Is democracy dying? - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2018/starr-forum-democracy-dying-0227 <comment><USER3> I think the problem is democracy just doesn't scale very well because it requires empathy and altruism and that operates at the scale of human experience. You need some kind of commonality or shared experience to keep people together. In the 50s-80s you had the experience of the wars and cold war to keep people active. Since then, there hasn't been too much of that save maybe terror attacks.

For the US specifically, I think we should be going back to letting states take the lead on social issues like wellfare, gay marriage, abortion, drug decriminalization/legalization, gun control and whatnot instead of trying to do everything at the federal level - especially via ever more contorted constitutional interpretation.

The benefits from this kind of approach would be the ability to do quicker, more focused policy iterations with less controversy at the state level for the willing states before getting locked in federally and difficult to change as opposed to the opaque backroom deals and guessing games of today.

<comment><USER4> This only sounds like it would work if each state had some kind of physical and cultural separation. We already see in Illinois how state level gun control is failing. It doesn't matter how strict Illinois sets its gun laws, they still pour in from the lax neighbors.

If we want to let human rights choices be set at the state level, we need to provide some kind of subsidized "get out of dodge" program for the people negatively affected by the state level decisions, as those people are usually the poorest and least mobile. Can you imagine trying to sell "your taxes are going to pay for moving gay people to California/NY" to the constituents in dark red states?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Democracy with universal suffrage has barely been around a century. In South Africa, it is just over 2 decades old. It's new, it's messy, it doesn't always go our way. What amazes me is that the USA can swing from one side of the political spectrum to the other and the country holds together and happily repeats the process every few years.

<comment><USER6> Sorry to break it to you buy Democrats are not left, if anything they are center right by western European standards, the Republicans on the other hand are going right off the cliff [https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump- maralago-remar...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago- remarks/index.html)

aside: Last time Europe had politics like above it ended badly for millions of people worldwide, except this time nuclear weapons abound

<comment><USER7> And the US' right would be considered quite far left compared to many Asian and Middle Eastern countries. I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make or how it's relevant to GP's. It's quite clear GP was referring to the US' policies spectrum, not that of the entire world.

<comment><USER6> The point I am trying to make is that the US is not oscillating happily between left and right as the OP claims, but is veering further and further into authoritarian right territory.

I doubt many people in US would like their country to become a "shithole country" to quote their current president, but yet here we are watching history unfold

<comment><USER8> A hundred years ago Americans were being sent off to war to die en masse against their will, and it was a crime to speak out against the war effort. America's still nowhere near as authoritarian as it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a very cynical view of democracy but it turns out that these days it makes me more optimistic about democracy.

Democracy has never been about electing the brightest, never. Democracy is actually not at all about how we choose the person who will rule (as is demonstrated by US who elected twice this century someone who lose the popular vote). It is about the fact that in face of enough unpopularity, the current leader will be gone in less time it would take to overthrow them.

The goal of democracy is not good governance, it is civil peace.

When you look at it this way, from the outside, democracy is working perfectly well in the US. The big test will be to see if the next transition goes peacefully, impeachment or not.

As far as systems go, the main competitor for the US system is the Chinese system, that is a meritocracy. Well, as imperfect a meritocracy as the US is a democracy, but looking at the diplomas of the leaders there, you will see far more scientists and less lawyers. For decades, it has managed to offer transitions and to evolve its dogmas. Xi Jinping's power grab offers a similar test than Trump's US. We shall see what happens at the next transition. We, democrats (in the non-US sense), do not thing that a power structure like the PCC can stay decent without counter powers and elections but the PCC's endurance and success at managing the biggest country in the world is to be acknowledged.

Another system that could, unexpectedly, reappear and offer a competition is plain old absolute monarchy. I keep an eye on the kingdom of Saudi Arabia where the crown prince has decided to clean up some corruption and has (correctly, IMO) identified religious extremism to be the main reason his country lags behind. He has announced staunch reformism. It is yet to be seen if this will actually happen or if it just PR, but if it does, monarchies may come back in front of the scene too.

All in all, as much as I love democracy, I am happy that we seem to stop being complacent about our imperfect systems and may finally seek improvements. I believe that democracy is the most advanced and workable system but it is not the easiest to manage and our societies and cultures still have a lot of room for improvement.

<comment><USER10> >The goal of democracy is not good governance, it is civil peace.

This is an excellent point.

On the other hand, though, it was 8 years of GWB, which was resented by the half of the country, then it was 8 years of Obama, which was resented by another half, and now, well, things are definitely not improving. My point here is that it seems that democracy getting weaker and weaker for solving that civil peace part of equation.

I often wonder, if the current situation is the lowest point, and politics will get more moderate from here. It should be, but then, so it was during GWB term...

<comment><USER9> Half of the country hates the other half. It does not date from GWB. Some date it back to the civil war. If that is so, the US democracy has been remarkably effective at keeping peace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The prospect facing democracy might be not death but mitosis.

In the US, the EU, India, and elsewhere, trust in the national-level institutions necessary to sustain any regime from democracy to dictatorship has been eroding. This seems to be part of a deliberate strategy, but that's less important than the result. In most of these places, there are moves toward fragmentation and separatism. In the US it hasn't quite gotten that far, but there sure is plenty of sniping between "red" and "blue" states. (It doesn't seem to matter that most states are really "purple" in actual elections because they still tend to identify one way or the other.) "States' rights" has been a theme on the conservative side forever, but now even liberal governors and state legislatures seem to be more inclined to defy the federal government on various policies. The sense of common purpose that others have pointed out seems to be missing at the national level. Maybe it _can 't_ be sustained at population levels of 300M or more. In the US, that might mean more decisions delegated to the states and a more limited federal government (which AFAICT is what the US founders actually intended even with their second attempt). Or maybe it will mean actual separate states with EU- like arrangements to facilitate migration and trade, and likewise elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER12> I may be naive but I think this is a tech problem.

The vast majority of us share a common set of ethical norms. We are also relatively savvy. If we _know_ someone has acted against our interests before we wont be keen on working with them again. Eg. A dodgy Mechanic. And this goes for everyone, regardless of education level or armchair-economist status.

There is a technical solution out there that combats misinformation and riling people up against each other. And promotes educated decision making. So that we can approximate an optimal policy that complies with ethical norms and shared longer-term goals. And evaluate the impact of policy as best we can.

This probably wouldn't mean direct democracy (as there are very few experts in a given field), but rather in built in validation of expert opinion and evaluation of consequences of decision making. A little less prone to abuse than our current systems.

You can even see hints of how it could be done in online communities such as HN, where despite a relatively diverse community the shared goals of learning is still optimised.

I dont think this is head in the clouds, technology impacts governance all the time, from printing presses to pamphlets to socmed. And we have done some pretty impactful things with it recently, governance could be next.

</comment><comment> d--b First, I think it'd be good to separate the Western world from the rest of the world. The West has been meddling with other countries' governments for centuries, such that it's impossible to say that true democracy ever existed outside the West. Is it better or worse today than it was 50 years ago? Hard to say... What seems to be the case though is that more countries are escaping the West's sphere of influence than 20 years ago (after the collapse the USSR, only the West remained).

In Western countries, I think it's an issue to link the rise of national sentiment to a decline in democracy. Disinformation is certainly a thing, but for it to work, I believe there needs to be a general discontent with current politics such that people are using the urns for exactly what democracy has been designed to do: change government when people are unhappy with it.

US democracy will be in danger the day when access to some information is prohibited or some parties are forbidden, which is far from being the case.

These people at MIT forget that most republicans are fairly moderate, and a good chunk of Trump voters would have voted for Bernie Sanders if he had been nominated.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure if democracy is necessarily dying everywhere, I—hopefully not too naïvely—think there's a little more diversity in worldwide politics than that.

Reading the article though, this seems to be US-centric. Perhaps the title could be changed to "Is US democracy dying?", in which case, at least to an outsider looking in, it seems that death happened quite a long time ago. I'm not sure if Buckley v. Valeo was as big a turning point as some make out, or if it was really that different before that, but certainly modern US political decision-making seems quite disconnected from constituent concerns.

<comment><USER14> I'm in Italy, we're voting in our first national elections in five years today (despite having three/four governments in the intervening years, depending on how you count). Democracy definitely seems dead or at least mute here. As I made my way to the polling station, I was reminded of my favourite quote from Thomas Pynchon: "If they can keep you asking the wrong questions, they don't need to worry about the answers". I don't mean it in the sense a conspiracy theorist might, but in some other ineffable or inexpressible sense whereby parliamentary politics has simply become to weak and ineffectual to contrast and compensate for other forces that act on societies (economic and financial ones, particularly). That might be why strident or extremist viewpoints of various kinds are more prevalent now than they used to be: because faced with a body politic that cannot effect change or even visibly affect the trajectory, many people just choose what they perceive to be a bigger rudder to steer with.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This question is explored in detail in the book "The Retreat of Western Liberalism" by Edward Luce (2017); it is one of the best books of the year according to The Economist.

I haven't finished reading it yet, never mind digesting it, but it is fascinating and though-provoking. The following paragraph should wet your appetite:

 _In Moscow's view, history is back and nothing is inevitable, least of all liberal democracy. Others, in Beijing, Ankara, Cairo, Caracas, and even Budapest, share Russia's hostility to Western notions of progress, as do growing numbers of apostates in the West. Are they wrong?_

 _This book is my attempt to answer that question. Let me declare now that nothing is pre-ordained. To a person whose life has coincided with the rise of democracy, the spread of market economics and signs that the world had finally subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (even if much of it is paid only in lip service – hypocrisy, as they say, being the compliment vice pays to virtue), merely to pose the question is troubling enough. Wasn't that debate settled a long time ago? Isn't the march of human freedom unstoppable? Doesn't the whole world crave to be Western? We can no longer have any confidence in that. It was remarkably arrogant to believe the rest of the world would passively adopt our script. Those who still believe in the inevitable triumph of the Western model might ask themselves whether it is faith, rather than facts, that fuels their worldview. We must cast a sceptical eye on what we have learned never to question._

<comment><USER15> I think Western-style liberal market capitalism is a lot more compelling than Western defeatists believe.

[https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/jihad- hyperpanda/](https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/jihad-hyperpanda/)

> The truth about the clash of civilizations you hear people discussing is > that it's all the other way: The Mall is invading Islam, the Mall is taking > over. There isn't any Sharia Law in North Carolina, but there damn well are > US-style malls in even the most conservative Islamic countries.

> In Najran, in the most remote corner of Saudi Arabia, a state so afraid of > Western contamination that it doesn't even issue tourist visas, there is a > mall. And, when I lived there, you could watch —literally watch—the conflict > between Sharia Law and Mall culture, five times a day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Think about this: Looking at the past few years it's becoming more and more clear that data has an enormous value and grants a lot of power to the entities that are able to extract knowledge out of it. In turn, this knowledge could shape a policy that will yield the desired outcome much more reliably. Up until now, democracy, with its distributed governance system has had a significant advantage over more concentrated forms of governance systems. Simply since making decisions involved more people, and therefore, the decision process was much more controlled.

Now, it seems like dictatorships is on the verge of getting the upper hand. In democracies, there are limitations on data accumulation (privacy laws) and data is distributed across government entities in a way that is (sometimes even intentionally) hard to consolidate. In dictatorships, data for all entities could be concentrated in one location, granting the government a lot of power if it will use the data to its full extent. China is a great such example, they are working towards this goal as we speak, by putting cameras everywhere, monitoring all Internet traffic, and more...

</comment><comment><USER17> It's easy to view the past as some romantic fairy tale.

In reality the world has probably never been more democratic than it is today. The current political trends might flip in a few years. Things might be moving backwards, but the US might still have stronger oversight of it's intelligence agencies than it did in the 70'ties?

As long as people aren't silently outraged we'll be okay :)

</comment><comment><USER18> About the US, it's not very reassuring when, in the same week, the President says "(Xi Jinping), he's now president for life. President for life. And he's great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot some day." just a while after saying "I like taking the guns early (...) take the guns first, then go through due process".

Even if he's joking about the US _giving that a shot_ , he's pandering to a newly-anointed "president for life".

[https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/968953652483379202](https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/968953652483379202)

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/04/donald- trump...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/04/donald-trump- praises-xi-jinping-power-grab-give-that-a-shot-china)

</comment><comment><USER19> I've always wondered: is there a paper/thesis somewhere suggesting a better alternative to democracy? I don't mean the usual (monarchy, dictatorship, etc), but rather something entirely new.

I imagine there must be at least one political sciences/philosophy student somewhere who gave this a thought, but I never found anything.

<comment><USER20> There's demarchy - a random sampling of the population. Like democracy, it ensures that people have a way to change laws they don't like.

Unlike democracy, it doesn't suffer from the fact that the corrupt or power hungry rise to the top. Lobbyists would have less power.

There are also some suggestions that a random sampling of a population will lead to a better selection mechanism - similar to suggestions that promoting randomly would be better for organisations.[https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education...](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2010/nov/01/random- promotion-research)

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

<comment><USER21> > Unlike democracy, it doesn't suffer from the fact that the corrupt or power > hungry rise to the top.

I don't see any reason to believe that is true in any substantive way. Most of the corrupting and influence mechanisms that work in democracy work in demarchy, and some are cheaper. OTOH, there's an entirely new corruption mechanism introduced, corrupting the "random" selection mechanism (either at the source or between the notional mechanism and the public reporting of results, which is ultimately what really matters).

<comment><USER20> The idea is that the funding mechanisms at the heart of democracy comes with strings attached - people who are pretty much required to accept donations to get elected. These donations often have strings attached.

Besides that 'The desire to be a politician should be enough to ban you from ever becoming one' (Bill Connolly), those who don't accept dubious donations will suffer in advertising dollars compared to those who do.

Additionally it has been noted that psychopaths often rise to the top - <USER2> problem that isn't presented with demarchy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In government? Yes. On the internet? It's coming back.

Really though, in government it died with Athens.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yes, democracy is dying, assuming it was ever "alive" \- barring small, token movements, the rich ruling classes have always been that. We, the people, are often presented with unpalatable choices and little hope of changing the actual status quo. Looking over a significant timeline, say the past 50 years, we see a trend of the rich getting richer, the poor remaining poor, and the middle classes sliding into poverty. The only relevant skillset most politicians are bringing to the table is "getting elected", so essentially democracy's leaders are the winners of a popularity contest.

As a species, we are ruled by special interest groups, greed, and lust for power. This has always been the case, and will remain to case for a long time to come. The only difference is that the ruling classes have learned that the best way to stave off violent revolution is to provide the masses with some creature comforts and the vision of "working hard (for them) to make more money (controlled by them) so you can buy more stuff (sold by them)". We live in a post-scarcity environment that is artificially kept under the thumb. The real problems we face - such as a rapidly approaching fresh water shortage, environmental calamity, and a rapidly changing production environment (robots and AI will eat the jobs) - are being ignored in preference to ever increasing profits.

<comment><USER24> "Being too cynical and pleasantly surprised is not more sophisticated than being too idealistic and disappointed."

[https://mobile.twitter.com/jonlovett/status/8899319641442467...](https://mobile.twitter.com/jonlovett/status/889931964144246784?lang=en)

<comment><USER25> Having a truthful model of the world is important to me, whether that is labeled as optimism or cynicism. The history of the world does show that small numbers of people have wielded huge power for a long time, and that has fact hasn't changed.

<comment><USER24> If you have "little hope of changing the actual status quo" why would you even bother trying to affect change? Therefore you're maintaining the status quo through cycnicism.

Your "truthful model" is another person's abandonment of any hope of improving the world.

<comment><USER25> I'm not the OP, but they did say "often" not "always" \- i would agree with that. Blind hope is of little use just like uninformed cynicism. Seeing a tough fight does not preclude one from fighting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It bums me out when I see articles and online discussions about democracy in the US (the article mentions both the US and the world) and I CTRL+F "republic," only to find instances of the word "Republican" and zero mentions of the fact that the United States of America is NOT and has never been a "democracy," but rather a federal republic.

</comment><comment><USER27> No. It's true that democracy was weakened when the early "wild west" internet interfered with broadcast media's ability to steer public conversation. The temporary result was a rise of anti-democratic populism in the west.

However, democracy is already reasserting itself, as governments and capital learn how to shape consensus formation on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER28> Just take a look at this image [http://english.ahram.org.eg/Media/News/2014/9/26/2014-635473...](http://english.ahram.org.eg/Media/News/2014/9/26/2014-635473273882629702-262.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER29> I think there are some real problems. Some constitutional, some cultural. Applicable to many countries, not just the US:

\- We like to think that we keep our representatives accountable through transparency. Now we can no longer claim the information is too hard to get. Now tell me how often your rep voted in a way that suited your preference. Or tell me how many times he voted at all. Or tell me his name.

\- Your representatives represent you on everything. Even things they didn't talk about in the election. And those things might actually matter to you.

\- The space of politics has gotten huge. In the early days of democracy the state did not reach into every walk of life. Now of course there are political ideas about the size of government, but you can't deny the scope of it has massively increased. We're asking a lot of ordinary people to decide on things that they aren't experts on, that don't affect them because they are removed from that particular part of life.

\- If you live in a country with multiple parties in parliament, your reps need to horse-trade issues they like for things they don't care so much about. Often this leads to them not being able to deliver on their program, with the excuse permanently being that they aren't a majority.

\- Politics has become a career in most countries I follow. Especially in the European countries, it's almost like athletics: you have to have joined a party from a young age. Who makes it and who doesn't depends not on experience in the rest of society, but position within the party hierarchy. An old boy from my school was a UK MP, but he never made it to the front bench because he'd spent his whole working life doing an actual job in industry (rather than a job in media, which is a job in politics).

\- Politics/career 2: once you're invested in a political career, the option to do a real life job is both closed and unappealing. There's some ordinary exits/sabbaticals: you get sent to Europe where you can hide from the media and spend lots of taxpayer's money without even showing up to work (they cheat and send their entry passes for one guy to scan), or you can work for a pseudo-government organisation like an NGO. But mainly you really, really want to just stay in your current position. Especially if you're a minister and you collect a lifetime pension after some threshold.

\- Messiah Politics: If we elect Obama, a smart, educated guy who is a great speaker, everything will be better. He's so smart he'll know what to do about every issue. I don't have to do anything, he'll take care of it. And lets make the whole election campaign into a heartwarming movie.

\- Organized interests: they're organized, and they know how to influence career politicians. Corporations that want to sell guns/butter, pollute the environment, and cheat the consumer. Trade unions who want unreasonable concessions. And so on. What can we do about this? And organized, specific interest group can win stuff because that interest is weighed against the diffuse interests of all other interests. To start with, we should probably make it completely clear who is doing the talking. Where is money coming from, and who have our reps been meeting with? I think the state of transparency varies a fair bit across countries, but I've never seen anywhere where it's completely clear and easy to discover this kind of information.

\- Media culture: everything is sensational. Force the guy to say yes or no. Flip side of that, never say yes or no, just explain your position in a long winded way. Or talk around the question. Everything is myopic, there is no holistic impression, despite what I said about your rep being your rep on everything. Constant crisis: is this the issue that forces rep X to resign? Nothing is ever said that puts things into perspective, like the history of some topic (minimum wage, marijuana, gambling, everything...).

Potential improvements:

\- Term limits. Ideas about how to govern, like liberalism or socialism don't die. But there's no reason a single person would have to stay in power to explain such ideas.

\- Pay people what they made before. You don't discourage high earners from serving, and you don't encourage people for whom parliament is a huge salary increase.

\- Complete transparency. Rep X will meet these people on these days. They represent XYZ organization, which is funded in these amounts by these people. Have an independent body review this, like the doping agency in sports.

<comment><USER30> Term limits tend to hand power to the beureaucracy because the newly elected official doesn't know enough policy to be effective.

Democracy needs:

Democracy needs smaller states and districts. Citizens per representative as a ratio is higher than ever, and we lose representation responsive to local concerns.

Media now focuses on national politics. State and local politics suffer because of it.

Increased State/Decreased Federal power provides a way for ideological divisions to be resolved at the local level , and thus lose potency as political red meat.

Move to a weekly news cycle so policy can be worked out and digested before being reported.

Foreign state powers ( especially geopolitical advesaries) should have very limited access to manipulate hearts and minds of citizens.

Mass microtargetting of citizens with personalized propoganda tailored to their personality and weaknesses should not be permitted or heavily regulated.

<comment><USER31> Personally I've thought government and democracy both work best the more the local they get. The problem with that is there's just more inherent power when you have power over larger groups of people. If you have a fix or even a "fix" for a problem or even a "problem" then the temptation to implement it over the greatest number of people you can is extremely high. If it's a good idea (and why would do it if it wasn't?) why do it just for the city? Why not do it for the state or the country? And once you're doing something for (or to) everyone, how can you test to see if stopping that is a good idea?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think that yes, democracy is dying, and popular 'for all' democracy with universal suffrage has been a bad idea from the very beginning. People who don't own significant amount of property (say, sufficient to provide rent above poverty threshold), shouldn't vote, because their votes are irresponsible by definition, and they are too easy to manipulate. Worst case it leads to 'bread and circuses' mode of societal collapse.

<comment><USER23> _People who don 't own significant amount of property (say, sufficient to provide rent above poverty threshold), shouldn't vote, because their votes are irresponsible by definition, and they are too easy to manipulate_

Can you back that statement up with data?

<comment><USER33> I'm hoping I read that wrong because it sure sounds tyrannical.

<comment><USER24> Sure sounds like late 18th century America to me. [https://a.s.kqed.net/pdf/education/digitalmedia/us-voting- ri...](https://a.s.kqed.net/pdf/education/digitalmedia/us-voting-rights- timeline.pdf)

(Which is terrible, to be clear. I support making Election Day a national holiday and probably enfranchising 16 year olds.)

Edit: anovikov, you keep getting flagged and I have a question for you: I am genuinely curious as to whether you actually believe this, or if you're trying to make a Swiftian 'eat the poor' commentary. I cannot tell and would love to know.

<comment><USER34> Election day on a Tuesday is INSANE.

It almost seems like that is designed to prevent the working class from voting.

<comment><USER35> It is insane. You would think with our technical advancement as a country that we would be able to vote remotely and also obtain good information about candidates and their policies.

<comment><USER24> Washington state has figured this out. I think Oregon has too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startup provides 'A Better View of Code' - <AUTHOR> http://www.drdobbs.com/tools/225700312

<comment><USER2> Which languages does it work on? I don't find this information.

<comment><USER3> Their FAQ (<http://www.architexa.com/support/faq>) seems to imply that it's for Java with possible C/C++ coming.</comment></comment>


New DNS hijacking technique exploits RAM errors - <AUTHOR> http://domainincite.com/bit-squatting-%E2%80%93-the-latest-risk-to-domain-name-owners/ <comment><USER2> One bit in one gigabyte of RAM is 1 in 8,589,934,592. Wolfram Alpha estimates there are "over one billion computers" in the world.

Let's be charitable and say that every single one of those is connected to the internet 24x7 and they love microsoft so much that they visit the url every hour, so 24 times a day. To get even more accommodating, let's imagine every single computer in the world has a single bit error occur every hour as well, right before they head to microsoft.com.

In that case you'd expect about 3 hits a day.

I'm sure it can happen, but I'd be surprised if most of the traffic wasn't caused by other things. I can't be the only one who noticed in mic2osoft.com the number 2 is only two keys away from r. It may not be the most common typo in the world, but I bet the odds are a lot higher than 1 in 8.5 billion.

I almost think it's an inside joke, Kaminsky sounded just a wee bit too blown away while he was raving about the presentation last night. Or maybe that was just the booze tallking.

<comment><USER3> You assume error happens in RAM. Occurring on the wire seems far more likely. Don't forget that DNS is UDP and DNS servers cache their requests.

<comment><USER2> While I suspect you're right that the network path is more likely to error, udp does have a checksum that covers the entire payload so the DNS server would ignore the packet.

Also, the dns client is waiting for an address for the host that it requested. If it asks "where is alice?" and the dns server replies "bob is at x.x.x.x" it won't go there because the names don't match. So the error pretty much has to have happened on the client, but it could be a disk error, dma glitch, bug, malware or maybe a bad proxy/firewall.

<comment><USER4> The UDP checksum is fairly weak, so a packet with two bit errors can pass the checksum.

Still, I would attribute hits on mic2soft.com to human error with higher likelihood than transmission errors. Human error is around 10^-2 [<http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/HumanErr/Basic.htm>] compared to transmission errors below 10^-9 for non-broken networks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems pretty unlikely with ECC modules. Worst reported error rate for regular RAM was 1 bit per hour per GB (via wikipedia) while other reports claim it'd take a century for that same amount of error.

Regardless, this is ever more reason to use something like TLS to initiate a trusted identity with another party. Even in the null cipher case, it's useful to exchange a certificate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sections 7 and 8 of this paper [1] discuss inducing memory faults and potential countermeasures. Specifically they indicate that many desktop PCs shipped without ECC hardware at the time of writing (2003). I'm not sure to what extent that's still true, but I imagine it could be a problem for the masses of cheap/old hardware in use around the world.

edit: I found some more recent numbers via [2]. Relevant quote: "Our first observation is that memory errors are not rare events. About a third of all machines in the fleet experience at least one memory error per year (see column CE Incid. %) and the average number of correctable errors per year is over 22,000. These numbers vary across platforms, with some platforms (e.g. Platform A and B) seeing nearly 50% of their machines affected by correctable errors, while in others only 12–27% are affected. The median number of errors per year for those machines that experience at least one error ranges from 25 to 611." They were using server-class machines with ECC.

[1] <http://sip.cs.princeton.edu/pub/memerr.pdf>

[2] <http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~bianca/papers/sigmetrics09.pdf>

<comment><USER6> Desktop machines still do not ship with ECC, other than a few high end ones that use server hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would this not be compensated in the end-to-end TCP checksumming? And couldn't the traffic to bit-squatting domains be accounted for by the myriad bots that constantly scan the web on port 80?

<comment><USER8> DNS is not a TCP protocol.

<comment><USER9> It can be either TCP or UDP. Regardless, UDP has a checksum as well.

The likelihood of a bit-flip is very uncommon. Even taking into account the volume of computers out there, the likelihood of a bit-flip at the exact spot (in the domain name) and moment of a DNS lookup (before the checksum is calculated) is astronomically uncommon. This article is garbage.

<comment><USER10> I wonder if there are more sources of error than just RAM bit-flipping. The bit could be flipped anywhere it's stored or passing through. If that is the case, the error rate would be orders of magnitude higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's some [probably faulty] code to test a given domain name for bit-flip variants that are unregistered.

<https://gist.github.com/1126162>

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how likely these errors are

<comment><USER13> > _Normally a couple hundred IPs a day will visit popular bitsquatted > destinations. #blackhat_

<https://twitter.com/#!/dakami/status/98910873044791297>

<comment><USER14> Someone posted a gist wich looks like DNS hits for facebook content delivery network (fbcdn.net) <https://gist.github.com/1125307> plus another one about top domains <https://gist.github.com/1125203> . It seems the odds are around 1 over 1 billion, or even less. Edit : Can it be something else? maybe IP/UDP checksum collision over corrupted packets ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Assuming DNS resolvers work as they should, most bitflips on the wire shouldn't result to anything else than a failed DNS query since DNS packets include the original requested FQDN in the result.

Scenario 1) Lets say we have normal Windows computer asking what is update.microsoft.com as an A-record. The computer's resolver sends its request to its ISP's DNS server it was assigned via DHCP. One bit is flipped on transit and the DNS server receives request to resolve update.mic2osoft.com and it does so. Then it returns the result via UDP telling the Windows computer that update.mic2osoft.com is 22.214.171.124, but the computer's resolver was expecting an answer for update.microsoft.com so it rejects(should reject) the result even though the transaction ID is what it expected. Also UDP checksum poses a problem the recursor could reject the packet and not do anything.

Scenario 2) Another scenario is where the bit corrupts on transit while the ISP's DNS recursor is querying the Verisign .com root servers for microsoft.com (assuming it's not cached) and one bit corrupts in transit. Verisign's server answers that mic2osoft.com DNS servers are ns1.mic2rosoft.com and ns2 and it provides the glue records for them (IP addresses) if necessary. DNS recursor receives an answer for mic2rosoft.com while it expects answer for microsoft.com and rejects the result before querying nsX.mic2rosoft.com. UDP checksum also a problem here.

Scenario 3) Bit flip on the Windows computer's RAM before gethostbyname() is called so they call gethostbyname(update.mic2osoft.com). Another timeframe for a successful bitflip is while the OS is running gethostbyname(update.microsoft.com) but before the request is sent. gethostbyname() only returns the IP address so the function caller will not know if its wrong. This is the most plausible scenario, ECC is also rare in consumer hardware so that shouldn't pose a problem.

Scenario 4) Bit flip on the DNS recursors RAM. This depends on whether the address to be queried is stored in several variables in the DNS server so the DNS answer packet to the Windows computer has the correct FQDN but the DNS server queried for the wrong address due to the bit flip. Servers usually have ECC so this is implausible but not impossible. Also if this happened, the DNS server's cache could also get the incorrect entry and give it out to many many many clients if it was a popular ISP's DNS server.

An interesting thought would be what if IP-addresses bit-flipped. If Microsoft had all their update servers in 126.96.36.199/24 and an attacker owned 18.104.22.168/24 with one bit flipped. How much traffic would the network receive? If bit flipped on transit while the server is returning answer for update.microsoft.com UDP checksum should be incorrect but what if a popular ISP's DNS recursor's cache had a flipped IP address for update.microsoft.com. Very implausible but would result in lot of traffic.

One more scenario comes to mind about IP bit-flipping. If ns1.microsoft.com was at 184.108.40.206 and an attacker owned 18.104.22.168 he could also configure his DNS server (more specifically the UDP stack on the Linux kernel) to ignore the invalid UDP checksums and serve falsified DNS answers.

Seems like the author's DEFCON speak will be held next Sunday, he probably knows much much more about the subject than what I just wrote. I will definitely read his slides/whitepaper.</comment>


American income tax rates from 1944 to 1963 were 92% [pdf]. - <AUTHOR> http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_individual_rate_history-june2010.pdf

<comment><USER2> To be truly comparative, the chart also needs to include, for each year, the median and average household incomes for each tax year as well.

Knowing that in 1917 those making over $2million were taxed at 67% is fine, but without converting $2million into todays dollar value, it is hard to compare the relative effect.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2+million+dollars+from+...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2+million+dollars+from+1917)

$ 33.73 million(2010 US dollars)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Read a great book about how destructive such high taxes are called The Way The World Works by Jude Wanniski.</comment>


Show HN: shfm – a tiny TUI file manager written in Posix shell - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dylanaraps/shfm <comment><AUTHOR> This is something I wrote a few days ago. All it requires is a POSIX shell and POSIX [, printf, dd and stty. Great for use in an initrd/initramfs or smaller environment as these tools are most likely available.

File operations (cp, mv, rm, etc) have not yet been implemented. It's on the TODO list. (though I'm unsure if they're even needed) We'll see. :)

Writing this was... interesting. POSIX shell is very limited in what it can do. Endless tricks have been used, see the "implementation details" section of the README.

Please let me know if you come across any issue.

I have also written a file manager in bash. [https://github.com/dylanaraps/fff](https://github.com/dylanaraps/fff)

Edit: To answer the "WHY?" question; I find pushing the shell beyond what it's supposed to do FUN!</comment>


How Being Hit by a Vehicle Changed Times Colleagues' Lives (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/nyregion/how-being-hit-by-a-vehicle-changed-times-colleagues-lives.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> I ride a motorcycle and was involved in a collision a few months ago and I can attest to one thing from the article:

"Your life will probably not be the same"

I wasn't injured as badly as the author was but flying through the air and breaking bones hurts. Thing is, I only changed my perspective because I was forced to. I'm much more patient on the bike, and more alert too. People everywhere drive while distracted (eating, makeup, the phone, their computer!, putting clothes on) and now I have to assume they will attempt to murder me. Most drivers don't have to go through that. They literally forget that driving is inherently extremely dangerous because they have ever improving cages around them. I would say that the vast majority of drivers are grossly negligent on the road.

Like other commenters mentioned, I've changed my language about vehicle collisions. I refuse to call them "accidents". Some may be, but "accident" implies that there's no fault. That nobody fucked up; but that's just not true in real life. People literally merge on top of me, while I'm __not__ lane- splitting at least 4-5 times a week. I consider almost any traffic death manslaughter, at least. If there's clear fault / distracted driving I consider it murder. It might be an extreme conclusion, but distracted driving is essentially saying "My trivial needs are more important than other motorists' lives." and it saddens me that our judicial system fails to adequately select for responsible driving.

<comment><USER3> Makes me think of a recent incident in Seattle where an aggressive driver in a large truck sped up and passed intentionally close to a bicyclist to intimidate them (incredibly, incredibly dangerous). This happens frequently enough as any cyclist can attest, but it was special because it was caught on camera and shared with the police. The cyclist tried to report it as attempted murder (and even the former mayor of Seattle described it as such), but the police department said, "This looks like an inconsiderate/unsafe pass. An officer would typically need to witness a violation in-progress to be able to stop the driver & confirm their ID to issue a citation." Nevermind that there was clear video of the whole thing.

About a month later a car hits and kills a cyclist and runs away. Who knows, maybe the driver was trying to do a non-prosecutable "inconsiderate/unsafe pass" that got a little too close.

[https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/10/12/25468300/this- vi...](https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/10/12/25468300/this-video-shows- how-entitled-drivers-endanger-cyclists) [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/transportation/bic...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/transportation/bicyclist-dies-in-crash-in-sodo-police-say/)

<comment><USER4> In 2003 a work colleague and I were crossing 5th ave in Seattle headed to lunch. While legally crossing, multiple cars ran the red light, collided with each other, then struck her. It was truly a miracle that she lived; frankly her being significantly overweight was likely the only reason she was saved. I was very lucky to jump back out of the way and avoided being struck.

That same year, there were two other car-pedestrian accidents _at that same intersection_ with at least one involving the fatality of a German tourist.

When I was called by the Seattle Police Department as a witness to the accident, they did everything they could to tell me that we had been jaywalking, rather than recognizing that no, _multiple cars_ had in fact been speeding trying to make it through the already red light. Fuck the police.

In reality, I'd say that my co-worker's life changed for the better. She lost a lot of weight, took up new activities, moved to the Bay Area, and had a new outlook.

For me, having seen all of it in moving detail, I guaranteed it resulted in undiagnosed PTSD.

<comment><USER5> In 2005 I was in Seattle watching a couple with a small child receive a citation for jaywalking because they were still in the road after the red hand stopped blinking. While the officer was writing the citation I saw the lights change and three cars ran the red, then at the beginning of the next cycle a car jumped the green to make a left before oncoming traffic. The officer didn't even look up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the US, cars kill more people than opiods, more people than guns. If you're under 35, your highest chance of dying is in a car crash. After 35, it's heart attacks and diabetes; in other words, severe lack of exercise because we drive everywhere. It's truly the silent health epidemic of our time.

Of course, you won't see improvement any time soon. Every bike lane or safe street initiative is met with "But my parking!" Every fatal accident due to driver intoxication, negligence, or road rage is dismissed by judges and juries alike because "That's just how it is".

<comment><USER7> > Every fatal accident due to driver intoxication, negligence, or road rage is > dismissed by judges and juries alike

Do you honestly believe there's even a shred of truth to this?

Vehicle accidents where people get hurt typically result in pretty severe punishment if there's even a hint of some performance impairing drug (e.g. alcohol) or malicious intent involved.

<comment><USER6> I'm most familiar with the Northeast... The Globe did a study of DUI cases and found greater than 85% of them were dismissed. All of the recent high profile bike fatalities in the Boston area resulted in no arrests, let alone penalties, despite the driver being at fault.

An SUV rolled over and killed 4 pedestrians on the sidewalk in the Back Bay. No arrests because the police couldn't determine which person in the vehicle was driving.

The case that will forever be burned into my head is Allison Lau in Queens. A 3yo in a crosswalk with her grandmother. The driver ran right over them, killing her. He lied to the police, saying the girl ran into the street and there was nothing he could do. Dashcam from another vehicle later showed he was on his phone when he was turning left. After public outcry, he was finally issued a $50 failure to yield ticket that was later dismissed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know it isn't directly about cycling, but this story reminds me of the parody article I saw in The Onion: "Study: 90% Of Bike Accidents Preventable By Buying Car Like A Normal Person" [1].

I commute 30 miles each day on an electric bike, and while I haven't been hit yet statistically it's only a matter of time. I wish we had the infrastructure in place to make cycling a safe alternative, but it'll take years of build out to get to that point.

One thing I will say is that San Francisco drivers are actually pretty courteous towards cyclists, even when I have to take up a whole lane (happens whenever there's on-street parking and no bike lane). It feels like about half of the people who swear at me/flip me off for "impeding traffic" have out-of- state license plates.

[1]: [https://www.theonion.com/study-90-of-bike-accidents- preventa...](https://www.theonion.com/study-90-of-bike-accidents-preventable- by-buying-car-1820403123)

<comment><USER9> Top Gear did an episode where they made a bunch of PSAs just like that:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK_Ru6tScBE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK_Ru6tScBE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting. It's dangerous to be a journo in the big city.

The newspaper should change its style guide to prohibit the use of the word "accident" to describe car crashes, except in verified quotations. They should call them "crashes" or another word that doesn't connote inevitability.

<comment><USER11> That would be weird because 1) what they are literally describing is the plain definition of 'accident'; 2) 'Accident' doesn't really connote inevitability.

<comment><USER12> It's worth disagreeing about - calling them 'accidents' removes responsibility from the drivers involved, think about phrases in English like "accidents happen" \- which are used specifically for this purpose. Calling them 'crashes' is simply a description of what happened, without any suggestion of why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A friend from my early years was just hit and died from a car. Crossing the street at night.

He was a musician and "the one to potentially make it" so it extra stings for everyone who knew him.

I'm more alert as I walk my neighborhood daily. A bit more cautious. Cars and other drivers simply do not care about you as much as you care for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER14> I was hit by a van a few weeks ago. I was on my bike, waiting to cross a busy street, the van was next to waiting to turn right and the driver was looking to his left to see when traffic stopped. Unfortunately he started moving before he turned to see what was in front of him. I was knocked off of my bike (I wasn't moving when I was struck) and my bike ended up getting run over & destroyed

It was a pretty surreal experience. At first I flipped out at the driver who was at work at the time. A woman called 911 and the police came to take statements. The driver was pretty apologetic afterwards and I apologized for being an asshole. It wasn't until a few hours later that I realized that I could have died pretty easily. He put his foot on the brake reasonably quickly after he hit me, but had he accidentally floored the van, I would have been run over too.

I also felt pretty bad for the driver. He probably got in some kind of trouble at work, and I realized that while I was mostly unharmed and only needed to get my bike replaced, he could lose his job. I know that getting hit is pretty serious, and the reason was because of the same carless behavior a lot of people that drive seem to do (myself included).

<comment><USER9> We make driving far too easy. Narrower lanes, trees right next to the roads, and more potholes would probably go a long way toward making driving safer, both for the drivers and for everyone else. Because at the end of the day, drivers subconsciously adjust their behavior to achieve an apparently-constant risk level as roads and cars improve.

Or there's always the spike-in-the-steering-column theory. [https://jalopnik.com/theres-actually-a-name-for-a- steering-w...](https://jalopnik.com/theres-actually-a-name-for-a-steering- wheel-with-a-big-1791445206)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm going to guess a lot of these accidents are during a turn right on a red or an unprotected left turn? In a very crowded city they are very difficult to make with constant pedestrian traffic. And then my own experience in Berkeley and SF is that pedestrians tend to be impatient and cross on a red at all the minor intersections. One of the reasons I just avoid driving in such crowded places.

<comment><USER16> Unless the law has changed since I got my California license, pedestrians have the right of way at all crosswalks regardless of what the lights say. Also, every intersection has crosswalks at it, even if they haven't been painted on the street.

<comment><USER17> And unless its changed since I got mine, a car may not enter a crosswalk that _has a pedestrian in it_. Not often enforced, but I think its there to make it always the car's fault?

<comment><USER18> It varies. In a marked crosswalk I think you're generally correct, however if a pedestrian just jumps out to cross the road in front of a car it's likely going to be the pedestrian's fault. At some point pedestrians have to be a little bit responsible and respectful of the gross difference in mass between their bodies and even a small car.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


World's oldest man dies in Japan at age 113 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/20/worlds-oldest-man-masazo-nonaka-dies-in-japan-at-113 <comment><USER2> I thought the oldest person was in Turkey and just registered to vote? [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-46946282](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46946282)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're old, stay away from Japan! It's dangerous.

This isn't the first time.

:-)</comment>


20 Ways to Attack Shyness - <AUTHOR> http://thinksimplenow.com/happiness/20-ways-to-attack-shyness/ <comment><USER2> I had an 'anxiety disorder' in my early high school years (mid 90's). I don't just mean around girls either. I would actually get butterflies whenever the monotonous redialing of my modem would be broken by that glorious screeching and scratching sound that meant I was finally connecting to the coolest local bbs. You know... the one where I was on track to make sysop one day; where I was clearly gaining the upper hand in a few threads of great import; where the girl I (and everyone else) liked might have accepted my marriage proposal in LORD.

The family doctor gave me some pills to take as needed, said they'd calm me down. And they did. Before long I forgot all about the pills and didn't seem to need them anymore, online or off. I got some contacts, my acne went away, I got a skater/hacker identity and a girlfriend. About a year later I found out they had been sugar pills. A total placebo.

So I got tricked out of my shyness.

</comment><comment><USER3> All this psychologizing about shyness: poor self-esteem, self-consciousness, withholding oneself from others out of selfishness, etc. My own shyness, and that of other shy people I know, has been due to something completely different, and much more straightforward:

      Not knowing the social conventions.

What is it that people are doing at parties? What are they talking about? Why are they doing this? It seems incomprehensible. With someone I haven't met or barely know, it's hard to find a way to say what comes to mind in a way that a total stranger would relate to. With someone I know well, I can say what comes to mind, because there's a lot of shared context. This is the common pattern among introverts: quiet with strangers, endlessly talkative with close friends. And why is that? Because with close friends, you have the shared context and conventions needed to have the kind of conversation that makes sense to you.

(Please, no pity or advice. I've worked on my shyness and gotten good enough at connecting with strangers to occasionally even pick up women on the street --a skill every hacker entrepreneur should have. I'm just pointing out that the psychologizing is wrong. The path out of shyness, at least for a lot of us geeks, is simply to learn to play the social game, not to address some sort of self-esteem issue.)

<comment><USER4> You seem to be framing the issue as a rational rather than emotional problem -- i.e., not knowing the social conventions.

I don't buy it. Stick an extroverted people person and an introverted shy guy in an unfamiliar social situation (in a foreign country, say). The way they deal with it will differ greatly. The extrovert will plow ahead, not worry too much about making mistakes, and figure out how to play the social game pretty quickly. The introvert will probably be too scared of doing things wrong to even start.

Learning to play the social game is not hard: make eye contact, open your mouth, and start talking. Building the courage to actually do it _is_ hard. That's crux for most shy people (as it was for me).

If you're out there talking to people and still can't find shared context, then you're not shy, you're just talking to the wrong people. Time to seek out different social gatherings.

For those that have difficulty learning from social interactions (autistic spectrum folks), things may admittedly be different. This is outside my experience so I can't speak to it.

<comment><USER3> Indeed I am framing this as a rational rather than emotional problem.

I think you made a very good point about the difference in the way extraverts and introverts enter new social situations. That really does make a huge difference: just dive in, mess up, and adjust (a lot like, say, running a start-up). That will get the learning process going. I think there's another element, though: that incomprehension of "lite" social interaction.

Regarding the courage hypothesis, here's how I've often heard it put: "Oh, don't be afraid, don't care what other people think, just say what you really want to say." To me, this misses what's happening. What's really happening is simply not having a clue how to participate. A dial tone on the brain. The reason, if I pick up a guitar, I don't play music, isn't because I'm afraid to, but because I don't know how to play guitar. I tried going to bars a bunch (I seem to have lots of social courage), but I didn't really get anywhere until some friends explained various social protocols: posture, how to make physical contact, how to pick out clothes, what to _not_ talk about (decorators in Python, cryonics), etc.

Here's a weird piece of evidence: extraverts have exactly the same feeling of disorientation in our world. Get a strong extravert into a conversation that pursues something in depth (not so much breadth), and they get a dial tone on the brain, too. They quickly bail, the same way introverts bail out of social situations.

Hmm... mild autism. Maybe that's what I've got (and many other shy, geeky people). That's a new angle, and it might be right.

Another possibility: optimal stimulation level.

<comment><USER5> Mild autism is too harsh of a term for most shy, geeky people I think. Things like this in psychology are a bell curved spectrum. Being a little to the left or right doesn't mean you are autistic, it just means you have more characteristics that are associated with one side of the spectrum or another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had been shy as a teen and got over it. But since my last girlfriend left around a year ago (my first serious relationship), I've been thrown back into the breach.

I had forgotten how diabolical this torment was, actually. Inability to connect with any other person. No interest in meeting new people, despite a persistent, stinging loneliness. It's really fascinating to revisit this state as an adult. And painful.

<comment><USER7> If you're so shy, how'd you manage to post personal information in a public forum, like this?

<comment><USER6> Somehow I feel comfortable here. Not sure why. I wouldn't have posted this anywhere else.

<comment><USER8> I understand completely. I'm here every day, reading and posting all the time. I do this nowhere else. No facebook, no friendfeed, no twitter, just this and email.

Then I go to a cocktail party or happy hour and stand in the corner.

<comment><USER5> congrats on the gmail!

I had a very poignant moment when I started forwarding my Pitt email to gmail and realized it was the email address I was going to have for the rest of my life.

<comment><USER8> _I was going to have for the rest of my life_

I hope so. That's what I thought when I switched to yahoo mail.

But when you start missing emails because you're getting thousands of spam per day, it's time to move on.

You'd think someone smarter than me would have fixed this scourge by now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Excellent article. Tips (#11,#12,#14,#16) are key. Especially #16 ("Practice being in uncomfortable situations") - the idea is that what is uncomfortable for you is very personal and very real and what you need to work on...

Daily practice makes shyness diminish. As someone who has been aware of his shyness all his life, I think it really simmers down to: selfishness (they're thinking about me [no they're not]), perfectionism (what do I say? if I clam up say nothing, I won't be hurt [umm?]), and most importantly, expectations, I hope they like me [twisted logic: if they don't like me, then I'll be hurt. So I won't talk to them, and I'll be in my shell and protected]

Great quote from one of the commenters:

"The way you overcome shyness is to become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid" \- Claudia Lady Bird Johnson

<comment><USER10> Your tips like these are awesome.

I should have thanked you earlier as well. edw519 and I followed <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=119006> in SS'08 and got great results. Thanks a lot.

<comment><USER9> You're welcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Xlp-Thlplylp The good news is that you'll never get over it. In my youth I developed severe, disfiguring calcifications of the scalp, which required surgery. The result was suboptimal, I still have numerous lesions left, and I face a scalp resection to get rid of all of them. I also had a jaw deformity--I didn't feel free to smile in public, until I was in my mid thirties. I was shy 30 years ago, and today I am proud to announce that despite the setbacks, despite never getting married and having a family, and despite the opportunity and economic costs, which have been considerable, and despite the lost time, which cannot be recovered, I am slightly less withdrawn today than I was then. My attitude did undergo a subtle but significant improvement.

</comment><comment><USER11> I had a great time with Salsa dancing. In the right place, you dance with lots of different girls all evening long. Since you can take classes, you can get reasonably good at it so as to make a good impression. Lots of girls will dance, some won't, but because each song only lasts so long, you can meet lots of people. Furthermore, it's fun in its own right, nice music, doesn't cost much, and you can learn a surprising amount about someone from 2 or 3 minutes of dancing with them.

<comment><USER4> I was going to post the same thing. Another plus is that the salsa community is filled with classy and smart people (it takes a surprising amount of brainpower to dance well -- many of the best leaders are techies).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of my biggest problems is with #18. I don't know any social places that are 'comfortable' to me (heck, I get nervous when I go to new IRC chat rooms...), so I don't really have a place to practice any of the other things they talk about.

<comment><USER13> you are comfortable on these forums. Or at least comfortable enough to post comments.

<comment><USER12> Yes. After a year(ish) of lurking with no account, and 130 days of having an account here, I have finally settled down to a state where I type out at least 1/10 the comments I think of, post at least 1/5 those I type out, and leave the majority of those undeleted!

And after working with my current co-workers for a few months, I finally have courage to say something once in a while.

But attrition doesn't work in most social settings... It's a difficult way to make friends (though the friends you do eventually make are good) - I made one friend in 4.5 years of college. And it's downright horrid for getting girlfriends...

<comment><USER13> I have many of the same feelings and the only difference is I've learned to deal with it.

I think part of what wasn't communicated in the article was that those tendencies don't necessarily go away. People just learn to cope with them better. Or at least that is how it is for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Throughout most of my life I was an extrovert except I was frustrated that I didn't know how to bring new people into my life. And I also dealt with that nervousness of being a stranger in a room (bar, party, whatever)--then I discovered a few things that helped:

1) ask open ended questions

2) speak in the 'I' perspective... none of the "you know how it is when you do this"... "when I did this..."

3) take an interest in the other person; I made a goal to find out something special about the person in every conversation with someone new; taking an interest in the other person completely ignoring myself really made a difference.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is related to this thread. I followed the advice given as well as my own advice. -> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=169295>

</comment><comment><USER16> "Attack Shyness"? Shyness seems unlikely to respond well to being attacked. I'd rather say something like "address shyness".

The point may seem minor, but wording affects how you frame a problem, which in turn has a big effect on the solution. In my experience, when working with parts of oneself, it's better not to frame things oppositionally.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was shy when I was young (until mid way through college). My shyness was labeled as a problem. My family and friends said that I should enjoy going to basketball games and meeting new friends, going to parties, being social, etc.

As I grew up I realized that I really didn't enjoy what most people in the world enjoy. I don't enjoy going out to bars, clubs, big sports events, dancing, etc. I don't like attending parties and networking with new people. I really don't enjoy meeting random people while traveling. There are of course exceptions. But in general I've accepted the fact that it's OK to put myself in situations that I am most comfortable in.

I think a few things need to be clear to people that are shy now. First there is nothing wrong with not enjoying excessively social environments, there are (likely) other people out there who enjoy the same things you do. Second, it is OK to choose your friends and surround yourself with other people that stimulate and interest you. One really good insightful friend is worth 1000 contacts from all these social events that everyone thinks we should be attending. Third, ditch all the negative people around you because they will only add to any shyness. Lastly, you only live once. This has been a surprising motivator when deciding to attend or get involved in some social environments.

I think a blog like this is OK but it is also misleading. There are people who tend to be introverts, and that is OK. Our society does not encourage or allow introversion. It is considered "unhealthy" by the psychology and medical types. I argue that this is not always the case. A person can be introverted and private and do just about anything. For example: I know a circumstance where an introverted private person owns and runs a medium size (1000+ employee) company. I have seen him at social events where he attends (quietly) for whatever the least amount of time is to be polite and then he'll leave. I know another introverted private person who is a retired Vice President at a DOW 30 company (his division did $300+ million a year revenue). He is an excellent communicator with his core team and in small meetings or one on one. He, to this day, still struggles and is uncomfortable giving speeches or attending large events. It is absolutely possible to be successful and still be uncomfortable in large social situations.

Addressing a self esteem or self consciousness problem is important. It'll in fact make life easier and increase the likelihood of success. But it will not make you less shy or less introverted. It will make you better able to deal with those feelings. It'll allow you to put yourself in a situation that you wouldn't otherwise be in. But from my experience you will just be able to deal with being uncomfortable better than before.

Some additional background:

In college I decided I was missing out on something. That maybe there was something to all this socializing. So I went through similar steps to properly socialize myself and fend off my shyness. I began to attend house parties (even though I don't drink or smoke). I began to attend university clubs. I went to more spectator sporting events and extra curricular sports. Eventually I took on leadership rolls in a few different clubs. Later on I ran for senate at my university and was a senator for two years. By the time I finished college, my experiment complete, I decided that I would avoid uncomfortably large social situations whenever possible. There was no huge advantage to socializing on a large scale.

Now-a-days I'm a software developer. I lead a small group of people at a small company. Occasionally I have to lead meetings with 6-12 people in attendance. Rarely I'll get called on to participate at larger meetings. I'm still uncomfortable but I just do it.

On a personal note I socialize with a handful of close friends. I avoid most parties, clubs, bars, loud crazy restaurants, etc whenever possible. I prefer long in depth conversations with a few people. Done are the days where I'd meet 20 new people and talk to them about fluff. I go to dinner at places that provide some semblance of privacy and allow conversation. Occasionally I'll meet a new person and they end up being a close friend (which is great!). I no longer feel any societal pressure to attend uncomfortable social situations.

I think the best words of advice when it comes to shyness are "Just do it" and "You only live once".

</comment><comment><USER17> Read "The Game" and then "The Mystery Method." Seriously. And I think its not too much to say that there are side benefits besides becoming less shy after reading them.

</comment><comment><USER18> My wife calls shyness a form of selfishness, as we decide not to share of ourselves with others.

<comment><USER19> It is probably not a good strategy to blame yourself of being selfish if you are already shy, since that will just hurt your self-evaluation and make you more shy.

Better to realize that other (including non-shy) people are just as self- absorbed as you are, and therefore wont bother to judge you - they are far to busy judging themselves and wondering how other people will judge them! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Point #15 is important. I've found that just going out and being as social as possible with many different people is essential in honing your own social skills.

Don't sit at home on the couch (or chair, just coding). You need to get out there in order to succeed.

</comment><comment><USER21> Finding the advice also good as I learn to fail more often.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've been slashing the recent trend of "shyness coaching" articles on news.ycombinator, but the article is actually kinda good, as far as pop psychology goes.

</comment><comment><USER23> My 3 rules

* Be your true self

* Practice socializing everywhere you are

* Don't care what other people think</comment>


Measuring the size of the Earth by watching a shadow on a wall - <AUTHOR> https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/LatitudeCorrection.html?sa03h <comment><AUTHOR> The mods have changed the title, which absolutely is fair enough, and this one is more descriptive. So "thank you" to the mods for doing that.

In the interests of full disclosure, this specific post is how to calculate your latitude from watching a shadow on a wall. To calculate the size of the Earth you need to combine that with the earlier posts:

[https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/TheRadiusOfTheEarth.html?sa03...](https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/TheRadiusOfTheEarth.html?sa03h)

[https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/RadiusOfTheEarthPartTwo.html?...](https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/RadiusOfTheEarthPartTwo.html?sa03h)

However, the title is a good 'un, and again, my thanks to the mods.

<comment><USER2> Incidentally and on an vaguely related note, Pytheas (that I mentioned here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801645](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801645) ) also was the first recorded to measure latitude using a gnomon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Slightly related, but in the Hanuman Chalisa by Hindu poet-saint, Tulsidas, who was born in 1497, mentioned that the distance from the earth to the sun is approximately 108 times the width of the sun.

yuga sahasra yojana para bhānū līlyo tāhi madhura phala jānū

yuga-sahasra-yojana = 12000 x 1000 yojanas.

Yojana is a Vedic measure of distance and approximately equals to 8 miles (according to the 14th century scholar Parameshvara, the originator of drgganita system). And 1 mile = 1.60934 kilometers.

According to the calculation presented in Hanuman Chalisa Distance between Sun and Earth = 12000 x 1000 yojanas = 96 million miles = 153.6 million kms, which is much closer to the calculation of modern science.

How could he have known this at that time?

<comment><AUTHOR> > _How could he have known this at that time?_

Fairly trivially.

The Sun's angular size is about 0.5 degrees. If A is the angular size of the Sun then the distance to the Sun is 1/sin(A).

Using the rough figure of 1/2 a degree, that makes the Sun about 114.6 times as far as its width. You can measure it more accurately and get a better figure.

You don't need modern trigonometry to do this - part of the point of the linked post is how to do these calculations _without_ knowing about modern trigonometry, just using distances and ratios.

<comment><USER4> For the lazy, when an angle is small you can just approximate sin(theta) with theta. Theta of course has to be in radians. So 0.5 degrees is .0087267 radians. sin(0.5 degrees) is .0087265.

Putting it all together, 1 / (0.5 * Pi / 180) = 114.6.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Must read on the topic: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes)

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that what Eratosthenes did was brilliant, but it relies on being able to travel and measure large distances. The whole point of these techniques is that they can be used simply on the beach front without having to travel.

Seriously, if you can get to a beach, you can do this.

<comment><USER5> Yes it cannot be considered the same method, but my guess is that who is interested in this more advanced method absolutely need to know the Eratosthenes method. I absolutely need to use the method in this post with my children, one of the most powerful showcase of science I can think of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd be curious if there's a trick to doing this (or aproxamitly) without relying on the Equinox.

<comment><USER6> Also, I believe if we're being pedantic, this causes issues:

> However, because the Moon (and to a lesser extent the other planets) cause > the motion of the Earth to vary from a perfect ellipse, the equinox is now > officially defined by the Sun's more regular ecliptic longitude rather than > by its declination. The instants of the equinoxes are currently defined to > be when the longitude of the Sun is 0° and 180°.[4] There are tiny (up to 1¼ > arcsecond) variations in the Sun's latitude (discussed below), which means > the Sun's center is rarely precisely over the equator under the official > definition. The two understandings of the equinox can lead to discrepancies > of up to 69 seconds.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes indeed - "Equinox" us being used here as a shorthand for "the date that makes this work, which is roughly Equinox, but might be a little different".

The differences are small, there are larger error margins elsewhere in the calculations as given. It's an interesting exercise to start to chase these down and make this as precise as possible, but that wasn't the purpose of the post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shouldn't the title be "The size of the Earth, a correction" according to site policy?</comment>


Finder of lost phone regrets 'mistake' in keeping/selling it - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/iphone-finder/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wired/index+(Wired:+Index+3+(Top+Stories+2)) <comment><USER2> Well sure. Once the consequences of your wrongful actions come home to roost of course you're going to come to regret those actions.

I think this guy is probably being a bit too harshly treated by the media / public, but I would hope this whole thing will give others pause when they weigh the morality of filching lost property even when there's the opportunity to make a few quick kilobucks and be part of a, to you perhaps, exciting scoop in technology journalism.

</comment><comment><USER3> Now he's paying the $5k to retain a lawyer. brutal! haha

</comment><comment><USER4> On reccomendation of his lawyer, "he regrets"...

Returning the 5k would be a sign of true regret.

</comment><comment><USER5> The lawyer is going to have to wrest that $5k from the mouths of those orphans in Kenya...you know, the orphans the alleged thief spends his spare time raising money for.

<comment><USER6> And I don't think the lawyer will have a problem with this. I've never seen a lawyer with moral obligations :-). You want to chat with this lawyer, that's a $250 fee for the first 5 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> He should have taken a day or two to return the phone (not weeks), and he shouldn't have let Gizmodo disassemble it. But otherwise, to be honest, I don't see what he did wrong.

<comment><USER8> he practically stole the phone and then sold it. he didn't even try to leave it at the bar, to ask the day later the bar people if somebody asked for it (the guy who was missing it returned more times!) he didn't try to return it directly to Apple (And maybe receiving the current generation phone as the present) he obviously wanted to profit by selling it to somebody else, as he asked more media companies!

<comment><USER9> The case here is a "reasonable attempt" to return the phone. It is very possible that asking the other patrons if the phone belonged to them was reasonable enough.

<comment><USER10> Thief logic.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Toshiba makes a personal Nuclear Reactor. Available in the US 2009 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html

<comment><USER2> Maybe its premature optimization, but: what happens when the fuel is consumed? All the reactor must be dumped or it is enough with the fuel?

I hope the owners never have to call the helpdesk!

<comment><USER3> The DOE has a similar project on a larger scale. Typically in these designs the fuel comes with the reactor, along with everything else: it is a sealed device. Once the fuel is spent, the reactor is shipped back to a plant, the waste disposed, and the case recycled and refueled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently Toshiba is planning to pilot this (or something of the kind) in Galena, Alaska:

<http://www.adn.com/front/story/4214182p-4226215c.html>

<http://www.kiyu.com/news1007_2.htm>

</comment><comment><USER5> Is this a joke? Would you really feel comfortable with a nuclear reactor in your basement?

<comment><USER6> "Please tell me this doesn't run on gas! Gas explodes, you know?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's the real issue:

How many people are employed by power companies and their related organizations? Thousands? Hundreds of Thousands? Millions? My guess is millions at least.

When all those people lose their jobs because everyone has their own power plant in their basement, it's going to make the depression look like a bull market!

This is the true cost of our way of life that most environmentalists have trouble admitting. The scale of change required would be revolutionary. It will hurt.

<comment><USER8> You mean, just like all those Gatorade employees in the movie Idiocracy? :-)

<comment><USER9> But, its got what plants need !

(Brawno I think they called it).</comment></comment></comment>


Xi Jinping's daughter has returned to US to resume studies at Harvard - <AUTHOR> https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3796172 <comment><USER2> Anyone else amazed at the profound symbolism of this? It seems like China gives so much more thought to symbolism than we do in the West.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure how symbolic it is, it's not like the US is going to arrest a Harvard student _who is also the daughter of the Chinese dictator_ for political reasons.

<comment><USER4> But the idea that Harvard is still the "best place" for his daughter _is_ symbolic.

<comment><USER5> Kim Jong-un studied in Switzerland, Pol Pot in France.

<comment><USER6> Chiang Kai Shek, and both founders of the Communist Party of China were educated in Japan

<comment><USER7> Perhaps they studied politics very well to understand the positive and negative traits of democracy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> tedk-42 I'm amazed this is a news article and that people are drawing any kind of political opinions, motivations or messages.

<comment><USER8> If you look at it from the perspective of a collectivist culture, which China is, this is indeed a very big deal. The president's own daughter jetting off to the USA whilst the party has been ramping up its anti-western rhetoric has major political ramifications. However, I highly doubt this news will reach the majority of people in China.

<comment><USER9> What news does reach "the majority of people in China"?

The children of senior officials routinely study overseas, it's painfully mundane.

As for China "ramping up anti-western rhetoric", I'm truly struggling to see what you mean being in a unique position between the two, would actually say the opposite. Are you sure about that or is it more a localized viewpoint far removed from statements made by the Chinese government and media arms?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Or like... you know, it may only mean that the lady wanted to go back to Harvard to study whatever she is studying there?

There may no need to grab the tinfoil.

</comment><comment><USER11> This. does not. belong. on HN.

<comment><USER12> I rarely agree with comments like this, I default to trusting the mob over self-anointed editors of social media, It's actually against the rules to comment on it. But it's true. This will provide little value to the wider conversations and she's largely an innocent bystander in world events, outside of some fuel for low quality political platitudes.

Wealthy kids get the very best schooling since childhood and often have tons of pressure to succeed. Just because some exploit nepotism does not mean all do, and many often exhibit high academic aptitude with all the required side stuff to make them interesting. Not every world leader's kid goes to Harvard either or is capable of either.

It should also be of no surprise that a wealthy child from a country in the emerging/growth stage with a median income of $12k is going to the most advanced country in the world to study.

The children of leaders getting exposure to western society and academia is also arguably a good thing.

<comment><USER13> Furthermore, the guidelines explicitly note that these types of articles are off-topic - politics, generally.

I have avoided commenting on this since, as you wrote, it's not kosher, but I have noticed an increase in political articles (unrelated to tech) that make it to the front page. It is worrying to me.

<comment><USER12> You can visit [https://news.ycombinator.com/classic](https://news.ycombinator.com/classic) which are articles submitted by older HN accounts with high karma.

The selection tends to be far more of the classic high-quality HN style and less Reddit-y.

The politically obsessed people already ruined Twitter, which for some reason doesn't let you opt-out of seeing some random hyper-politicized tweet that a person you followed 6yrs ago _liked_ (not even retweeted). It's natural that their "my pet political issues are more important than everything you care about" mentality is expanding onto other platforms when it's been so encouraged elsewhere.

Plan B is using [https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs)

<comment><USER14> Unfortunately lobsters doesn't accept open registration.

<comment><USER12> Send me your email on Twitter via DM and I'll invite you

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article gives an interesting perspective that sending her to the US tostudy allows him to recall her back as a sort of gesture in the future

</comment><comment><USER16> She'll be fine as long as she stays off my bike path \m/>,<\m/ but seriously it's wicked safe here

<comment><USER17> you'll be out soon for violent comments like this. shame on you. Harvard is over, by the way.

<comment><USER16> It's irony. The most dangerous part of Cambridge is bicycles. I ride to and from work past BU, Harvard, and MIT everyday - I was imagining a scenario of how screwed I would be if I ran over the leader or whatever's daughter while she was taking a photo on the bike road like so many do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> yeah China is great strong superpower, that's why all their politicians send their families abroad... sadly there are too many brainwashed Chinese not realizing irony of this

<comment><USER19> China respects certain aspects of the U.S. That's why they steal our patents and knock-off our products. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The best nations copy the best aspects and ideas from other nations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Kim Jong Un studied in Switzerland and spent most of his youth in the west. It really seems to be peak communism to send your children to study in western countries.

<comment><USER21> Obviously Harvard is a really good school and learning English is useful, but it also makes me wonder if dictators and their daughters would be even more radical without a western education.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Deleted

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting story, if this is true, It means Xi is going to get overthrown by the chinese soon?

</comment><comment><USER24> Is this a sign they agreed on a deal?

</comment><comment><USER25> Bold move from Xi, considering that arbitrary detention of random bystanders have been a feature on both sides in this trade war.

<comment><USER26> When has the US detained Chinese for arbitrary reasons?

<comment><USER27> He's referring to Meng Wanzhou

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Wanzhou#Detention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Wanzhou#Detention)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> She might not be smart enough to get into elite Chinese universities through the admissions exams.

<comment><USER29> If your family is powerful enough admissions exams don't matter.

<comment><USER30> GP is implying US admissions are more corrupt than China's. e.g. [https://wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_s...](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This would have been a closely guarded secret known by only a few people. I wonder if this leak is in response to the situation in Hong Kong. Anyhow, as China's president Xi wouldn't have taken the decision to let her go back to the US lightly. Given how Xi treated his own political opponents and real possibility of mounting opposition to him within the CCP, allowing his daughter to return to the US starts to make sense.</comment>


Study shatters myths on personal Net use at work - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2008-06-18-work-net-use_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

<comment><AUTHOR> They forgot to ask one key question in the study, "Did you get your work done?"

</comment><comment><USER2> this was back in 2006, how much as changed?</comment>


Talent is bullshit - <AUTHOR> http://apologeticwriting.blogspot.com/ <comment><USER3> I guess the author knows exactly that talent exists but wants to point out that the word is used often in situations where diligence was more appropriate.

<comment><USER4> I'm tired of articles and blog posts like that. They give a strawman-ish definition of (say) "expert" and then claim that "experts don't exist" or "we don't need experts".

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Talent is not bullshit. It's just not enough to either make you succeed or make you fail.

You can't argue with the fact that some people are naturally talented at certain things. Whether that comes through practice or genetics depends on which things you're talking about (I'd say that being a talented sportsman takes genetics as well as huge amounts of practice, and being tone-deaf precludes you from becoming a talented composer no matter how much you practice), but both are factors.

Talent without practice is nothing. Practice without talent is more than nothing. But that doesn't negate the existence of talent.

<comment><USER6> Exactly right. There is an undeniable genetic predisposition towards some skills. I'm sure everyone has any number of personal anecdotes they can tell. Anecdotes by themselves don't make something true, sure, but in large enough quantities they sure suggest it.

Play my friend any song twice and he'll give you a passable piano rendition straight away. His sister couldn't even whistle the tune. But she knows 6 languages and learns new ones for fun. He says learning a language is like trying to force a lego brick into his brain through his forehead. Everyone knows some situation like this. Talent is often obvious from birth and extremely potent.

As you say, talent without practise - and there's too much of that - <USER2> nothing. Many talented people become lazy and compacent and never realise their full potential. Many untalented people attain mastery of an art through sheer determination and effort. But geeze, talent exists all right.

<comment><USER7> Do you have any advice on how to learn to play by ear? I can play piano well, but figuring out a song from a recording is very difficult for me.

<comment><USER8> Without talent, you must practice. Take a song you don't know how to play, and start to figure it out from a recording. Once you've mastered that song, pick another one. There's no secret to any of this.

I've have no natural talent for music, but I put in the hours. When I was 16, I was cut from my high school musical for my inability to sing back a note played on the piano. I took voice lessons, got a few chorus roles, and kept working at it. Over the course of college, I got a few friends together and practiced a few hours a week. By the time I got to senior year of college, I got the lead in the play and was performing solos with my a capella group. These days, I sing with a barbershop quartet - understanding the harmonies there, let alone reproducing them, was unthinkable 5 years ago.

If you don't have the talent, you've got to work at it. It will pay off, I promise.

<comment><USER9> I would add a few more points: I forget the exact term, but be sure to engage in purposeful practice, always challenging yourself with a song _just_ out of your reach. Start as easy as necessary and work up.

It would be helpful to do some songs that you can get the full score for, so you can do concrete validation of your correctness. However, be sure that they are the full, _true_ score; grab a Guitar book of Beatles songs, for instance, and they're likely to be simplified in a way that won't help on this task.

<comment><USER10> This right here is worth repeating. Never pick something you're certain you can do. Go for things just out of your reach. Pick things that you're going to have to strain to do. Do this again and again, and every time you get a bit better.

Occasionally, attempt something far beyond your reach, just to remind yourself of what you're striving for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Talent is the principal, practice is the interest rate.

<comment><USER12> Essentially, an extremely talented person starts out with $1,000,000; however, if they never practice it never becomes worth more than it is. Yet a relatively untalented person may start out with like $1,000, but if they practice for hours a day every day for years they'll be worth a lot more than a million dollars.

When I was about 6 my teacher told my parents that she suspected I was dyslexic. At 17 I got hired as a video game and movie reviewer. At about 19 I got a couple of short stories published and currently I'm working on a novel I hope to get published.

I don't believe I was ever particularly talented at writing, I'm a creative person, but it's never been one of those 'click' things, I've just wanted it all my life. Give me a hammer or a saw and I'll build you anything, I even worked as an electrician for a couple of years. I've put in stairs, I can plaster a wall as well as drywall, I can wire your house, plumb it and give you a gas line. When it comes to hands on work I can do virtually anything, but I've never had this ability with words or writing and I believe this lack of ability always made me try harder with it. Now I don't want to do anything _other_ than write for a living; although I wouldn't mind taking Electrical Engineering, either for work purposes or for building a giant robot army to take over the world... you know which ever pays more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article is bullshit.

Not a single actor with Danny Devito's height and hairline earns half as much as Brad Pitt. Nor are there any Olympic medalist swimmers with small hands and feet. I can't think of any Fortune 500 members with Down Syndrome, either.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hey Apologetic - interesting sentiment mate. Two thoughts on writing:

1\. You've got some really interesting points, but there's some rambling around them. Edit like your life depends on it - cut words, cut words, cut tangential themes, cut sentences, cut, cut, cut. Favor less over more. Kill the weakest links in your piece. They won't be pissed.

You started with:

"* Thesis presentation * Examples * Reasons explaining why * Summary

Hello. I'll start off by stating that one of my pets died a couple of days ago, and I'm probably sucking half the energy required to write this blog post from the recent event's anguish."

Cool - lots of great writers start with just whatever to get going, and the good stuff follows. Then remember to cut it in the first round of edits, otherwise you risk losing a lot of readers out of the gate.

2\. The more you use profanity, the less effective it gets. If you hold your profanity in reserve, you can really drive a sentiment home when you need to.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm sorry he thinks that way, because it's completely wrong. People aren't born equal...

</comment><comment><USER16> Talent is what fuels the hit show "American Idol." People enjoy watching the contestants try and fail because they have no talent. It's a sad reality really... Sorry, but the decision was made when you were born. You either sing like a star, or you suck dawg!

</comment><comment><USER17> Explain usain bolt.

</comment><comment><USER18> This question of talent can be rephrased in another way: are humans the product of genetic selfish replicators alone? The answer seems to be no, that memetic replication has a role as well. If only genes were the factors in what makes a person "talented", then indeed, people could consider "talent" as the predictive factor in somebody's success. But we are not only gene replicators, we are also meme replicators, and therefore, our innate "talent" is not a sole predictor of our success. I could be for example genetically pre-disposed towards intelligence, but then if my mind becomes hijacked by one of the various religious memes out there, instead of using my innate, genetic intelligence for the benefit of man, I could for example use that intelligence towards constructing a dirty bomb, in slavish servitude to the meme of religious fanaticism which has infected me. So is "talent" bullshit? Yes and no. To the extent that we are determined by genes, no, talent is very real. To the extent that memes play a role however, talent can either be increased, decreased, or misdirected towards destructive ends.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the insight. I never claimed my blog to be perfect and invulnerable to attacks from different fields of view. You show an interesting attitude towards the problem I raised here. I consider religion to be pretty much the waste of time, but let us not indulge in this personality representing discussion that could lead to already fought flame wars.

Could intelligence directly relate to understanding of what is wrong (by understanding how it affects others) and what is right ? Because if I'm intelligent, and yet I'm a fanatic of something, and I believe that supporting that cause by killing off people is the right choice - am I still an intelligent being ? Or just crazy ? Do my genes indicate that I should be a madman then with the ability to understand technicalities of constructing a bomb and the chemistry behind it?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I get to Ramen Profitability within a year? - <AUTHOR> I'm a software engineer. I despise working for others. I would happily quit my decent-paying job if I could make even just ramen profits independently. I have no one to support but myself, but I also have no clue where to start.<p>Any ideas? <comment><USER2> Maybe learn to make good ramen first. The secret is being able to help others.

</comment><comment><USER3> Find a business niche or build a game</comment>