It appears my Google account is slated for deletion - <AUTHOR> https://alexaobrien.com/archives/3647 <comment><USER2> Well, she is easier to defend than Nazis. So, here I go...

Freedom of expression, not just free speech the legal concept, should be a societal goal. Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. However, in an ideal world, they'd do no such thing and would let people judge based on the merits of the message.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd like to work towards that ideal world.

Maybe the solution is enabling people to realistically host content themselves, on their own property, and just ensuring the ISP is nothing but a dumb pipe? Maybe the solution is distributed content and P2P networks?

Either way, the continued aggressive censorship by Google, while their legal right, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They can do it, but I don't have to like it.

That said, if anyone can think of something that I can do to help, I'm all ears.

<comment><USER3> How tightly bound we are to just a few large tech companies is... unfortunate.

I would love it if it were easier for the common person to host their own stuff. Between all the concerns involved (security, hardware, demand, etc.) I'm not sure how feasible it is. I've given it a lot of thought, and have slowly unwound my custom tech setups - from domains, to emails, to hardware. Mostly for the "bus" factor. When my dad died, my mom let his computer sit untouched for years. At some point I transferred the files on it to my computer so they wouldn't disappear forever. But still, a decade later, and it's just sitting there. She never bothers to turn it on.

I have a family, and my wife is not technical in the slightest. If I were to be gone tomorrow, there's no way she would have a clue as to what to do. My #1 barometer for everything I use in life is how easy it is for her to use things.

It's interesting to me how temporary and inaccessible our digital lives actually are.

<comment><USER4> This is a great point, because I think it shows that people who are trying to redefine the contours of the standard free speech conversation (which had historically been about freedom from government imposed limits) are attempting to solve the wrong problem.

The problem is dependence on huge monolithic tech platforms, such that we feel that the societal value of free expression is threatened by the standard forms moderation that we had accepted as normal for most of the history of the internet.

Now, the ability to moderate carries a significant amount of power in a way that didn't use to be the case. And some people, looking over the available options and the effort required to pursue them, would now prefer to resign themselves to permanent dependence on huge monolithic platforms and just focus on making sure those platforms are not engaging in moderation.

But this is hugely problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that moderation at least sometimes offers a genuine good to users because toxic, manipulative, illegal behaviors that undermine the platform are removed. There's a "societal value" in having flourishing discourse that isn't compromised by the toxicity that would naturally occur without moderation. And there is good reason to not want to make that sacrifice.

Either side offers a distasteful sacrifice. So maybe the answer is to try and bypass the dilemma by making non-centralized communication more accessible, so that people like your wife (or my mom, or my dad's entire side of the family) don't have to make that kind of choice.

<comment><USER5> There's also a very blurry line between a common carrier and a publisher. Social media platforms don't want to be liable for content published on their site, but they also want the right to delete content at their own discretion. Somehow, the courts have granted them this wish.

The USPS has a similar monopoly to YouTube, but they're obliged to transport any printed material that is legal. There's no hidden algorithm that shreds letters containing the wrong keywords. There's no team of Indian outsourcers searching your mail for content that breaches an arbitrary set of rules. Nobody but a court can prohibit you from using their service.

I think we collectively need to decide whether social media services are publishers or common carriers. The present ambiguity over their status gives them an unreasonable degree of power with unreasonably little responsibility.

<comment><USER6> > The USPS has a similar monopoly to YouTube

No, the USPS has a legally-protected monopoly, where alternative services are _prohibited_ from competing with certain core functions.

Alternative web video distribution services are not prohibited, and there are several that specialize in content that is unwelcome on YouTube.

> The present ambiguity over their status

What ambiguity? They are active distribution agents (neither publishers nor common carriers, in that regard, though they are often also publishers, more like bookstores).

It only seems "ambiguous" when framed with a false dichotomy.

<comment><USER7> The ambiguity is that facebook and youtube can't be sued for hosting illegal content. They are not responsible for user created content.

Yet, even though they have many of the legal protections of being a pseudo common carrier, they have none of the obligations, such as the obligation to treat all content equally.

For example, it is illegal for your phone provider to eaves drop on your conversations and censor your phone conversations.

But it is NOT illegal for facebook to do the same thing. Why are they treated differently?

<comment><USER6> > The ambiguity is that facebook and youtube can't be sued for hosting illegal > content.

Taking that as unvarnished truth [0], for the sake of argument, that's not at all an ambiguity, it's a crystal clear status.

> Yet, even though they have many of the legal protections of being a pseudo > common carrier, they have none of the obligations, such as the obligation to > treat all content equally.

Again, taking that as true for the sake of argument, its not an ambiguity, but a crystal clear status.

Its a conflict with the false dichotomy of the idea that the only two roles in information dissemination are fully-liable non-neutral publisher and fully- immunized neutral common carrier. That model isn't true offline, and it's not true online.

[0] Which it isn't, because while the CDA and DMCA (and others) provide some limited/conditional protection, they are not a total bar to liability; but the still the status is not ambiguous, merely _distinct_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Help me understand-

Alexa O'Brien has a Youtube account with many hours of video.

She also has a google account, drive, etc.

Some of her videos contained material that Google (being Google), didn't like.

Despite the fact that it was all very important journalism, Google arbitrarily decided it was #extremism, therefore #banned.

I would say that 5 years ago I would have been shocked and outraged, but lately I just absolutely am not surprised by Google anymore.

I hope Alexa kept local copies but I'm imagining maybe she didn't. At the very least she is losing all of the views and PR associated with her channel.

If you do have local copies, please try to publish elsewhere!

Google is on a crusade to demonitize any video it doesn't like, so it can keep dwindling ad money flowing to only the people it chooses.

Good luck, how can we help??

<comment><USER9> This happens. It's not good that it happens but we must expect it to happen.

What power to we have?

Change our perspective.

These online services which area now beginning to dip their toes into censorship / advertiser-hedged editorializing, are not to be seen as reliable ubiquitous platforms existing for the convenience of all. As much as they perhaps want to be seen as such, their actions belie this.

They are closed niches with particular stances, and their loyalty is never to us, despite marketing.

And we can treat them as such, we will be okay.

Backup your things. Use multiple providers. Use multiple accounts, a burner account for content against their editorial stance, and a longer lived account for other things. Run your own services. If you despise this state of affairs so greatly, form your own business services, and ape to take some of their market.

Tl;dr they are not our friends. Stop expecting them to not betray us, expect betrayal, and keep them at an appropriate distance.

Don't complain. Just start doing it if you want to protect yourself against it. I think github and npm can be included in this.

<comment><USER10> I am a big fan of run your own services. But when I do the maths, the cost is uneconomical for the average user. And the complexity already too high even for my own taste. Like configuring a mail server is hard.

<comment><USER11> Well, it's a trade-off between comfort and privacy. You should self-host what you are capable of and deem of higest importance / privacy.

To upgrade from gmail, you don't even to jump directly to self-hosting. There are pay-to-use email-providers, who treat you like the customer, not the product. Similar services exist for video, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In a lot of ways this kind of stuff is what we were warned about by many including the FSF. Cloud software you don't control, or which knows a lot about you, can be used to censor you.

Always better to self-host and backup/distribute via the cloud as a secondary method. Easier said than done though.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, lots of people saw this coming light-years away.

People really should stop ignoring the TOS.

<comment> drama-queen Society really should stop tolerating this type of TOS.

<comment><USER14> Self hosting will always be the more reliable solution in cases like this

<comment><USER15> Even then they just take your domain name away from you. You are always reliant on big corporations for your Internet connection, be it hosting provider, domain name registrar, search engine, or Internet service provider

<comment><USER14> Namecoin, Tor / I2P, CJDNS, whatever. It's still possible to be reached as long as you have internet connectivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Google seems to be doing a very fine job of showing that it is has reached monopoly status for way too many verticals. They're getting way comfortable in their success, and this is exemplified in the certain level of hubris they exemplify in their practices. Google Jigsaw is one such example. I really do hope the DOJ gets serious about the anti-trust implications and takes them to task at some point. I think we're in need of another Bell Systems-esque anti- trust breakup.

<comment><USER17> They don't like your vids, the delete your EMAIL account?????!!!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Resolved.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/carwinb/status/907778135957131265](https://mobile.twitter.com/carwinb/status/907778135957131265)

<comment><USER19> [https://twitter.com/DeadPrecariat/status/907778635817521152](https://twitter.com/DeadPrecariat/status/907778635817521152)

This person asks that she "demands answers."

Since when are beggars choosers? Google is free. Did we really expect a different behavior from them?

<comment><USER20> Free in the most obvious sense, but they still profit off of you.

<comment><USER21> When I checked a few years ago, Youtube was still not actually profitable. There's a reason it's owned by the company that spins off so much free cash it doesn't know what to do with it all, I guess.

<comment><USER20> Google's parent company, Alphabet is hugely profitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Someone's gotta do something about Google. While they can't be responsible for someone putting all their eggs in the same basket, their terrible customer support policies can really ruin someone's work beyond repair.

<comment><USER23> The biggest problem with Google isn't that they can delete YouTube videos or your Google+ account, it's that they can virtually erase you from the web through their search domination.

<comment><USER24> Serious question: what are some examples of great content virtually erased from the web by search engines?

<comment><USER25> Great and _obscure_ content --- that you'd most want a search engine to find, tends to be at most risk. For one example, I've noticed that finding information on obscure electronics part numbers has gotten much harder, and the search results are getting "diluted" with useless "fillter" results that don't even contain all the words you're searching for.

Example queries I've had poor luck with recently:

        TVN_DELETEITEM recursive (count how many first-page results contain TVN_DELETEITEM)
        ITU T.800 (count how many are about T.800 and not E.800 or P.800 or X.800 or...)

<comment><USER26> If you want exact word matches only, you need to use quotes:

        "TVN_DELETEITEM" "recursive"
        "ITU" "T.800"

<comment><USER27> Google still treats most punctuation as spaces within phrase searches. For example, the latter search would match a sentence/clause transition like "ITU-T: 800 items". There are enough results actually mentioning T.800 that you probably won't see that, but if it's a genuinely rare phrase you can end up with multiple pages completely full of useless results. For example, there was an article posted to HN a while back in which an interviewee mentioned "race liberals" as a political alignment. When I tried searching for this phrase, Google almost exclusively matched "race, liberals" and "race. Liberals".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Google's remediation systems are terrible. If you can't convince their algorithm you're a good person, you're out of luck.

My adwords account has been locked _for 15 years_ despite my repeated appeals (they seem to let me appeal about once every five years).

I have no idea why it's locked and no one will tell me nor fix it.

So I have a separate adwords account which annoyingly I cannot tie to my primary gmail account because apparently at some point _after_ it was locked they got tied together.

<comment><USER29> And you're someone with some SV credibility and savviness, imaging what it's like for a typical scrub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The following articles may be of help:

1) [https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/40695](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/40695)

2) [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802168?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802168?hl=en)

Despite claims in this thread that Google likes to do things without due process and clear guidelines, the reality is that something like an account deletion is both pretty rare and not done lightly (you'll see that in some of the language in support articles and T&Cs related to this course of action). Product managers and engineers put a lot of thought into how to identify accounts that only exist to provide content that break TOS vs a case like this.

In this case, it's not clear if it's the YouTube account or the Google account that has been flagged for deletion (support articles suggest there is a distinction). Either way, support articles indicate that rationale for the action taken would have been provided to the user.

With regard the "how to escalate?" issue: The company still struggles with corner cases like this. When you're building systems that cater for billion+ users, you have to look at systematic ways to deal with incoming requests such that the set of requests that need human intervention is as small as possible (assuming you don't want a company with millions of employees). At the end of the day, it's a balancing act and I personally feel that Google's approach is sane. Unfortunately that means a small number of users do get a bad experience.

Disclaimer: I worked at Google for over a decade. I am aware of some of the process and legality decisions that go into how these type of things are structured internally. I did not work in the area of abuse or policy.

<comment><USER31> >I worked at Google for over a decade.

Thanks for your comment.

I would like to hear from people who work from Google right now. The policies and priorities have changed. Their approaches have changed. It has changed since many people have worked there. I very much doubt anyone from youtube will speak up here, even with a throwaway.

<comment><USER30> I only left ~ 2 months ago so it probably hasn't changed that much in that time. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> New Google (after the founders retired to Alphabet) are trying to instill a simple notion: what you think is yours is actually ours, it doesn't belong to you. Post a YouTube video, expect it to be taken down. Do not embed third party YouTube videos: your website will be broken when Google takes them down. Do not develop Android apps as a small dev: they can be deleted from Play Store on a whim. Do not monetize your site with AdSense: you will lose revenue with no human recourse. Hopefully general public will get this notion sooner than later.

<comment><USER33> Dumb of them, good for us. I mean, the whole business of the cloud is based on your users/customers _not_ realizing that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Normally I try to rule out conspiracy theories, but this one is pretty interesting. A video being removed I could understand, but deleting an entire Google account seems like a rather extreme measure, and I wonder who is really pulling the strings here. I could certainly think of motives for doing so.

<comment><USER5> > I wonder who is really pulling the strings here

With 99.9% confidence, I'm saying an algorithm. It isn't unusual for a company to automatically delete accounts that seriously breach their ToCs; the unique problem with Google is that their ecosystem is so large and pervasive.

<comment><USER35> The "algorithm" seems very much in bed with American military industry.

<comment><USER31> It is more in line with American foreign policy and their interior civil service (anti-extremism globally and pushing against the new right at home)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I met Google's chief censor years ago. That department used to be proudly pushing the boundaries of minimum compliance (censor nothing, and work with foreign governments until that's legal).

It is sad to see how far they have fallen.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is the frog in the boiling pot.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998429) "Youtube AI deletes war crime evidence as 'extremist material'"

</comment><comment><USER38> My spidey sense is tingling here. With Assange's exposition of Google as an arm of the US State Department [1] and the US's ever changing alliances with various rebel groups in the middle east, including the Taliban and Al Qaeda [2] [3], it's not a stretch to believe that Google has an agenda beyond monetization in the particular content it hides.

[1] [http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it- seems-279...](http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden)

[3] [http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syrian- rebel-g...](http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syrian-rebel-groups- glance-20140912-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER39> This is Google being Google... They really need to improve their customer support processes; especially when people have so much stake in their products. Losing a Youtube account sucks, losing an entire Google account is the nail in the coffin.

</comment><comment><USER40> Your data is not safe unless you have a local backup that you control. Don't trust Google (or any one cloud storage provider); they haven't earned it.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm afraid this is what happens when the exercise of democratic freedoms is cordoned within the platforms of corporations who have no duty to uphold them. Google's unilateral suspension of AdSense accounts without reason or recourse has brought this realization to lots of people on a less overt level.

</comment><comment><USER42> I hope any Googlers here are attempting to help internally and at the very least 1) not to destroy all of her work 2) allow her to publish controversial things because of the context.

As for my opinion I think this is horrendous, that Stallman is right and that Google and it's staff should be ashamed at this attempt to destroy deep and important journalistic work. It's hardly like it's not in character.

I will now attempt to not use Google services which is going to be a challenge.

</comment><comment><USER43> Wow I get they don't want the videos on their site but banning all of the users other services seems very over the top. They're a private company they can do what they want but this is not a good way to do business.

</comment><comment><USER44> If your Google account is suspended, then deletion of the contents after a set number of days is required by various laws and legal precidents for your own privacy. Google cannot hold your private data on an ongoing basis without letting you access it.

Your only chance will be getting the account unsuspended before the timer runs out.

<comment><USER45> > Google cannot hold your private data on an ongoing basis without letting you > access it.

Has anyone mentioned this to Facebook? I think they hold quite a lot of information about me, and because I don't have an account, I presumably can't access it.

<comment><USER46> I think in the EU and USA you can request all information a company has about you. Not sure how this would work without an identifier, though. You could send all your personal information to them so they can check if they store something about but this feels icky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm sad for the user, but every time I read this type of story I'm hopeful it may be an inflection point; maybe people will wake up to Google, how integrated it is in our lives, and how big of a black box it is. If nothing else, its one more brick in the wall.

</comment><comment><USER48> Censorship doesn't serve the interests of Google nor the government.

If Google deactivates accounts then Google loses data. In big data it's best practice to keep everything, discard nothing. Government loses an opportunity for surveillance which could potentially be important. Why would we for example shut down White Supremacist accounts when doing so removes the possibility of keeping tabs on them. It makes them quieter, has a chilling effect and their activities go underground. Where's the benefit in that? By closing "bad" accounts like Right Wing white supremacy groups the public never sees their material which unless you happen to be one of them always discredits them. Censoring these unpopular groups only protects them from discrediting themselves from the larger public and we lose valuable clues or evidence in the event someone is plotting a crime or has already committed a crime.

In this particular story involving Manning, Google shutting down an account with information critical of the government makes Google and the government look bad. It does more harm to their public image than good. This material has already been available for a very long time and nothing new is learned. Why bother to censor? Neither Google nor the government stand to gain anything and only open themselves up to lose.

For all the censorship Google or the government engages in, in practice nothing of substance is ever covered up anyway.

</comment><comment><USER49> What are some good alternative email accounts to use? I should really start decreasing my dependence on Google.

<comment><USER5> Anything, so long as your e-mail address is on a domain name you own and you back up your inbox via IMAP. If both of those are in place, you're not really dependent on your mail provider at all, because you can switch just by changing a DNS record. If you lose the use of an e-mail address on someone else's domain, then you've got a serious problem.

<comment><USER50> This works until a registrar revokes your domain name.

<comment><USER51> It's turtles all the way down at this point. The reality is that you can't get content on the internet without the approval of at least a few entities.

If/Until the culture changes the best practical advice is to make sure that those few entities are distanced from your message that they won't be pressured to take it down.

<comment><USER52> Well, nobody can ban a hidden website yet (.onion or .i2p).

However barrier of entry there is still a bit high and they're still vulnerable to attacks, hosts don't want anything to do with them either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> At some point an "internet death penalty" will have to called for Google's behavior, should they continue down this path .

That will be very very interesting...

</comment><comment><USER54> Right now most information dissemination seems to happen through commercial or state actors. Neither appears to be very reliable regarding neutrality and impartiality. There are also political and religious platforms that don't inspire much confidence either in that regard. Maybe academic platforms still have some independence, but those are mostly aimed towards scientific studies most so than contemporary news items.

Where would one host "news" or data that most platforms aren't eager to support for one reason or another? Where do you publish an article critical of the state in countries where the media is state-owned, or critical of corporations that sponsor the media outlets?

This bias problem might be one of the most tricky things for mankind to solve, even though it would seem it should turn out to be equally important for anybody regardless of one's position at either end of whatever spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER55> While it was an unpopular opinion, that was what Cloudflare's Mathew Prince has been saying all along. When do you draw the line? How do you define xxxxx. I read in US, Police can take away your cash / processions if you are suspected of XXXX.I guess similar mentality is happening.

HDD is Cheap, SoC is Cheap, We are only lacking the software to have a Personal Cloud where your Photo, Video, Email, or other Files are Stored on BOTH the cloud AND your Home Mini Server. I paid a small fees to have the data on cloud for being accessible and as backup. I was rather hoping Apple could do that with Time Capsule. Since OSX Server already caches your iCloud Files. But I guess most company are too deep rooted into this recurring "Subscription" model they dont actually want you to own anything.

</comment><comment><USER56> sorry to hear your predicament. sadly there is more of this type of thing in the pipeline and it is time to stop using google provided services

1) migrate videos to LiveLeak.com

2) migrate email services somewhere else.

i don't have a specific recommendation, perhaps some other HNer would proffer a solid choice

</comment><comment><USER57> The kind of content required by researchers, documenting current events, relooking at historical events with current information is always going be hugely controversial according to different POVs.

This kind of content will require its own network not reliant or subject to the whims of business interests or the rules of any single nation. Infact it's essential this content is not located on platforms offered by increasingly compromised and arbitrary SV companies prone to lip service to free speech when convenient.

There is enough funding in the world to create this than rely on companies like Google and the content should simply move from youtube.

</comment><comment><USER58> It sounds like her blog post got her noticed by Google, so that's good.

However, for cases like these, where you have videos that are probably outside of the terms & conditions of Google, you should be hosting those on your own servers that you purchase the bandwidth for, not relying on a 3rd party to host.

Yes, Google has mutiple defacto monopolies that are very, very concerning. But one can still self-host on the Internet, and this person should have done that. She has her own domain, so she could have had the video on her own server.

</comment><comment><USER59> Put it on the internet archive.

<comment><USER60> The videos are widely available. Google isn't trying to hide the videos, they're trying to keep them off the platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> While google should tread carefully here, I have to wonder why this stuff was hosted from a google account in the first place.

It is easier and cheaper than ever to set up your own web hosting and host this stuff outside of a walled garden where it won't violate a TOS. Google accounts are for storing personal files in the cloud, not publishing important documents to the public.

</comment><comment><USER62> Google will delete accounts from people who's political opinion not "left", talk anything against google's "evil" ceo's..

I'm really tired of google's lies, politics, actions and ethos that they push by forcing.

Lies lies just like facebook and twitter. Same for me.

</comment><comment><USER63> I wonder if Google users should have a scheduled backup of [https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout](https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout).

</comment><comment><USER64> It would be highly advantageous for society if someone of knowledge of the utilification of telephone lines, railways, electricity, etc, could make an easily digestible timeline for that taking place.

</comment><comment><USER65> Aren't Liveleak and Dailymotion still running? Aren't there other video services?

I know it's convenient to upload stuff to YT but there are other services up there who won't be as arbitrary as YT

</comment><comment><USER66> I know google's a private corporation and is free to delete what it wishes from its own databases, but I thought it's mission was to "organize the world's information"

</comment><comment><USER67> There should be a law that once a company gets so big, it is automatically regulated as a public utility.

That would put an end to most of our current problems with massive institutions like this.

</comment><comment><USER68> Well, no surprise - ever since Google turned fully evil, it has been working against mankind.

It's a wonderful opportunity to stop using Google-related products and feed more evilness into Google.

</comment><comment><USER69> Google is in its own right to limit speech in its services. More work should be invested in making distributed networks (i.e. Bittorrent) easy to use to any user.

</comment><comment><USER70> Do not ever rely on services that are free of charge. Do not store data in services that are free of charge and expect it to be safe etc. etc. ...

</comment><comment><USER60> I don't agree with Google's actions here, but this has to be somewhat expected. If your day-to-day is closely entwined with terrorism, extremism, etc. you have to know that some of your content or actions aren't going to be welcome everywhere. I mean, people in the porn industry surely take precautions because they know they're content isn't welcome everywhere, why wouldn't the author?

IMO google is going too far, but I'd bet thats an automated system and this article will get enough press to stop it.

<comment><USER71> It is kind of odd that the whole Google account is wiped and canceled.

I post a YouTube video big G doesn't like, then they close my whole Google account. So now my Android phone, all my contacts, call history, purchased apps + music, etc, are now gone? And my nest thermostat resets to factory defaults? And all my AdWords campaigns for my small sole proprietorship. And...so on.

<comment><USER72> ...and what about all those services you used to "Log in with Google"...

<comment><USER73> Which is why you never _ever_ use the "log in with Google/Facebook" buttons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Google really manifests freedom of speech.. honestly: LACK of it.

</comment><comment><USER74> CTRL + F "Disclaimer: I work at Google"

Funny how that never comes up on these threads. I get it you can't discredit your employer. Even at Google.

<comment><USER75> In all fairness, this has only been posted for an hour, and it was only at the top of HN for 20 minutes or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> This should bother you a lot more than the firing.

</comment><comment><USER77> vid.me

</comment><comment><USER78> Kind of strange that there is countless Nasheeds (islamic chants) calling to war against infidels etc. on youtube. But stuff like this gets deleted.

</comment><comment><USER78> Well just stop being a nazi who questions everything. Problem solved! Nazis like you don't belong on the internet.

<comment><USER79> mmm delicious false equivalence

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Terabyte drives are very cheap. Since it's borderline stupid, to simply upload this volume of work to some third party service without backup, I have no sympathy or technical concern. This being an illustration of Google's terrible "progressively tyrannical" track record, the article is badly titled. More like Google the Oppressor of Truth. Good Luck to Alexa.

<comment><USER81> Ideally, I'd like to back up my data too. That's where it becomes much harder: I need a second location. (In case my house catches fire, or floods in a hurricane, etc.)

AWS and GCE both provide raw disk space, and certainly, an encrypted backup could be uploaded to them. I would like to be able to put a cap on what I spend on service, in case something goes wrong with the system, which AFAIK, neither GCE/AWS provide, unfortunately.

I would also like it to be remotely accessible, which a simple terabyte drive doesn't get directly.

Now, most of the above (creating a backup, encrypting it, shipping it out to AWS/GCE, securely accessing a drive remotely) are all _possible_ , but none are easy, and certainly not yet at the level of "my mother/father can do it".

I try very hard to maintain a private "cloud", and I find it fairly difficult.

<comment><USER5> Redundant cloud storage is made trivially easy by IFTTT. In just a few clicks, you can have your Google Drive uploads automatically replicated to half a dozen other cloud storage services and several brands of NAS. It can also back up your Gmail inbox, your Google Contacts and dozens of other cloud services.

[https://ifttt.com](https://ifttt.com)

<comment><USER82> Nice ad. Not the best option for people who are trying to minimize their reliance on 3rd parties though, since you are now giving a single entity access to all your online data. Also, their 'recipes' are rather limited in terms of triggers and available services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> I know I may not have the most popular opinion here, but I support Google in it's apparent decision to disassociate itself from terrorist propaganda videos.

Regardless of embedded blog-post context or newsworthiness, Google isn't an official government sanctioned free-speech haven. It's an advertising company.

I'm already disturbed by the weird parts of youtube, and how easily they are to get to accidentally. It makes precious little sense to me that I allow my kids to use youtube to watch gamers and tutorials of all sorts when I know what they are a few clicks from material that will completely rob them of whatever innocence remains.

If they are finally choosing to clean things up - even in an inconsequential way - I'm all for it.

The argument exists that there is already a cesspool of disturbing material, and that this particular account is well-intentioned. I would argue back that if you want to push boundaries, be prepared to face the consequences.

It's well known that account and video review processes are black holes. If you are putting yourself in a situation where you might lose your account, you should be prepared to lose it.</comment>


Show HN: HTTPS Subdomain Lookup Tool - <AUTHOR> https://subdomain-lookup.glitch.me <comment><USER2> This helps me appreciate all the wildcard certs I've bought over the years.

Is this a javascript front-end to crt.sh? [0]

[0] - [https://crt.sh/](https://crt.sh/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it is based on crt.sh, I'm using the API to get, parse (and fix) the JSON and get the subdomains from the search results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why does Facebook have so many "playpen" domains?

</comment><comment><USER4> Hmm. Sub domain discovery through certificate transparency?

Cool!

</comment><comment><USER5> Love it. Smart to use TLS certs.</comment>


I want to go to college - <AUTHOR> http://restfulpanda.com/6-i-want-to-go-to-college.html

<comment><USER2> "I want to join a team or even better, go to college and meet like minded folks"

That sounds like me 3 years ago. When I graduated High School I was looking forward to going to college so that I could meet people who, like me, were interested in building really good software and learning new things... for the sake of learning.

My first year in college I met many people who helped me connect. I am a core team member on the Cappuccino web framework, and that experience is what helped me connect. I thought everyone wanted to learn for the sake of learning, and wanted to build great things. It was enough to suffer through classes which I had little to no interest in, but were required for my "well rounded" education. As my year ended I failed calculus, but that didn't bother me much because I opened doors. I had a few internship offers because of the product I shipped and the work I did on Cappuccino. I turned them down so that I could continue my studies over the summer to catch up (from failing calculus the first time). A mistake I still regret.

I was fortunate that my first computer science professor was like me, interested in learning for the sake of learning, and he built some astonishing cool things. My second semester CS professor (at this time I only took one CS class a semester while I was fulfilling my general education requirements) was terrible. The class was called "Software Engineering" where he would lecture on perl, HTML, and CVS, on occasion he mentioned SVN. My freshman year I spent my nights (many times staying up until 3am in the morning) working on something Cappuccino related. In one night I could learned more than 6 weeks in that second CS class.

I was less enthusiastic my second year (last year), everyone I had met who had interesting and shared the same goals had graduated and moved off. We had discusses starting a business, but each of our situations put those plans on hold... Because I was ahead (because I skipped one CS class) I didn't have a single CS class my second year, since my general education classes were not yet fulfilled. That year was hell, but I worked on many side projects, became much more active in the Cappuccino community, etc. I ended up interning at Inkling in San Francisco last summer, and it was a great experience!

I'm finishing up my 3rd year now, and it's still painful. I spent my of my first semester building BugHub (<http://bughubapp.com>), and I expect that is what I'll be doing the rest of this semester too. The truth is, I still don't learn much from my CS classes, honestly I should be teaching some of them (I'm certainly more qualified to teach "Web Programming" than a man who worked on compilers at IBM 20 years ago.

What I learned from my nearly 3 years here is that most people don't share the same values I do. Most people are more interested in getting that piece of paper and getting a job that pays the bills with a little left over. University is preparing them to be QA testers. No one is prepared to take on real software engineering challenges. They can't even really explain what an object or class is, or what the difference is. I haven't found anyone else interesting in starting their own company. No one can show me something they're proud of, that they did on their own. It's been disappointing to say the least.

So why haven't I dropped out? College has given me the opportunity to spend time working on my own things. The time I have spent in college led to me learning a lot, but not because of school. It's because I still stay up until 3-4am in the morning working on my own things, trying to understand new stuff, and asking questions to some of the smartest people I know (online). Every opportunity I will have is because of what I've done on my own, not the piece of paper I'll get next year. I can't say that when I graduated high school I was ready to be thrown into the industry... College gave me the opportunity to spend a lot of time learning on my own and as a result I'm much more prepared. The department here doesn't have a lot of offer me, but I'm fortunate to have grown up in the age of the internet where there are so many resources to learn if you really want it.

I can't say this will be your experience, but I was naive going into college... and your premis reminded me a lot of me.

<comment><USER3> >So why haven't I dropped out? College has given me the opportunity to spend time working on my own things. The time I have spent in college led to me learning a lot, but not because of school. It's because I still stay up until 3-4am in the morning working on my own things, trying to understand new stuff, and asking questions to some of the smartest people I know (online).

Then what are you paying for, exactly? Why don't you drop out and just not get a job for awhile while you do your self-study?

<comment><USER2> Sorry, I should have added... I'm not paying for college, I only pay my living expenses... which I would have to pay for anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most of the anti-college rhetoric originates from the US, I think, because of the high cost. In Canada, where undergraduate tuition at some of our best universities is below $10k/year (usually much lower), "going to college" is far easier to rationalize.

<comment><USER5> What, going to university costs money?!?

</scandinavian>

EDIT: I didn't mean to be _all_ smug about it. The cost of going to university is different in different countries, and if it's too expensive where you're at, maybe going as an exchange student is a viable alternative? That's the only big regret I have, never having done that.

<comment><USER6> Firstly, it does, in Scandinavia just like everywhere else. Secondly, it does for a reason. Not just because they can charge (though obviously...), or that teachers/professors would like to eat something every once in a while, but also because getting the results is quite expensive. Take a look at the universities rankings[1] -- how many schools in the top ten aren't British or American?

Before we get all smug about our educational systems largely free of exorbitant fees, arbitrary admissions, and racists nonsense like affirmative action (well, largely), we should take a look at the results Americans are getting. It's not all corruption and waste.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_ranking...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_rankings) and it doesn't really matter which you choose

<comment><USER7> Most "top" universities receive their ranking for the quality of the research they produce, not quality of undergraduate education. There is likely a decent correlation between research output and undergraduate education, which one can determine by looking at schools that have some of the highest achieving undergrads (such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford) and noting that these schools also are major research centers. Note there are most certainly exceptions to this, ie schools without a ton of research output but with great education for undergrads (I'm thinking of Reed College here, but no evidence/just my perception) or universities that don't do much with undergrads but are major research centers.

However, I'd mostly like to address the fallacy of attributing the high international rankings of American universities to the high undergraduate tuition. At Caltech, I've heard many undergrads say that all undergrad tution is about 5% of Caltech's budget, with a lot of the rest coming from various research grants. At schools with less of a research focus and more undergrads, undergrad tuition might make 30% of the budget. I can't find the blog post at the moment, but there was a discussion a few years ago about what would happen if MIT gave a full scholarship to all attending undergrads, and the conclusion was that it would hurt (but not cripple) MIT financially, but appeared possible.

<comment><USER8> Those same universities have selection criteria which predict success after college independent of the college attended. So it's not like they are masterfully teaching anything; rather, it seems very much like they are simply rebranding the best students.

To the extent that they also teach students more and better, this is actually damaging socially because it sucks secondary educational capital into a few locations. Lower end schools could do more and better if they housed many more bright and ambitious students. But if they're all going to a handful of schools, they're not improving the social networks at Random State.

<comment><USER7> Although elite universities might not "masterfully teach", the students at these universities still learn more than students at a lot of universities simply because the classes are more difficult (these are generalizations, not the rule). If classes are more difficult/cover more content but aren't taught well enough/not all content covered, then highly ambitious students just end up teaching themselves a lot of the curriculum, but they still know the material of their classes by the end. Essentially, even though the teaching might not be better, I believe an average MIT student studying X comes out more knowledgeable than student from [[ state school ]].

And its an interesting thought to distribute top students. Assuming a fixed quantity of "bright and ambitious" students, wouldn't sending more of them to lower end schools weaken the social networks formed at elite schools and destroy something unique about American education system?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> All learning is worthwhile - nobody is arguing you shouldn't go to college because it's a waste of time. The point is you need to think very carefully about your job prospects before you go into debt to get a degree. $15k debt for pretty much any degree is doable - you can pay that back pretty much no matter what job you get at graduation.

But going $200k into debt for a degree is financial suicide unless your degree is _extremely_ marketable. An MD, say, or a law degree from Harvard or Yale. Even if everything goes the way you're expecting, and it may not, it's going to be decades before you're out from under that cloud.

At that debt level you've essentially traded your first house for your degree, and unless your career is wildly successful you're going to be in your 40s before you can afford to buy a place of your own.

</comment><comment><USER9> One thing about college and life in general is that you must connect with people on their interests rather than your interests.

That is probably the single best skill you can easily get and requires no studying, just practice and interest in other people.

If you go back to the Steve Job's video from the Stanford graduation, he talks about connecting the dots and sitting in on classes. In my many ways talking to random people about random things will allow you to connect more dots later.

I loved college, both times I went and while the price and debt sucks, it was well worth it for me.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm a "college dropout." I've made good money since, doing what I love - designing and writing software.

I would, however, like the opportunity to take high-intensity week-long courses on topics that I choose. Don't make me sign up for a degree just to gain some useful knowledge. Offer me Data Structures and Algorithms, two hours a night for five nights. Give me a chance to take some Intro to Design courses (I didn't say 'Photoshop Tutorial')

Sure, I can get books that teach me this stuff, but sometimes I need the social aspect of learning.

<comment><USER11> You're assuming there's a demand for learning.

<comment><USER12> Yes, clearly there's no "demand for learning", that's why Khan Academy is about to go out of business and traditional universities have refused to offer high-quality, free online learning.

<comment><USER11> Yep, as long as it's free. I can't think of many people who pay much to learn stuff, outside of traditional colleges. You might pay a few hundred to go to a conference, but this is much less than you pay to get a degree.

<comment><USER12> There IS demand for learning then, we seem to agree on that despite your original post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't speak for the CS major, since I wasn't one. Instead I decided to do philosophy, which is not something I regret. I still had plenty of time to learn Rails and work on some cool projects. Since college I've only ever been turned down for one job due to the lack of a CS degree, and it's probably not a job I would have enjoyed much. At my first job, I was the one who was a full-time salaried employee while the intern was the CS grad. Since then I've had the opportunity to work on some amazing projects with some amazing people. I've been a core team member for SproutCore and now for Ember.js and I've gotten to work on some great JS and Rails projects with people like Yehuda Katz and Carl Lerche of Rails Core.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't go to college. I'm glad I did (though I wasn't the one paying for it, so I don't have loans). However, I'm also glad I didn't go for CS. Yes, there are some things I did miss out on by not being CS, but instead I got to write code on my own time for my own purposes, not because a class told me what to do. I also got to do a lot of interesting philosophy study that I would not have done on my own time and I'm glad that I had the motivation from school to actually do it.

There's no "one size fits all" advice for whether you should go to college or get a CS degree, but in my case, I have no regrets.

<comment><USER14> In my experience, Computer Science was very much _not_ about writing code, or worse, "Learning Rails".

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> We must first establish the expectations of the value proposition of college in order to share a common ground for the premise of our argument for/against college. My value proposition for college has always been:

1\. the ability to broaden your base knowledge: if you love science/tech, then you must also partake in liberal arts, fine arts, poli sci, social sci, economics, etc.

2\. the ability to improve your social skills (personal growth) with like- minded peers: high school was a fail for most people in terms of maturity and dating (especially the geek set) and so college is an opportunity to get it right without the stigma; the experience and maturity gained in this key skill include romance/dating/heartbreak/bad-sex, etc.

3\. Social Networking (related to 2, but more about your professional objective): most kids today rely too much on internet social networking as the answer and assume that this is the best - wrong - true social networking involves taking the interpersonal initiative to shake hands with those who have the authority, connections and knowledge to help you along in your studies, career, interests, and it's not easy to go up to total strangers whom you admire and say "hi".

These three qualities of college can not be easily replicated outside of a college environment (Number 1 is most easily replicated). However, the assumption is that all colleges possess the above opportunities for you to pursue, and therein lies the problem. How many colleges have the networking leverage that makes it worthwhile to attend that college?

So, at the end of it all, what does it come down to? Prospective Networking. The individual student MUST TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE of the one resource they cannot easily replicate outside of college: networking with the "right" crowd, including your peers (future CEO/visionaries/tech co-founders), professors, researchers, guest speakers, etc.

The problem of course is, outside of the TOP 50 Universities and colleges, what is the value of attending the second tier schools other than sex, booze and cram sessions? Nothing. If you can't get into a Top 50 schools, I believe that the value proposition does not merit the tuition paid for the other schools out there.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wrote an article on this topic about a year ago [1], albeit from the perspective of having gone to college. Personally, I found college to work really well for me. It helped me figure out who I was, what I wanted to do, and it helped me to build my network. Notice that the academics aren't in the top 3 benefits I got from college. I'd place academics at #4.

It seems like most of the people who advocate dropping out, or just not going, already have a really strong network built. But I didn't. I didn't even know I wanted to build companies until after I started college.

I agree college isn't for everyone. But it felt right for me.

[1] [http://jangosteve.com/post/568504920/want-to-be-an- entrepren...](http://jangosteve.com/post/568504920/want-to-be-an-entrepreneur- college-may-help)

<comment><USER17> _I agree college isn't for everyone. But it felt right for me._

There's another issue here as well: many people don't know how to do college, and they think that college is just about going to class and doing okay in class. It really isn't. Class, especially these days, is mostly an excuse to meet people, to figure out what you're interested in, and, in those subjects you _are_ interested in, to signal that interest to your professor.

I'm a grad student, and I noticed these problems—which are essentially cultural—in many of my students, which in turn led me to write a couple essays on the subject: <http://jseliger.com/essays> . The essays attempt to turn implicit knowledge of the sort a lot of people acquire along the way, or acquire from their families (especially if they come from wealthy families) into explicit knowledge that says, "Here is how and why things work the way they do."

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In America, going to college is almost always (there are exceptions) a pre- requisite for getting hired for most white-collar job.

It is kind of like a Mafia where the parents are offered an offer they can't refuse ('Want a good job for Johnny? Then pay up... for college')

<comment><USER3> That's because of a little-known (by the general public, anyway) US Supreme Court ruling in 1971 in the case of _Griggs v. Duke Power_.

Prior to that case companies were more comfortable hiring people without college degrees because they were able to give IQ tests to prospective employees. The court ruled tests that have a disparate impact on the racial or sexual makeup of new hires are illegal.

Companies were forced to look for some other indicator the person they were about to hire can read and write and is reasonably intelligent, so many of the jobs that used to require only a high school education plus an IQ test now require a college degree.

There are some companies that still give tests to applicants, but they're just asking to get sued.

It's kind of ridiculous people are going tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt as a proxy for a three-hour IQ test, but I don't see any indication things are going to change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Tim Ferriss posted a very good article on this matter [1]. Personally though, I would advocate for everyone to at least try college, before deciding that the college path isn't for them.

I think especially in the tech community, we expect superb technical instruction to be handed to us. But as many commenters have already pointed out, most of the value of an undergraduate education comes from what you learn outside of the classroom, not from the instruction you receive in class. Those lessons in social interaction, personal growth, and commitment typically will serve as a strong foundation for you as you go after the next big thing.

And that foundation I think can be very reassuring, especially if your dream is to start up your own company. If your start up doesn't pan out, you will still have your college degree as back up, which will make it much easier for you to apply for a job or network with old friends to find one.

Yes, it may be expensive, but there are a lot of financial resources there that you can take advantage of if you look hard enough. Many colleges (like Stanford) have an amazing financial aid program that make it very affordable for you to attend.

As cletus correctly points out, college is a means to an end, but you will only know whether it can be a mean or not unless you tried it.

[1] [http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/09/29/8-steps- to-g...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/09/29/8-steps-to-getting- what-you-want-without-formal-credentials/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Then go to college.

In my case I looked out and saw what it offered and said, "No thanks." That's because I'm a unique individual and I have certain ideologies that you might not have. You may need structure or whatever it is you're wanting in a college, but I think I can do without. But not just doing without, doing better without it.

tl;dr: it's not about a anti-college, it's about choice. Everyone says go to college but at the end of the day I made a choice. And you have a choice and a right just as much as I do.

<comment><USER5> As part of the introduction for new students to the CS programme of my university, you get to meet a few people who graduated, and they talk a bit about what it's like getting through and out the other side.

After I graduated, I got invited as one of these people, and I also talked about choice. Most people that end up at university have been doing what society or their parents have been telling them all their life, and I told them that they should all really think about their studies and that for the first time in their lives they get to make real choice sabout their lives, and if they find out after a while that studying this CS programme sucks for them, then they shouldn't do it.

But if they enjoy computer science, if they avoid getting poached by companies before they've graduated, if they finish the slog and get their master's, they will end up having _more_ choices than they would have if they had dropped out. You give up a little bit of freedom and opportunity now, for potentially a lot more later on.

Attending university opens some doors and closes others. But not attending also opens some doors and closes others. Some of these you can figure out beforehand, but most of it you have no idea about, so in retrospect it's impossible to know if your choice was the best one. I suspect all of us that are a bit older are wearing tinted glasses when we give out advice to the younger generation. :-)

That said, I have a bunch of friends who dropped out of university after figuring out it really didn't suit them, and they're doing great. Only one of them pondered going back to get his degree, and only because his company would pay for it, but he ended up not doing it anyway.

I don't regret my choice to finish my degree, even though it meant I missed the craziest years of the 90's dotcom boom. I think you won't regret your choice either. But remember that it's never too late to go to uni if you ever need it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I like the tone of the post but I think it's a bit lacking in explanation on why college is important.

College makes you develop as a person. You interact with other students, you learn new stuff, you do your homework and the end result is - you've grown. It's about the process, not the end result like so many anti-college posts seem to focus on. It's the experience of college that makes it important. The way I look at hiring college grads for instance, it's not about their grades, it's about knowing they can stick it and do it on their own. Finishing college is a merit.

I believe processes like college force you to develop as a person. Speaking from my experience, it was one of the most influential experiences I have had, and I studied Comp Sci, nothing fancy. The other would be my 5 years in the army, which similarly most people would dismiss as a waste of time, but I don't think I'd be the same person without it.

The way I think of it, it's about the process, and like it or not, going to college takes you through that process. Sure it's not for everyone, but come on people, stop hating :)

</comment><comment><USER22> I think people in tech are a bit myopic regarding college. Traditional _undergraduate_ programming education does seem very antiquated because the practice of programming lends itself to autodidactism. This is less true in other areas of education -- the ones that don't have an interpreter to tell you what, or at least where, you have done wrong.

I'm not arguing that contemporary universities are well-designed. They are not and there are _many_ archaic elements ripe for disruption. I just want to point out that we have a pretty strong bias that is not necessarily generalizable.

(Personal bias note: I thought undergraduate education was intellectually useless, but absolutely worth it as a life experience. Now, I'm in graduate school and I am shocked by how much I enjoy it. Additionally, I am building something this summer to correct a structural problem with academia that I see in my own field of interest.)

</comment><comment><USER23> You're going to have to stay somewhere a lot longer than a semester to find students/teachers to really connect with. CivE, CS, painting, doesn't matter. I completely understand the disappointment at going to school and finding out that hey, not everyone is motivated by the same thing as you, not everyone has the same goals, etc... but it's just something you have to accept. It happened to me at my "dream school", and if you're an architecture student then that pretty much makes you SOL. If you want to go to college, then do. Don't get too caught up in analyzing it, ESPECIALLY if you want to major in art. If you can keep your ideological goals and your practical goals separate, college as it is will make a whole lot more sense.

Edit: In summary, don't let your expectations get in the way of your goals. If school is an effective way of getting from A to B, then let it be just that.

</comment><comment><USER24> I understand your struggles, but as my fellow commenter's point out it's more about the process than the content.

The social interactions are important. You could end up meeting the person you end up starting a Company with, but there are benefits outside the social interactions. Having goals, doing the work to accomplish your goals, and then seeing the results is something that I took away from my College experience. Being able to say "I'm going to get a 4.0 gpa this semester", and then developing a system to accomplish that goal is something you will carry with you for the rest of your life.

So I say go for it. Make a decision about which institution, and pull the trigger. Even if it isn't everything you dreamed of, stick with it and finish it. Follow through, and go through the process. You will be thankful you did when it's over.

</comment><comment><USER25> I believe there is value in:

1) a place where scientists and profesionals can get together with younger people interested in their fields and expertise.

2) a place where this young people can form groups with similar interests.

3) a _curated_ plan for learning ("you will have an easier life if you study some physics before tackling power generators design").

4) access to resources and freedom to act on those resources in a _meaningful_ way.

5) an _exclusive certification_ based on _merit_ that a person completed a carefully designed training and has a level of expertise in areas where _if things fail people die_.

If universities can't fulfill that rol, companies will (and are doing it, specially in the states).

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm a Junior Computer Science and Visual Design student at one of the top-20 Universities in the US.

"I want to... go to college and meet like minded folks" \--> It has taken me three years to connect with a handful of students that share my interests. On the other hand, at one Startup Weekend I made just as many, arguably higher- quality, connections. Therefore, I would argue an event like Startup Weekend is a much better use of time and money than college.

"I want focus, and stop trying to solve everything and finishing nothing" \--> I find that most course projects are turned in incomplete at the end of the term, and there is rarely motivation to continue working on an assignment after the course is over.

</comment><comment><USER27> In the US first year students are called Freshman, so in order to "bond"; You need stick in there for a couple of years; That will happen in Highschool, College, Work, Community, the In-Laws and anything else that matters in life.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm back at school now after some time off and I'm happy to be back, though when things suck it's frustratingly easy to say "welp, just need to wait for the summer."

My goal for my remaining time at college is to learn things I cannot learn other places and take advantage of the opportunities I have. But after spending time in the valley, my emphasis has shifted from getting good grades (before my time off, I obsessed over this and was constantly anxious/depressed) to learning as much as I can - two goals which are, amusingly, not always aligned.

You'll get out whatever you put in.

</comment><comment><USER29> Thank you for this post. I recently got into MIT and have been torn and confused over whether or not it is worth going. All these anti-college posts on HN were not helping but this post shared some good perspective.

<comment><USER29> Thanks for the replies everyone. My main concern was that their courses are extremely rigorous and thus would consume a huge portion of time, possibly not leaving enough time to work on awesome side projects. Even still, I'm sure there are other opportunities. Will write a blog post on this soon.

<comment><USER30> > My main concern was that their courses are extremely rigorous and thus would > consume a huge portion of time, possibly not leaving enough time to work on > awesome side projects.

You will have the rest of your life to work on your awesome side projects. Chances are forfeiting your next iphone app to study compiling to continuations will be a more fulfilling accomplishment in the long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I can't really address your country's collegiate experience.

But I can address the people concerns. You will likely find that most students don't jibe with you. You have to find your own way. Along the way, you will find people you will be friends with, but they likely won't be entry-level students, and taking the gap years will have separated you fairly irrevocably from those who haven't.

If you want to go to college, go to college. Take from it all you can, even if you can get by with less. Do well and don't depend on the approval of others.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is it just me or is there a trend of reactionary posts (or just submissions?) on the same topic? A few days ago it was Go (why Go is awesome, why I'll never use Go, why Go has its pros and cons) and now it's college's turn.

What you realize later in life is that the point of all these steps by and large is simply to get you to the next step.

Go to high school and your goal is to get to college. Once you get to college nobody cares about high school, your transcript or your permanent record anymore.

Go to college and your goal is to build a network of friends and colleagues and to get to the working world or to a grad school.

Get to that and nobody cares about college anymore. And so on.

Granted you learn things along the way but learning really seems to be secondary. The ability to read, an Internet connection and a Web browser is all you really need to learn (although there is obvious value in directed instruction, course structure, tutoring/mentoring, etc). The "learning" part of education is probably the most interesting at the moment what with Stanford (and others) offering courses online, the Khan Academy and so forth.

I dropped out of university on the first try. I went through several years of "you don't need a degree". While that might be technically true it hurt my career, I didn't have the same network of contacts that others did and (for a time at least) I didn't have the same theoretical background.

In the end I got a mediocre degree from a mediocre institution studying part- time for three reasons:

1\. To put me in the pile of CVs "with degree" (the "without degree" pile more often than not just ends up in the circular file);

2\. As an exercise in finishing something. This is actually important, particularly for programmers. Starting things is easy, finishing is hard. There is value of sticking with college for 3-4+ years both to yourself and as a demonstration to future employers; and

3\. Visa reasons. It would be near-impossible for me now to work in the US if I hadn't gotten a degree.

People like to bring up Jobs, Gates and Zuck as examples of why you don't need a degree. There are two problems with that:

1\. Statistically speaking, you aren't one of these; and

2\. _All of them went to college_.

I can't stress (2) enough. They just didn't finish. Thing is, they found their "next thing" (well, Jobs' path was a little more roundabout).

Going to college in the US involves a more complicated decision process than elsewhere because of cost and--let's face it--elitism.

Going to Stanford, MIT or CMU as a programmer is no doubt valuable and I won't question the value of the education those august institutions provide but a huge part of the value is the name. It's social proof but it's also arguably elitism.

That same social proof comes into play when you have Google or Facebook on your CV.

Going to such places might leave you with staggering debt. In CS, at least for now, that doesn't seem to be much of a problem. But there are cheaper options (eg UT Austin seems to be a well-regarded state school for CS).

Anyway, the moral of the story is that college or not you should _always_ be looking to the next step. To put it another way: college is a means to an end not an end in itself.

<comment><USER33> If your chosen field involves expensive or, worse, government-controlled equipment, college is an absolute must. As a nuclear engineering student, I got to learn using software and materials it would have been literally impossible for me to obtain otherwise.

<comment><USER34> This is an important detail so oft-forgotten by those neck-deep in software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm not down on college -- I learned a hell of a lot there. I'm down on degrees.

(I just interviewed a person sporting a BA, a Masters, a PhD and a high- falutin' title who couldn't write a simple "find the length of a string" function. It was . . . I don't have words; I was absolutely floored).

Show me that you can design, write and debug code, and that you're not a jerk, and you're in business. That's all I care about.

</comment><comment><USER36> I've got no disagreement with people who take a "gap year" or two before going to university. This works well because now you have a much better sense of what matters to you. That sense will only grow and sharpen as you spend time around a lot of different ideas and people.

Best wishes, although I'm afraid I don't know enough to suggest what institutions may work for you.

</comment><comment><USER37> If it's Eur17 a semester, then I absolutely encourage you to go into literature/art. You won't be taking on crushing debt in tuition, and you can always go back and study something employable in the future if you so desire.

The problem only exists when spoiled American kids take on USD100k+ of debt to study an unemployable major.

</comment><comment><USER38> I can't imagine trying to learn art and literature without formal higher education. Programming... maybe, but literature? no. But yeah, just because it's mandatory for literature doesn't mean it's mandatory for programming. However there's a distinction between programming and CS.

</comment><comment><USER39> The social interaction and relationships formed in college sometimes outweigh the content being studied.

<comment><USER40> That's definitely the case for me. I'm going to move in with two friends I made from college, both are very smart, one is a programmer with ideas to form his own startup, working with him is so much more useful than any class from college.</comment></comment>


How to make pro-capitalist movies, from 1947, by Ayn Rand [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/AmRad/screenguideamericans.pdf <comment><USER2> FSM bless Ayn Rand. Surely she must go down in history as one of the most important and influential women in history. If somebody were to start planning a "Mount Rushmore of Great Women" I'd lobby for Ayn Rand to be the first person chosen for inclusion.

Very few people have been more active and more influential, in terms of defending the ideals of freedom and liberty, than Ayn Rand. Whether "academic" philosophers take her seriously or not is irrelevant - she Gets It and had a way of writing that communicated some very subtle and powerful ideas. I would be much diminished as a human being if I had not read _The Fountainhead_ and _Atlas Shrugged_.

I didn't know about this particular work prior to today, but I'm glad it got posted (even though I'm not a screenwriter or anything of that sort). It's exactly what you would expect from Rand - direct and to the point, no bullshit, and deadly accurate. Let's hope all aspiring screenwriters read this and take it to heart.</comment>