first to create durable plastic coated cards. They also had a successful licensing deal with Disney.

Yamauchi certainly deserves credit for realizing that playing cards was not going to be a growth area in the future and for experimenting in new areas that eventually led to toys and then to arcade games.

<comment><USER4> Totally agree, but how often can I slip the fact that I know Nintendo is over 100 years old in a conversation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Overnight success generally takes around ten years. First the person must become an expert. When you first start practicing a new skill set like playing the piano, you may be able to play, but you have definitely not reached your potential. Within a couple of years you are more competent but there are clearly people better then you. At about the 8-10 year mark, you are then an expert. There may be people better than you, but there shouldn't be a huge difference (of course this depends on the person).

Taking ten years to make it as a performer or a even a craftsman is pretty common. Rovio clearly earned their success.

<comment><USER6> I feel it's worth pointing out that this paraphrases poorly researched and anecdotally supported arguments from Malcolm Gladwell.

<comment><USER7> And adding to that, it seems to me like the main idea here is that "eventually you'll get lucky, but it'll take time" and not really the expertise required.

If the moral of the story was about expertise, you'd expect that any game developer with 20 years of experience could write huge successes like "Angry Birds" in 3 month, on demand.

Now, true, they're getting better at it over the years, but I don't think that this story belongs the "10 000 hours" category.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Harmonix (creators of Guitar Hero, which they sold, and Rock Band) has a similar story. They created a handful of games over a decade or so, all music based, that never really caught on. When they released Guitar Hero and a few karaoke games, they did a little better than breaking even, and with the release of Guitar Hero 2 sales exploded.

<http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2007/02/dice_harmonix_b/>

<comment><USER9> Yep, I've worked here since 1996 (the company was founded in 1995) and we didn't release Guitar Hero until 2005 (actually, we didn't release a game at all until 2001, although we had done other music apps before). It was a total hockey stick curve.

<comment><USER10> Great to see a Harmonix employee on HN! I still break out Amplitude from time to time, which I'm guessing you worked on?

<comment><USER9> Yep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm more interested in finding out how they went from "pretty slow for the first 3 months" to massive sales and attention.

<comment><USER12> I remember reading somewhere (fairly recently) that they got some major traction only after publishing via Chillingo.

Apparently Chillingo had a good relationship with Apple, and were able to get the game onto the "Featured Apps" list.

Edit: found a link: [http://eye-tea-em.blogspot.com/2011/03/talking-about- softwar...](http://eye-tea-em.blogspot.com/2011/03/talking-about- software-5-angry-birds.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> That was definitely worth saying. Most people don't know the back story. I didn't know the details either.

<comment><USER14> Yep. We need a dose of reality. I also just found out yesterday that OKCupid started in 2003 whereas many thought they were an "overnight success" after writing a few blog posts last year!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Spoiler: not everyone can make it big, even after 8 years of trying...

<comment><USER16> Are you sure? Don't stay with the same approach all the time and wonder why "the world" doesn't discover your brilliance. Learn, change, adapt, and adjust. You should be able to be independently wealthy within ten years of devotion and sacrifice.

<comment><USER17> That seems a bit like begging the question. If you work hard/smart enough, you should be able to be independently wealthy within ten years. Therefore, if you're not independently wealthy within ten years, you didn't work hard/smart enough. In the end, you haven't proved anything.

It's a motivational message, sure, but completely void of any substance or practical advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry you didn't find any practical advice in this article. Please allow me to share some of the backstory to this.

When I write my articles for The Startup Foundry, I try to focus on what will help startups succeed. I've gotten some pretty sad emails from startups that think they're failures for not being huge in 6 months or less. I wrote this to make a point that it takes time for most startups.

All the best, Paul

<comment><USER17> My comment was aimed at seiji, not at the article - I completely agree with your point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> OT: I've noticed recently Americans more frequently interchange "then" and "than". Is this some sort of emerging dialectical shift?

<comment><USER19> No, you've just been noticing spelling mistakes and making generalizations.

<comment><USER20> Actually, dools is quite correct. Generalizing from spelling mistakes is a classic technique for tracing phonetic shifts in language. That's because misspelling is almost always in favor of something that sounds the same (e.g. their/there/they're).

One couldn't ask for a better example than "then/than". When I read the previous sentence out loud, the first "than" sounds closer to "then" than to the second "than".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The OP's link is to the comment thread - here's the article link: [http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/03/11/angry-birds- overnigh...](http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/03/11/angry-birds-overnight- success-only-took-8-years/)

<comment> brown9-2 Even that article is basically just a recap of [http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/04/features/how...](http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/04/features/how- rovio-made-angry-birds-a-winner?page=all)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I still wonder why it is so popular. I, for one, like Tiny Wings much more.

@ iTunes: <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tiny-wings/id417817520>

Official Gameplay Trailer: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6pT_2E5xI0>

<comment><USER23> IMHO, not even in the same universe of playability, and if they insist on using the same music as they used in the trailer, I would actually grin while deleting it.

<comment><USER22> I played both. "not even in the same universe of playability" doesn't explain anything. Angry Birds looks to me like another projectile-shooting game, but with birds. Shooting birds onto even more elaborate structures I find tedious. I did a level or two, and didn't bother to continue. On the other hand, Tiny Wings has unique gameplay (at least as far as I know): you can fly a little bit, but generally you use slopes to accelerate (a la vert ramp); touch to accelerate downwards. Also, I find it hard to be so angry on the pigs as to bash them for many levels. Tiny Wings doesn't want you to be angry at anyone; you just fly because it's fun, then you will want to fly longer and higher.

Yes, the music is the same. I find this light-hearted tune very fitting to the graphics and gameplay.

To each their own, I guess?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Where's the article for "Apple's "overnight success" only took 25 years?"

Much more profound "success" of course.

</comment><comment><USER25> Come on, guys, 163 points? This whole article could be summed up in the HN title. There's no additional info there. Dammit.</comment>


The Benefits of a University Education Over Self-education - <AUTHOR> http://mailmymp.com/blog/posts/the-benefits-of-an-old-fashioned-university-education-over-self-education.php

<comment><USER2> A quote: " ... there is no obvious mechanism by which self-learners will come to grapple with divergent viewpoints or challenging disciplines."

The same argument can be made about college graduates, but with more evidence. The implication of the above is that college graduates are less narrow in their outlook, and this springs from the college experience. But much evidence points the other way.

One of the points of the often-recommended academic sabbatical for students is to broaden their horizons, give them a chance to see how the real world works. Students who've had some real-world exposure tend to be more practical in their academic choices than those who stay in school.

Corporate personnel recruiters often complain about the poor skill sets and unrealistic expectations of new college graduates, who often seem to think employment is like education, a system in which there's an answer to every question, there's no ambiguity, and goals are well-defined. But the real world isn't like that. Autodidacts know this from direct experience. College graduates learn it over time.

"Many recent college graduates lack basic practical skills": [http://www.videtteonline.com/index.php?option=com_content...](http://www.videtteonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15925:many- recent-college-graduates-lack-basic-practical- skills&catid=67:newsarchive&Itemid=53)

A quote: "The issue [...] is the educational system emphasizes the wrong values. She said classes are more focused on memorization and regurgitation than understanding the underlying concepts of the lessons."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

In any case, all these issues aside, the bottom line is that there is a rapidly approaching point at which, advantages notwithstanding, college will cost more than it's worth.

"College Tuition's 1,120 Percent Increase": [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-23/college- tuit...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-23/college- tuitions-1-120-percent-increase)

A quote: "Schools are investing and building more than ever—and students are paying for it."

</comment><comment><USER3> Donald Eastman, President of Eckerd College in Florida wrote a great op ed piece on this subject a while back. It's worth a read <http://awe.sm/d6AhQ>

As a graduate of this small liberal arts school, I can relate to the power of "participating in learning communities, in which they [students] live, study and socialize with other learners."</comment>


Show HN: HD Video Style Transfer Using Star Wars Posters - <AUTHOR> https://danielhavir.github.io/notes/hd-style-transfer/ <comment><USER2> This is quite rad - thanks for the good exposition and implementation details, too

</comment><comment><USER3> very interesting.

anyone knows about efforts and experiments with musical style transfer?</comment>


New Fossils Strengthen Case for 'Hobbit' Species - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/science/hobbit-fossils-flores.html? <comment><USER2> "Critics have argued that the Liang Bua bones might have come from a member of our own species who suffered some kind of growth disorder, such as Down syndrome."

Do these critics also suggest that the pygmies of the Congo all suffer from an endocrine disorder as well?

</comment><comment><USER3> They've found the fairies, the elves, the little people. There are so many legends of small folk, I wonder if this species (or more likely its bones) were more wide-spread beyond Flores or if island dwarfism happened several times in human evolutionary history.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the author misspelled, should be "Homo Baggins", not quite sure what is the "Homo Floresiensis" about!

<comment><USER5> Its based on where they were discovered, an island named Flores in Indonesia.</comment></comment>


How Ads Really Work: Superfans and Noobs -- Great post by creator of Metafilter - <AUTHOR> http://fortuito.us/2007/05/how_ads_really_work_superfans_1 <comment><USER2> Very interesting article. I had the same idea, but instead of completely eliminate ads for fans, I would sell the bandwidth at a high price or even with auction.

This ad bandiwdth has a high value for advertisers because of the occasional ad display, a campaing would have a higher visibility (no ad blindness effect). The fan's interests are well identified so that the ad can be focused. It will also make more sense for the fans and eventually be useful to them.

One can always trade member fee with add display, but one should keep the auction effect so that advertisers that pay a high fee still get through. The user could also increase its fee to make the ad barrier higher. This yields a competition.

I designed this business model for a startup using crowd sourcing, where fans contributing to the site would get back their fair share of ad revenue. They could use part of this revenue to increase the ad barrier. The idea was to create a vertuous circle that motivate users and advertisers to increase contribution.

I gave up because funding was too short and I was alone without much time to invest on it. And also because I wasn't sure it would work. So I'm glad to see the base idea is already practiced.

People should understand that flooding the web with ads is diluting its value. So one need ways to increase focus in the benefit of users and advertisers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Won't more and more users find plugins like Adblock over time? And if someone was to set up a trusted list of URLs to block and the plugin updated occasionally whole swaves of ads would disappear and not be loaded.

Has anyone any stats from their site that show how many people are blocking ads?

<comment><AUTHOR> At this point, there are over 150M adults online in the US. I doubt a large % of them will end up installing adblock.

Keep in mind too, blocking ads isn't necessarily a rational decision for a lot of people in a lot of situations. We can put aside the fact that ads provide economic incentive for the content people are looking for.

The important thing is that ads are often gateways to the things people are looking for (with is one of the points of the article). People buy goods and services. Ads provide a way for people to find sellers of the goods and services they want.

The advertising driven business model is an extremely old one, and I don't think it's going anywhere. People have always had the capacity to ignore advertising, even without technology -- the human brain is very selective about the information it processes and retains.

Some advertising works subliminally/emotionally (most brand advertising), but highly targeted ads, particularly context sensitive pay per click ads aren't generally in that category. They work when people are looking for something, much like the ads from local car dealers in the local paper, which most people ignore completely unless they have an inclination or outright need for a new car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A different, but possibly correlated metric that I am considering is to base ad invasiveness on how _desperate_ to use your service each user is.

<comment><USER5> How would you measure desperation?</comment></comment>


Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs - <AUTHOR> http://thesoundingline.com/map-of-the-day-us-states-renamed-for-countries-with-similar-gdps/ <comment><USER3> From the original article and chart (not the current linked site):

> "California has a labor force of 19.3 million compared to the labor force in > the UK of 33.8 million (World Bank data here). Amazingly, it required a > labor force 75% larger (and 14.5 million more people) in the UK to produce > the same economic output last year as California! ... Further, California as > a separate country would have been the 5th largest economy in the world last > year, ahead of the UK ($2.62 trillion), India ($2.61 trillion) and France > ($2.58 trillion)."

<comment><USER4> That shows the power of immigration. I'm not even talking about immigration from outside the US, though that's significant too. California has such high GDP per capita because it draws well educated people from the rest of the US. If it was an independent country, it couldn't do that so easily.

<comment><USER5> > I'm not even talking about immigration from outside the US...

Migration, or internal migration is probably a better term here.

It isn't just the migration either - it is the nature of what happens. The top cities/areas for several industries are here, and many secondary ones as well. Film production, software/web, lots of aerospace. It also helps that a fair bit basic needs are provided back to the state by itself (Central Valley farming).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Related to this, I've recently been mulling a similar comparison:

New Jersey is approximately the same area and population as Israel.

The joke in the anecdote is that the two regions' neighbors have similar attitudes about them.

<comment><USER7> When I lived in PA, the joke was that New Jersey was a sand bar off the coast of Pennsylvania.

<comment><USER6> I used to "reflexively" apologize when I heard people grew up in NJ.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's a really nice map! I made some graphs today comparing Chinese dialects (Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Minnan, Hakka, etc) to languages with a similar number of speakers. When I write up a blog post about it, then I'll share it here. (Hakka news on Hacker News!)

I also like this world map, scaled by population instead of land area. I think it would be interesting to edit it with major cities, and also use it as a base for other infographics.

[http://www.buzzhunt.co.uk/wp-content/2014/01/World-map- sizes...](http://www.buzzhunt.co.uk/wp-content/2014/01/World-map-sizes.png)

</comment><comment><USER9> WOW... If you add up the population of the "similar GDP" countries its well over a a BILLION people.

<comment><USER10> Well, of course. It is us, "developing" nations' populace that gets the shortest end of the stick with no hope and redemption in sight.

Honestly, injustice is just too great to bear. All you ever discuss is things like 10% gender-gap in payouts for the people within your arbitrary borders, yet the horrible exploitation inflicted on us by yourself is never ever discussed.

<comment><USER11> Developing nations benefit from the US dramatically more than the US benefits from developing nations. They get a massive, free technology transfer.

Or, see: China's several trillion dollar trade surplus with the US over the last 20 years.

25% of Vietnam's entire economy is currently made up of US imports from their nation, and it's almost all trade deficit for the US. Their economy is being constructed by US capital and US consumers, enabling them to dramatically lift their standard of living, exactly as China has.

Then we get to the free technology transfer, which enabled countries like China to rapidly leap forward without having to invent much of anything new. They get to focus on implementing things that are already known to work. The US invented nearly all the modern tech infrastructure, the list is hilariously long, here's the short version:

Internet, transistor, router, microprocessor, computer graphics, fiber optics, ram, most operating system tech, Unix, computer networking, the mobile phone, the smart phone, the hard drive, SSDs, the LCD, the LED, the laser, tcp/ip, hypertext, C/C++/Java/JavaScript/Basic/etc., the digital camera, qwerty keyboard, cable modem, the spreadsheet, the relational database, the fax machine, the GPU, 3D graphics cards, ethernet, hypertext, the mouse, streaming media, email, GPS, ecommerce.

Then we can go further back in time to all the older industrial technology invented by the US and Western Europe, which developing nations have been able to free ride over the last 50+ years.

And that's before we get to vaccines, medtech, biotech, pharma, genetech, aerospace, vast free research & data, process knowledge, and on and on.

Oh the exploitation, make it stop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow. The _difference_ between California and its sister country, Great Britain, is itself the size of Kuwait / Arkansas.

</comment><comment><USER13> I had no idea the disparity between the US and Russian economies was so huge!

<comment><USER14> I didn't see Russia on the map, where did you find it?

<comment><USER15> It's in the text at the bottom:

"The economy of alleged US nemesis Russia is less than 9% as large as the US economy and hasn't grown consistently in years."

<comment><USER16> Russia has ~40% of the population of the US, and one major export - oil. Oil in itself, surprisingly, does not contribute much to GDP[1] (Even though the modern world is built on it).

Outside from the major metro areas, Russia does not have a extensive - <USER2> expensive service economy, and it has very few exports. Between that, and the petro-ruble suffering from oil shocks/sanctions, its GDP is, unsurprisingly, quite low.

[1] Oil is, for example, 3% of Canada's GDP, but you wouldn't think it, given how hard the federal government is trying to prop it up, at the expense of other industries. Extracting it, like growing food, is an incredibly low-value industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised just how far up the chart the tiny 61 square mile city of Washington DC is. A lot of the contractors are out in the 'burbs in different states and a big chunk of that is taken up by disadvantaged neighborhoods. So the concentration of wealth is even more extreme than it looks at first.

I'm guessing the majority of that is the millions of people on GSA payroll sitting in office buildings all day. That and of course lawyers and lobbyists.

</comment><comment><USER18> Cached Version - [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pywLG4L...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pywLG4Ltc4AJ:thesoundingline.com/map- of-the-day-us-states-renamed-for-countries-with-similar- gdps/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=ubuntu)

</comment><comment><USER19> It would also be interesting to see this chart with GDP per capita.

<comment><USER11> I won't do the map, but here are the reasonable direct comparisons in a list. Where names are repeated it's because there are no other high enough unique matches. It'd be difficult to do a nice map, because there aren't enough comparables for all the states.

Updated to 2017 figures and rounded (for the US figures):

[https://i.imgur.com/u0FdDUt.png](https://i.imgur.com/u0FdDUt.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Appears down: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pywLG4L...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pywLG4Ltc4AJ:thesoundingline.com/map- of-the-day-us-states-renamed-for-countries-with-similar- gdps/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER21> Why not do it by gdp pr capita?

<comment><USER22> Totals are interesting. It tells you about things like the US's power in international trade, reminds is how big the US market is, why people focus on it, etc.

It doesn't mean GDP per capita isn't interesting either, but they're different lenses used to view different things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It would be cool to expand this by comparing those states to their respective countries in land area and population as well.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hug of death?

</comment><comment><USER25> holy cow america is mighty

<comment><USER26> This is the saddest part, America _is_ mighty but that doesn't translate into the life quality of its citizens at all.

<comment><USER27> How do you figure? I've been to both Iraq and Oklahoma, and I can tell you the quality of life in Oklahoma is a hell of a lot better than Iraq, pre- or post- war, in spite of their similar GDPs.

<comment><USER26> Well I've been to Scandinavia and despite the countries having less GDPs, the quality of life, for the average citizen, is way higher.

<comment><USER28> As a Swede living in the United States, I can agree that the average person has a higher quality of life in Scandinavia! I don't think it's possible to have that in the States, though; the country doesn't seem meant for it.

The Scandinavian model relies on many incompatible tenets that could be mentioned, including but not limited to immigration. The Swedish system is already practically collapsing from its first major influx of immigrants ever.

If we want a country in which everyone is welcome, it can't be a country in which we offer a fantastic quality of life automatically through living there. I mean, not until we have some post-scarcity economy, at least.

Another issue is that maybe part of the States' success is related to having more income to yourself, to spend at your discretion after taxes, rather than it being spent for you by the government. It inspires a lot of immigration from people with big ideas, and that could easily change if the U.S. surpasses other countries in taxes.

I think there are models the U.S. should adopt from Scandinavia, however they're smaller in scope and address efficiency with tax money. One example is that all your income tax goes to the local government up until a certain point (~65,000 USD?), and it's redistributed at that level, rather than being siphoned through so many levels of bureaucracy like in the States. It's funny, while being the polar opposite of the U.S. and its conservative values, Sweden still manages a smaller federal government!

<comment><USER29> Australia is a nation of immigrants. About 30% of the Australian population are immigrants, and rising. Less than 50% of Australians have both parents born in Australia.

Australia still manages to have great quality of life (unless you are an Aboriginal). I'm not sure how they manage it, I haven't looked into it, but somehow they have.

<comment><USER11> They've managed it through the greatest major real estate bubble in modern history (by a large margin).

Their housing market value as a share of GDP, is about 2.6x that of the US rate.

[https://i.imgur.com/h0BOtzE.png](https://i.imgur.com/h0BOtzE.png)

The other thing has been the rise of China and selling them a vast supply of commodities.

In 2002, Australia's GDP per capita was $20,000, while the US was $38,000. A dramatic gap. China's GDP explosion began in 2003 (their economy went from $1.4t in 2002 to $4.6t in 2008, and on upward from there). Australia's GDP soared right along with China's economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The article lists Russia as the US's "nemesis". "Competitor" or even "enemy" would have been an appropriate designation, but "nemesis" means retribution, justice, or vengeance. Exactly whom is seeking retribution against whom, and for what?

Since the birth of the nation, Russia supported the US. It supported its revolution and supported the Union during the civil war. It even sold Alaska to the US. We brokered the end of the Russo-Japanese war, and about 3.3 million Russian Jews and Poles immigrated to the US by 1917. We then started down the path of trying to support the anti-communists, which of course backfired. We allied with the Soviets during WWII, but then we quickly started the cold war and formed NATO.

Since then, the Soviet Union basically wanted to control eastern (and possibly, eventually, all?) Europe, but it didn't work out, and the nations they had absorbed along the way eventually became independent again. So now their sphere of influence is smaller, but they still have a lot of nukes, and neither of us trust each other.

I would call us "frenemies", perhaps (a bit like China). But we really don't have some big grudge against each other. We're just two dicks who want to rule the world.

<comment><USER31> Weird, I've never come across this usage of the word "nemesis" (although the dictionary indicates it is correct). Still, I think the author would have been using the more common meaning of the word "nemesis" as a rival one can not defeat (or even in more dilute usage, simply a long standing rival).

<comment><USER7> _I think the author would have been using the more common meaning of the word "nemesis"_

Or we can all be happy we learned something today and are a smidgeon smarter than yesterday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> purple-again >> Nominal GDP per capita does not, however, reflect differences in the cost of living and the inflation rates of the countries; therefore using a basis of GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) is arguably more useful when comparing differences in living standards between different nations.

If you live in a roach infested box in California you need to be putting dollars in the bank and have an exit plan to take those dollars to somewhere with a much lower COL someday, otherwise...you live in a roach infested box with a very high GDP!

<comment><USER32> You do realize that most of California is not the Bay Area, right?

Also you sound pretty bitter. I never saw a roach when I lived in Mountain View, though my apartment _was_ pretty small.

<comment> purple-again Hmm not sure how you could take away such a poor interpratiaton of my comment. I'm actually having a great day and one of the best years of my life.

At the time of my comment, very early in the submission, all of the other comments were drawing false conclusions about what is being presented. GDP comparisons tell you nothing about the lives of the people living in those two areas being compared. My original comment was meant to point that out to an audience that may not have spent much time studying economics.

<comment><USER32> Maybe because you made reference to living in a "roach infested box in California" not just once but twice.

If your goal was just to educate people about the shortcomings of GDP as a measure of living standard, the social commentary about California's high cost of living didn't help.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Better Software with Entity Systems - <AUTHOR> https://steamlayers.com/better-software-with-entity-systems/ <comment><USER2> How is this different from OO?

How is it implemented? What sort of frameworks would support it?</comment>


This is what I call svbtle. - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/wyten.png

<comment><USER2> What am I supposed to be looking at?

<comment><USER2> Got it.</comment></comment>


Melange: Creating a ``Functional'' Internet (PDF) - <AUTHOR> http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.64.1016&rep=rep1&type=pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> This is from the same team that recently released Mirage. More related work at <http://anil.recoil.org/projects/></comment>


Geocities Revival? - <AUTHOR>

Hello to all,
My friends and I are trying to revive the "Geocities Spirit" with a newly started project called HappyBox(happyboxcms.com)
I was wondering if you would like to give us your input, advice or suggestions about what we built so far?
Let us know what you think! Cheers from Montreal!
-pingmaestro <comment><USER2> You have heard of [https://neocities.org/](https://neocities.org/) right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi johnmurch,

Yes I've heard of it! HappyBox mainly focus on drag & drop web page creator. I should have mentioned it is for people with no coding knowledge :)

<comment><USER3> The example sites on your homepage look rather like tumblr blogs. As an author, why would I use HappyBox over tumblr (or livejournal, or medium)? If the answer is "because it gives me more control over my site's design", remember that the majority of real users have little design sense and so readers will prefer to read tumblr and similar.

Not meaning to say what you've made is bad - just that there are giants in this space and you'll need a compelling advantage if you want to beat them.</comment></comment></comment>


What Is Wrong with Our Thoughts? A Neo-Positivist Credo - <AUTHOR> http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/wrongthoughts.html

<comment><USER2> The "nosology" could have started from a list of fallacies: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies)

The overall story is actually quite simple: thoughts are simply models that are no more than representations (the map is not the territory). As such, they inevitably lead to contradictions such as paradoxes even though they often have practical applications.

So the good news is: you now understand that philosophy will always turn into endless discussions, therefore you can spend your energy on possibly more useful things :P</comment>


Ask HN: Rate my Startup www.birdpie.com (Updated) - <AUTHOR> http://www.birdpie.com/railsbob

<comment><USER2> The first (and biggest) problem is that when I land on the home page I have no idea what the service is supposed to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi coffeemug, that was a mistake. We have corrected about page with the introduction now.

<comment><USER3> I think he means that the first sentence on the about page should actually be on the front page.

I felt the same. The worst part was that I actually think your product is useful, even though I'm not a twitter user.

Don't hide your best selling point on some other page!

<comment><USER4> I think this was an accident. The true homepage to this site is: <http://www.birdpie.com/> and the submitted link is <http://www.birdpie.com/railsbob> which points to a user's page. The only way to truly fix this submission would be to edit the URL.

<comment><USER3> ah sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I always wondered when I saw 'Tweet This' button on popular blogs for sharing bookmarks and links. However there was no easy way to go back and search/manage the bookmarks tweeted by you. We have developed an application www.birdpie.com which stores all of the URLs (Web Links) you have entered on Twitter as bookmarks, so you can refer to them at a later date. The application takes care of minified urls to avoid duplication and pulls information from the url to auto-tag and assign a proper title. Some features are pending (like search bookmarks with keywords, etc) but they will be pushed soon.

I'd love to have feedback on its features, appearance or improvements.

Thanks!

<comment><USER5> In general, I really like the look (CSS3 + HTML5 = Awesome!), but maybe you should have linked to the "about" page, which is a wee bit more explanatory than the demo of your links. It takes a minute to figure out that "slices" and "bites" are a play on the "pie" aspect of the name . . . maybe change the logo to birdPIE to make it a little more intuitive, or perhaps include a pie-like spatula or a fork icon beside the links for people to "get" the lingo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> On first hit I had no idea what it was. I thought some sort of digg/reddit/hackernews dealio

<comment><USER6> I should note for other "Rate my site" people.

This is singularly the most common issue I face with new sites. If its brand new explain what it does a bit somewhere near the top of the page. (Even a "What is birdpie?" link on the top of the page works for me)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Startup? No. Webapp? Probably.

Looks like more of an exercise in ui design than actual functionality, which isn't a bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER8> I dunno. What do you have against putting a blurb on your home page that tells what the site is for?

[update: Oh, it's not the home page. But still, I can't tell what this is for, and I should be able to, even on a sub-page.

'Slices' - what? I have been thinking about Slicehost lately, and the first link mentions Ruby, which I don't know. So when I land on this link you have me thinking that maybe the site is a way for Ruby users to manage their slices on Slicehost.

The About page should definitely tell what the site is about. And the help pages are not loading for me.

If you want to do a tweeted-link application, you should add a bit more value - maybe have thumbnails of the destination site, or expand bit.ly/etc. URLs (while keeping the bit.ly one too).

If someone uses bit.ly to shorten every URL they tweet, bit.ly stores the URLs for them already, so...]

</comment><comment><USER9> The site uses jargon that isn't clear. What are bites? Slices?

</comment><comment><USER10> The golden rule of UI: never sacrifice usability. Those fonts might look interesting and add to the overall aesthetic, but the smaller versions are virtually unreadable on my machine.

</comment><comment><USER11> I like the site design. Simple and clean. I agree with the other poster that commented that some of the jargon was misleading.

Some of the information on the Help page should probably be made more prominent.

</comment><comment><USER12> First thoughts: Looks like digg.com, calling votes 'bites' instead of 'diggs'. Oh, and there are 'slices' too...

After reading the help menu, I understand that tweeted bookmarks are the things in the list (aka 'slice'?).

I think the most important feedback I can give is to either include more help on the landing page (what are bites and slices?), or change the terms to be more obvious at first glance.

</comment><comment><USER13> It doesn't show up very well in Chrome (at least, it looks a little fuzzy to me), but fine in Firefox. Seems like a pretty cool tool.

</comment><comment><USER14> You need a denser UI. I can only see 4 bookmarks on the screen at a time. Raise that to at least 10.

Categories and tags are redundant. Remove categories. I like the automatic tagging, but I may want to manually edit them sometimes.

Link to Twitter.com's profiles and tweets. Re-tweet buttons would make sense.

</comment><comment><USER15> From the landing page I have no idea what the site is about, so I click 'About'... and I still have no idea. From the <title> tag I can see this isn't something for which I am the target audience. Seems odd to not have that somewhere on the page.

</comment><comment><USER16> the site seems to have errors now... or is it just me?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, we redeployed it just now with corrected content on 'About' Page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> An amazing website - great design and easy to use. Incredibly helpful. Thanks Dynamic50!

</comment><comment><USER18> really good design, but I have no idea why it would be useful.

<comment><USER19> Design is nice, but the UI/information architecture is confusing - lot of information that I don't understand, and the nomenclature is awkward. I would suggest showing less information, i.e. you don't need to show who submitted the links on every "slice," considering that all the slices on a page are inherently connected to one person. I think you could get rid of the "see original tweet" text as well, and maybe just show the bird somewhere if you really need that feature (although I think it can be removed).</comment></comment>


UK General Election 2017: Coverage in the Media - cirrus-clouds https://medium.com/@dontvoteconservativeuk/uk-general-election-2017-coverage-in-the-media-cfc2d10f451c <comment><AUTHOR> Interestingly, the post only covers how the right leaning press manipulates the truth to further their own ends, and only alludes to the fact the left do it; as expected from a user called 'Don't vote Conservative (UK)'. As a centrist (who will be deliberately abstaining from voting for the first time in nearly 30 years of voting) I find the left's cognitive dissonance and bias extremely alarming.

<comment> cirrus-clouds I'm the author of the article and I make it clear that news is presented in a biased way regardless of whether you read a right-leaning or left-leaning newspaper. All of the national newspapers in the UK have mastered the art of misleading click-bait headlines (the Financial Times is possibly the only exception).

I focused on the right-leaning newspapers because they are in the majority in both numbers and circulation figures in the UK and their influence in shaping public discourse is much greater.

The central point of the article is that, regardless of whether you read a right-leaning or left-leaning newspaper, you can't rely on a single source for your news. Doubly-so during an election campaign.

(Note: the companion site dissuading people from voting Conservative deliberately avoids links to the Independent, Guardian and Mirror precisely because it would be seen as confirmation bias.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Resume busters like Assembler? - <AUTHOR> Back in the 90's there existed the phenomenon of C programmers who didn't really understand pointers.  You'd try and tease that out in an interview, but the best way to find someone who really understood C was to find somebody with experience in Assembly Language.
When we're hiring for Javascript positions, we don't really care if they have experience in the framework-du-jour.   Heck, we don't really care if they have Javascript experience, we just want to make sure they can learn it and write it in an idiomatic fashion.   Can they think in a functional, asynchronous fashion?
Today the equivalent for Javascript is probably a Lisp.  Lisp experience is probably a better predictor of a good Javascript programmer than Javascript experience is.
Question 1: Is this recognized by other employers?  If I tell a kid that learning Clojure will make their resume stand out much better  and be useful for much longer than learning the framework-du-jour will, am I steering them wrong?
Question 2: Are there any other actionable similar recommendations?   Winning a programming contest is also a good predictor, but it's only available to the few. <comment><USER2> I agree with you 100%. For web programming, I'd say it is understanding the http protocol. Many people can code in asp.net or even write servlets but don't know how session work, cookies or basic things like the differences between GET and POST.

Also keep in mind that there is a industry full of recruiters who don't agree! If the job ad says you need previous experience with Boongolatr.js version 3.147 then Boongolatr.js version 3.147 it is. Then good fundamentals and knowing Scheme, Haskell and shit won't help you.

<comment><USER3> Some people seem to think the difference between POST and GET is that POST "doesn't show the parameters". That's wrong. POST has a body, and GET does not. The "parameters" go into the body of the message (after the header and \r\n\r\n)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1\. I think learning a Lisp has a reasonable chance of making the 'kid' a better programmer. That may or may not appeal to a 'kid' as much as "hacking the resume process" type advice. Personally, I'd be skeptical of Clojure as the first lisp for anyone without a strong background in both computer science and professional experience with Java because, "knowing Clojure" is a much stronger claim within the community of Clojurists than "knowing Javascript, HTML, and CSS" is within the community of web developers. A claim to Clojure is more like a claim to know Haskell and knowing how the JVM (or Javascript in the case of ClojureScript) is required when debugging.

2\. These days I suspect that the real resume buster is showing your work on the internet. As programming becomes more of a profession, a professional portfolio will become more important.

</comment><comment><USER5> When I hire I look for specific types of knowledge, not specific languages (even Lisp and Smalltalk, which are still on my resume). IMO it's really difficult to tell how much, or what, people know, by looking at standard resumes.

Just putting Clojure on a resume is meaningless--I can put anything I want on a resume. It's meaningless until you talk to the person and find out if they have the basic concepts of multiple paradigms down.

That said: having "interesting" tech on a resume means at least they know the words and they might be more _likely_ to have a strong developer mind.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, from the perspective of an interviewer. But from the perspective of a student, putting down 'Lisp' is probably better than putting down 'functional programming'. The former implies the latter, but either way the interviewer is going to have to verify. And from the perspective of telling a student what to learn, saying "learn functional programming" isn't as actionable as "learn Lisp".

<comment><USER6> I did a variation of Lisp (called Racket) in for my first CS course in college.

Since you recommend getting good at it (or at least being competent enough to demonstrate that in interviews), any tips on how once with a very basic foundation of functional programming can proceed?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In JVM land I look for another language on the JVM. If Scalia, groovy, kotlin haven't piqued the interest of a potential hire then it says a lot about them.

A few years ago it would have a been a nice to have. Now it's actually suspicious if they haven't dabbled!

<comment><USER8> > Scalia, groovy, kotlin

Mentioning Scala or Kotlin on a CV says something different than mentioning Apache Groovy does. Scala and Kotlin are statically-typed languages designed for creating applications, whereas Groovy is for scripting, e.g. tests and builds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are you hiring?</comment>