Yahoo shares reach 18-month high as investors warm to new CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/19/us-yahoo-shares-idUSBRE8AI14F20121119 <comment><USER2> I don't think Yahoo is going anywhere.

No amount of celebrity CEO newspaper pieces will change the fact that Yahoo's has: \- no valuable proprietary technology \- no network effects with users \- no supply chain or scale/cost advantages; and \- a brand which is of waning value.

I'm still not sure why they sold their stake in Alibaba Group. In addition to Alibaba itself, the company has some great Chinese e-commerce assets in the form of Taobao and Tmall, and Yahoo could have been a great partner for a westward expansion. Maybe I'm being too ambitious here but I think that was probably the clearest shot they had at doing something which was sustainably profitable. Probably already out of Marissa's hands by the time she took over though.

<comment><USER3> My impression was that they were pressured into selling off their shares of Alibaba in order to generate cash to buy off some activist shareholders with either a dividend or share buyback. Marissa then reconsidered after taking the helm, and they are now in a holding pattern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I disagree jval. Yahoo still has heavy proprietary tech in its ad systems such as Right Media, and they still are one of the best web media properties in the world as recognized by advertisers and advertising agencies responsible for spending billions in ad dollars (most tech geeks are not aware of Yahoo's heavy role in ad tech).

If Marissa can bring parts of Google's hard driving culture to this company, it will do well.

She's already recruiting some great people, such as veteran De Castro and young gun Robbie Stein (who used to be product manager on Google's Ad Exchange) and his Stamped team.

If she can hold on to the reigns and keep this pace of change for at least another 12 months, I think the future is bright for Yahoo.

</comment><comment><USER5> And so much at Yahoo has actually changed since Ms. Marissa took the reins.

Oh, wait.</comment>


Can the Internet solve the mystery of MH370? - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03/12/crowdsourced-online-search-uses-high-res-satellite-images-to-hunt-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370/

<comment><USER2> Could you not create an algorithm to detect abnormal things in the water and flag them. Each flagged image is then manually looked at by a human and them deemed interesting or not. Looking on Tomnod there seems to be loads of water and clouds, wouldn't it be easier if we could remove all these pointless water+cloud sections.

<comment><USER3> That would be more efficient.

The current web platform must have already been built or it was a template, so the current approach is more ad-hoc.</comment></comment>


Http/2 dashboard - <AUTHOR> http://isthewebhttp2yet.com/index.html <comment><USER2> The performance page ([http://isthewebhttp2yet.com/measurements/performance.html](http://isthewebhttp2yet.com/measurements/performance.html)) is interesting, especially for people who expected some performance difference, like me: you can see how little improvement there actually is.

On the other hand, seeing how little the adoption is, maybe you can assume that those who implemented h2 are those who already optimized their sites to death, so there's not much more to gain for them. Hopefully as more and more sites deploy h2 we'll see a much more interesting overall increase in perf.</comment>


Minimalist Steps Towards Passive Income - <AUTHOR> http://www.farbeyondthestars.com/?p=1004

<comment><USER2> I'm sick of all this talk of "scalable incomes" that refuse to confront the inherent survivor bias problem. The problem with scalable incomes is that they scale down as well as up. Say you found a system that has a 1% chance of making you $100,000 a year and a 99% chance of making $5 a year. For the average person, that's a pretty shitty deal since it's only got an expected value of $1000 a year.

But sell the system to 1000 people and you can find 10 who enthusiastically talk about the wonders of scalable income and ponder wisely about the various choices they made that got them to where they are today and how everyone should join them in the wonderful scalable utopia.

It's all bullshit, without accounting for the hidden failures, it's impossible to determine how much pure luck played a role.

</comment><comment><USER3> 10, Maximalize the number of posts shilling your minimalist book, website, coffee mug, seminar, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not a very interesting post... curious what people are finding of interest in here? Seems like the same old stuff re-hashed, with a "minimalist" label slapped on top.

</comment><comment><USER5> I do like the concept of minimalism, but there is just way too much BS going on in the name of 'minimalism' these days.

Trivia: //"I'm now the author of an e-book. It's the Art of Being Minimalist. It's only 9.95."

In the spirit of minimalism, why not make it 10$ instead of 9.95 ?

<comment><USER6> "minimalism" is the current trendy fashion accessory these days. Sort of like being "eco". The more and more you talk about how minimal you are, the cooler you are.

Of course it's all just bloggers trying to get views. A guide to minimalism would be simply "Minimalism is what is necessary.".

<comment><USER7> Time to start an eco-minimalism movement.

<comment><USER6> Too late!! But it's not too late to jump on the bandwagon. ecominimalism.com is a squated domain, go forth and spread the smarmy, holier-than-thou love!dict

[http://www.ribabookshops.com/item/ecominimalism-eco- minimali...](http://www.ribabookshops.com/item/ecominimalism-eco-minimalism- the-antidote-to-eco-bling/65488/)

<comment><USER7> _Sighs_ Ok..time for the neo-eco-holistic-minimalism movement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sure sounds like a lot of (non-passive) work.

<comment><USER9>
      Let me absolutely clear: you can't take this path if you're lazy.

<comment><USER8> And my point was - it's not passive income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can flip through the first 30 pages of the book he wrote - I found it more interesting than the blog post. <http://www.artofbeingminimalist.com/preview.html></comment>


Jeff Bezos launches–and lands–his rocket for a 5th time, surprising even himself - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/10/05/why-jeff-bezos-may-crash-his-historic-rocket/ <comment><USER2> Good job. There will be private companies competing for the race to Mars.</comment>


Ask HN: How much data can a 5MB database store? - <AUTHOR>

How much data can a 5MB database store? <comment><USER2> The Bible, in two different translations, as an MySQL file (though I don't know how optimized it is), with Fulltext Indexes, is 10 mb[1].

So one Bible is ~5.

Does that help?

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

[1] <http://www.biblesql.net/download>

</comment><comment><USER3> Umm... 5MB minus database overhead?

<comment><USER4> That was going to my answer, too, so I'll elaborate a bit.

It depends on the format of the database and the contents as well. If all you store is a single 4.9MB image, then there's not much overhead. If you store thousands of short text records, then each one can only have a little data, and will have a lot of overhead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> About 5MB</comment>


SF supes reverse sale, return private Presidio Terrace street to homeowners - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/SF-supervisors-to-vote-on-returning-private-12389377.php <comment><AUTHOR> This story got a lot of attention on here when the sale made the news, so I thought the apparent conclusion to the story might also be of interest. Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14948392](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14948392)

</comment><comment><USER2> And this is how city of SF is going to make the investors rich: it will lose decision to reverse the sale in court paying a lot more money than the $90k for its supervisors' stupidity.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a community for Computer Scientists? - <AUTHOR>

I have been a long time lurker of http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci but I have always been dismayed by the quality of posts there regarding actual Computer Science.<p>Every once in a while on HN a great article comes along about Computer Science but they are few and far between. Does anybody know of a strictly Computer Science community on the web? <comment><USER2> You might be asked if by Computer Science you mean what used to be known in some places as _Computing_ Science, which also falls into Programming as in <http://www.reddit.com/r/programming>

See for example:

[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/82988/choosing- betwe...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/82988/choosing-between- stack-overflow-and-programmers-stack-exchange)

or, instead, you mean the generic Information Technology mumbo jumbo. No bias here ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I am looking for more the theory side of Computer Science. For the programming aspect I definitely look here first and then /r/programming.

<comment><USER2> <http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/></comment></comment></comment>


The Curse of the Technical CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.iseff.com/post/49861932184/the-curse-of-the-technical-ceo

<comment><USER2> To me the conflict is not just time allocation, but it's the mentality. When you put your engineer hat all you can see are flaws, but when you put on your CEO hat, especially in the context of fundraising or biz dev you need to spin things positively. I find it difficult to make this mental switch.

<comment><USER3> That's a really great way of putting it.

I think another issue is "birds of a feather" related. Unless you've got a wide personal circle (or force one) the people you're talking with most with have the same engineering view and can form an echo chamber of flaws and technical issues. They may be valid but they probably aren't that crucial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Per the article I think the trick is to know when to make the switch. At first, if you're the technical CEO, it means you're the guy who maybe talks to prospects and angels (if applicable) That might be two half days a week over time. So clearly coding adds a boat load of value. The trick is to determine when you really need that Fred full time CEO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally true. In our case, it was after our seed round, once we were able to start selling and we felt as though we have proved the initial idea as being worthwhile to customers.

When that happened, we started hiring, and me coding turned into more of a detriment than an advantage. It was approximately a team size of 7-8 for us/e.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is definitely a challenge, but its also a challenge for engineers who are new to management as well. Rather than lead their team into becoming a problem solving group, they can jump in and just fix things to keep stuff moving along. The line between too 'hands off' and too 'hands on' is hard to navigate. Easier when there are other things taking your time but hard when you're in a hiring lull or there aren't any upper level things calling on you.

<comment><USER6> As one goes higher up the hierarchy, one's primary responsibility is to see a bigger and bigger picture, while delegating an ever larger portion of the problems to the right people.

Under pressure and suffering uncertainty, the Can Do attitude of a good engineer encourages falling back into the comfort zone of doing engineering. It is understandable. But whether manager, director, VP, or CEO, the urge must be resisted approximately always.

It is probably forgiveable at the manager level. But this is still what I call a "Good Skill, Bad Habit", even for managers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I read stories about "CEO"s in startups I mentally compare the description to my CEO Meg Whitman. I think it just doesn't make a lot of sense to use the same label for a founder trying to get a startup off the ground and someone running a large company.

Maybe it makes more sense to have different names for the early positions and ask the question when's the right time to hire a CEO.

</comment><comment><USER8> Or you need to accept that you're not a very good CEO, and find someone more suited for the job.

<comment><USER9> Or maybe, just maybe, work on becoming better.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but to be more clear I mean you should do what you love. If you aren't good at being a CEO but you are at being an engineer it's probably become you enjoy being an engineer more. Why force yourself to become better at something that other people could be great at, and you don't want to do anyway?

<comment><USER9> You should never do what you love. You should do what _works_ for you. I love fishing, but I would never hold it as a job. Programming _works_ for me. I like it, its fun, challenging, and allows for a good lifestyle. Two different things.

We love those things that bring us pleasure, we like those things that allow us to do the things we love.

<comment><USER10> It's not a dichotomy - some people do make a living fishing and love their lives. Will you love everything all the time - no, but you'll still essentially be doing what you love.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of this: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1266444>

</comment><comment><USER12> Promote from within.</comment>


Repair file sharing after Security Update 2017-001 for macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 - <AUTHOR> https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208317 <comment><USER3> I seriously can't imagine how much pressure engineers at Apple were to ship this patch. Considering they tend to ship infrequently, I doubt they have the sort of QA turn-around that'd support emergency releases.

Remember that:

      - They learned about this yesterday

      - They had as much heads up as the general public did

      - They are a large company.

I don't disagree that the apparent QA quality from Apple software isn't what it used to be, but we all have to take these sorts of things with a grain of salt. I've certainly been in situations like this before.

<comment><USER4> I feel bad for the engineers, but seriously screw Apple on this. They have an overcomplicated setup with little internal Kerberos implementations on every Mac to make peer to peer networking easier.

If it's like everything else, it's probably ancient and crufty. The dude who wrote it probably cashed out years ago. Some engineer rushed through and made the original worst-case-scenario error, and the guys cleaning up the mess made this error, which is understandable given the severity of the problem.

For a company like Apple that prints money, it's irresponsible and reflective of a broken engineering process. Personally I'm angry about this because on iOS, we're 100% dependent on their engineering process to protect my customer's data. Hopefully that trust is well placed.

If they don't want to maintain Macs, don't make them.

<comment><USER5> I designed and implemented quite lot of the LocalKDC mechanism - um, roughly about 11-12 years ago now I think. At the time it was based on the MIT version of Kerberos. When Apple switched to using Heimdal, the LocalKDC implementation was updated and it has been maintained since then - I am no longer the maintainer of this software. I haven't cashed out.

As to why the LocalKDC exists? How can you do secure peer-to-peer authentication without relying on some sort of global (and broken) or private PKI infrastructure? SRP wasn't an option at the time.

I am sorry you are upset. Apple is really, really serious about protecting customer data. I encourage the reading of the Apple iOS Security Guide - <USER2> describes hardware and software techniques used to protect your data. There is also the 2016 Blackhat presentation by Ivan Krstic that gives more insight into the Secure Enclave.

<comment><USER6> > Apple iOS Security Guide

that goes perfectly with the trending feeling that iOS gets all the love while OSX sits on the back burner.

<comment><USER5> I personally see that the mac is getting lots and lots of love! Not my place to say more than that.

I pointed to this resource due to the concern expressed about iOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From a quality standpoint Apple is a shadow of its former self. For me a large number of the more recent features in macOS and iOS don't work reliably. Things like handoff, text message forwarding, enabling tethering from the Mac, etc. are 50/50\. These kind of things used to be Apples bread and butter. Taking ideas like these and making them "just work". And now the security regression are creeping in. I would love to see them get back to very simple product lines and a more minimalist approach to software features.

<comment><USER8> Handoff is definitely a weird one. I don't think I've ever gotten it to do anything useful. Its functionality is seemingly limited to popping up a random icon to the left of the dock from time to time to distract me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Quick show of hands, who here is surprised that this patch broke something?

<comment><USER10> I am not, Yet given the public disclosure and the criticality of the issue, they took the most pragmatic approach.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article says " _if_ file sharing doesn't work", but is it ok to just run this command line fix anyway?

I'm not sure if file sharing is broken for me. I don't use it _right now_. But I'm afraid I might run into this bug in the future when I eventually use file sharing, and then I will have forgotten about this fix, and end up spending hours scratching my head and head-desking.

<comment><USER12> According to configureLocalKDC(1):

"The script is non-destructive and can be run multiple times."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this shows the poor state of Apple's QA. Theorically there should be a list of predefined tests with a binary output, to pass the test or not. Before deploying anything, tests must be run and passed. It seems the procedure is very human-dependant.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seriously!

I can't even install 10.13.1 on my Mac Pro 2013 - computer acts like its bricked until rebooted a number of times (and when it finally boots we're back at 10.13).

This also means I can't install the latest security update that fixes the root problem (and yes, i've changed the root password to mitigate).

OSX is becoming more like Windows every day.

<comment><USER15> Me too!!. I was almost ready to wipe and reload.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is why it should take more than 24 hours to put out a patch for an operating system.

<comment><USER17> When the choice is between "allow public, easy, possibly remote, root access" or "maybe deal with a bit of inconvenience fixing the fix" I'll take the second one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I remember the emergency Java patch after Flashback. I think it also had an issue.

</comment><comment><USER19> What a mess.

</comment><comment><USER20> I guess now we get to see where all the holes in apples fucking automated tests are... meanwhile I'm happily running Arch ;)</comment>


Imagine a Middle Seat You'd Pay For - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/imagine-a-middle-seat-youd-actually-pay-for-11583331299 <comment><USER2> I take the middle seat every time on Southwest (if you aren't familiar, they don't have assigned seating). The first ten or so rows of the middle seat always have vacancies deep into the B and even C boarding groups. I think the people who pay for guaranteed early boarding groups are suckers.

Being in the front of the plane is the difference between being stuck in the metal tube for 90 minutes instead of 95 or 100 minutes. The seat is the same size (or as this article points out, it's sometimes bigger).</comment>


What to say to "Perl 6 isn't Perl any more" - <AUTHOR> http://perlbuzz.com/2010/08/what-to-say-to-perl-6-isnt-perl-any-more.html

<comment><USER2> That's a strange article. He's upset at "cranks" saying that Perl 6 isn't Perl anymore. His argument seems to rest on two things:

1\. There were a lot of changes from Perl 4 to Perl 5, and people didn't say that wasn't Perl any more. So, a lot of change from 5 to 6 is the same.

2\. Larry says it is Perl.

The second argument works, at least--Larry is the one with the naming rights.

However, the author states this:

        There are those who will read this and say "Yeah, but Perl
        5 could still pretty much run any Perl 4 program, but
        Perl 6 won't be able to run Perl 5." And that's true.

That seems to me to be a pretty fundamental difference between the 4 to 5 step and the 5 to 6 step. With 4 to 5, essentially a bunch of new features became available, and you could start adding them incrementally to your existing programs.

It sounds like 5 to 6 is, practically, from the programmer's point of view, no different than a transition from Perl to Ruby, or Perl to Python, etc.. That is, it involves learning a new language (and if Perl 6 won't run Perl 5 code than it _IS_ a new language, despite having the same name), and writing new code for it or porting old code.

<comment><USER3> If you think of a language as merely a bag of syntax, than Perl 5 and Perl 6 are very different. (You can make the same argument about a lot of versions of a lot of languages.)

If you think of a language as a design philosophy expressed in semantics and syntax -- and a guide to choosing to make the corresponding tradeoffs -- then the "The syntax is very different, thus it's a different language!" argument doesn't work.

Various implementations of Lisps and Schemes are recognizable as Lisps and Schemes for a reason.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which CMS is being used by Stanford's online classes? - <AUTHOR>

Nay idea which CMS/LMS is being used by ml-class.org db-class.org etc. ? <comment><USER2> I am wondering this as well as I am work on developing online elearning tools and taking part in the AI course.

I wish I could remember the source, but I recall reading that they are using something custom built at Stanford.</comment>


Uber's many scandals are affecting recruitment at every level - <AUTHOR> https://pando.com/2016/03/09/turns-out-ubers-many-scandals-are-affecting-recruitment-pretty-much-every-level/0d3827f4e2a2e8440f349584adf0b7a36c6d9d9c/ <comment><USER2> I personally turned down a second round interview at Uber over their, based upon information and belief, failure to adhere to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

After hearing the stories of a handicapped friend, who happened to be attending Stanford, just attempting to get around town with a wheelchair, I decided I would never work for Uber.

For example, they labeled a vehicle as handicap accessible, and sent a tiny Acura RDX, which couldn't accommodate even a basic manual wheelchair. Their drivers were rude, disrespectful, resentful, and unkind.

She did not deserve that treatment.

They've made no real effort to comply with the ADA. And unfortunately, unlike the silly medallion laws they ignore, these violations are blatantly discriminatory.

I sent a letter saying as much to the recruiter when I withdrew my application.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article is misleading. Yes, I know many of my friends who I respect who turned down opportunities at Uber due to cultural issues. At the same time, I also have many friends who I deeply respect who chose to join Uber and describe it as a positive and respectful workplace in which they are solving hard problems and having real impact. Almost without fail though, just through knowing a friend's personality, I can predict with 90+% accuracy whether they would be someone who would enjoy working at Uber.

But here's the thing, Uber doesn't need to hire every single talented person in the tech industry, it just needs to hire enough of them. And from the people I see being attracted to there every day, they definitely still have the clout to hire enough of them and attract the calibre of top tier talent to keep the service viable.

It's the same issue Facebook had during its growing years (and to some extent, still has today). Many of my friends looking for work then dismissed Facebook out of hand for it's perceived cultural issues and yet Facebook had no problems growing because enough people did fit the culture.

The real risk is not that it can't grow, it's that the cultural polarization only ever increases over time and the company becomes monocultural in a way that inhibits flexibility and it's ability to adapt. At the same time, that cult-like maniacally enforced conformity might be exactly what it needs to ruthlessly execute and crush competitors and markets until it becomes as entrenched in the world as Standard Oil or the Dutch East India Company.

<comment><USER4> Hmm -- so you're saying the various ethical concerns cited in the article: "assaults, privacy breaches, threats against journalists, abuses of drivers" \-- are really just "cultural" issues?

Like whether you like to play table tennis, say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just had a friend who told me he left Uber - said it was the craziest place he's ever worked. Said that if youre not working 80 hours per week your poorly judged.

Had another friend say that he went through an intense interview process with them and was told he would be getting an offer the next day. Several days later he just received a rejection email.

Don't think it sounds like a nice environment - regardless of whatever interesting infra projects they are working on...

<comment><USER6> > Several days later he just received a rejection email.

Wow. That is rare nowadays. 30 years ago in silicon valley all companies sent at least a rejection form letter. Recently no one seems to take the trouble. Maybe just the last year or two it's gotten better.

<comment><USER5> No I think its because the recruiter said they were giving him an offer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like how pando deal with the posting, it's freely available for a day, here's our price if you want more access.

No popup while I'm reading it, not just a 1/4 of the article is displayed, very well done.

<comment><USER8> Indeed. "for just $10 a month." I generally like Pando, it's in my feed reader some place and they frequently catch my eye, but really I can't imagine paying $120 for this site. I can't imagine paying that much for _any_ site really. Maybe this is where we're heading now, hard to say, but I've just never found a site I'd be willing to pay that much for access. Maybe I'm not like most people in that I can't see the value? I always feel like "eh, I'll just go someplace else, this ain't all that important". I'm really hoping that sites with good original content figure out how to make it with ad blocking taking such a big bite out of revenue.

<comment><USER9> I think original reporting is worth paying for if the details in the premium content are valuable and go beyond what will be reposted, or if the story is written well enough that you retain valuable information better than you would from another source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I visited Uber HQ recently. The chairs and desks in open office area are crumbled in each other. Uber employees joke about it and say it's "surge seating"!

<comment><USER11> I had two rounds of interviews with Uber. I asked how they provide productivity-enhancing space, space that is suitably quiet and private to enable bare minimum conditions for working on software, and there was no answer.

I'm sad at how recruiters have attempted to co-opt the word "collaborative" and try to repurpose it to mean "you can smell your colleague's lunch every time he takes a breath".

Open plan offices are not collaborative. They facilitate superficial interactions in which people try to give only the most shallow answers necessary to get the other person to go away, because everyone is so over- stimulated with constant interpersonal interaction.

These environments are interactive, for sure. In fact, they are relentlessly interactive. But collaboration is _productive_ interaction. And open plan offices definitely do not provide that.

I noped out of the Uber interviews as soon as I learned that they don't view working conditions as a fundamental technology used for productivity. Even if the firm is financially successful (so far, mostly by society's failure to punish them for their blatant bad behavior) it's too much of a hell hole to possibly consider enduring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As much as I despise Uber, it's hard to deny though that their sleazy tactics have paid off.

Uber vs. Lyft market share: [https://pando- assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2014/09/uber-v...](https://pando- assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2014/09/uber-vs-lyft-rides.jpg)

<comment><USER13> Hasn't Lyft been accused of some pretty shady stuff too? I think it might be like Walmart versus Target, where the second largest tends to escape criticism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Typical Pando clickbait

</comment><comment><USER15> the article "You can read the whole post here." (regarding one woman's blog) but there is no link.

</comment><comment><USER16> This article is just fart in the air.

</comment><comment><USER17> The article seems to draw broad conclusions from a few anecdotes. I doubt many employees are turning down positions at Uber because of their principles, though they may be turning the positions down because the scandals make the company's future less certain.</comment>


Half of US college students would quit Facebook for a year if you gave them $200 - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1506089/would-you-quit-facebook-if-you-were-paid-for-it/ <comment><USER2> I doubt this would happen in practice. This was a survey of mturk not an actual study where they paid people.</comment>


Reverse Tab Completion - <AUTHOR> Is it possible to get reverse tab completion, so that you type the last characters in the filename you want, press tab (or whatever the reverse keystroke is), and get the full file name?
Sometimes I have files where the unique bit is at the end, and tab completion is useless for them. For example with these ---
version1.txt version2.txt version3.txt
--- I'd have to type out "version" before hitting tab, and what I'd like is to type 1.txt, hit tab, and have "version" prepended. <comment><USER2> Shells like bash do wildcard expansion on tab keystroke. So you type

       cat version*.txt

then tab and it expands that into

       cat version1.txt version2.txt version3.txt

The same is of course true with any other kind of wildcard like

       *.tar.gz

(is that what you mean with reverse tab completion?) And even ranges like "version{1..3}" and much more. Look up [http://bash-hackers.org](http://bash- hackers.org), the ultimate guide for shell globbing and other bash features.</comment>


Earthquake detection and early alerts, now on your Android phone - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/products/android/earthquake-detection-and-alerts <comment><USER2> I feel like as you travel west the natural disasters get far less fun and social. Sigh.

In Florida, you typically have days to hours to dodge a hurricane. Plenty of time to prepare a proper party. In the Midwest, we usually have about 10m to an hour to run to the liquor store before a tornado, usually which is followed by the neighborhood gathering outside watching the incoming destruction. In California, you have a few seconds to get under a doorway. Hardly enough time to run to fridge for a proper brewski. How do y'all manage?</comment>


Poaching behind worst African elephant losses in 25 years - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/5677.html <comment><USER2> Don't know why this is on HN, but as a Kenyan I'll say this: the Kenyan elephant situation is absolutely hopeless. It has been well documented since the 70s that the head honcho in poaching was the then president's wife, and the current president's mother(same woman though) [1]. For obvious reasons, this means absolutely nothing will ever be done about poaching in Kenya. If you like Kenya's elephants, best to just go see them before they become extinct, and don't waste any money on charities that claim to be solving this problem. I am not being cynical at all. 3rd world politics is just that depressing and hopeless. Feudalism disguised with democracy paint.

[1] [http://mavulture.com/political-corruption/mother-of-the- nati...](http://mavulture.com/political-corruption/mother-of-the-nation-who- led-plunder-of-beloved-motherland/)

<comment><USER3> Maybe the most humane thing to do is to euthanize the remaining wild elephants. At least they wouldn't have to die by bleeding out after their faces are hacked off.

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunter_(2011_Australian_fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunter_\(2011_Australian_film\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Call me cold, but this strikes me as a situation that can be managed by altering the risk:reward landscape of poaching. Shoot people on sight who are poaching, and greatly increase the number of game wardens.

<comment><USER6> This is a good strategy. I think it'd be even more effective if large bounties were offered for the body parts of poachers. Macabre, yet, somehow fitting.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like you should run for president of the Philippines.

<comment><USER5> That seems more than a little unfair. If you're in the middle of a protect nature preserve in the African bush, with the tools of your trade, you're not a victim. This isn't a case of mistaken identity, or just being in the wrong place, or pissing off the wrong people.

<comment><USER7> You don't see any way that giving incentives to people for killing poachers without a trial could go wrong?

<comment><USER5> I can't imagine any human endeavor that lacks the potential to go wrong, but I also don't think that's a reason not to try anything, ever.

<comment><USER7> I believe extrajudicial killings have a bit more than "the potential" to go wrong.

<comment><USER5> It's a pretty limited use case, unless you think that people tend to wander the African bush with chainsaws and elephant guns just because... reasons? You'd have to quite literally go well out of your way and leave civilization behind to be targeted.

Maybe you can tell me what exactly you suspect would go wrong in this limited scenario?

<comment><USER7> Well the person I responded to said we should offer rewards for murdering poachers. So the incentive would be to go out and murder people and plant chainsaws/rifles on them.

You wouldn't really even have to "go out in the bush" to kill them. You could kill someone and claim they were out there poaching.

<comment><USER5> Well, that's another person with their own ideas that have nothing at all to do with mine. Bounty programs on human lives is a terrible idea. Still, the fact that you've now decided to respond, not to me, but someone else by way of me tells me that you've run out of sensible objections and are grasping at straws.

I also think you're underestimating just how far out in the middle of nowhere we're talking about here, and how rough the area is. If you want to kill someone and get away with it, there are much _much_ easier ways to make that happen in rural Africa.

<comment><USER7> "Well, that's another person with their own ideas that have nothing at all to do with mine. Bounty programs on human lives is a terrible idea. Still, the fact that you've now decided to respond, not to me, but someone else by way of me tells me that you've run out of sensible objections and are grasping at straws."

I have no clue what you are talking about. You initially responded to me [0]. You are very confused.

Anyway, I still think proximity to civilization should not be the main justification for extrajudicial executions. Thats just like my opinion man.

"I also think you're underestimating just how far out in the middle of nowhere we're talking about here, and how rough the area is. If you want to kill someone and get away with it, there are much much easier ways to make that happen in rural Africa."

I didn't mean kill someone and get away with it. I mean, if person x wants to kill person y to get payout z. That is why I responded to the initial commenter. Without a trial you can claim anyone was anywhere doing anything. You don't have to go to the bush. You can drive 2 miles out of town and kill them. But I obviously don't even know what your position is and honestly don't care so I may be "grasping at straws".

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12586019](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12586019)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My thought has always been that poaching is a economic problem and requires an economic solution.

The reason why elephants are being killed is because they're worth more dead than alive to the poacher and likely the local community or otherwise the local community would do more to protect the animals from poachers. What if there was a fund that paid local communities for each live elephant? The community now has an incentive to prevent poaching.

I suppose some of the foreseeable side effects could be the community preventing elephant migration in order to increase the local numbers, but these types of details could be worked out.

<comment><USER9> >My thought has always been that poaching is a economic problem and requires an economic solution.

Sure. Problem is the economic problem is...well Africa sized. You're not going to fix that any time soon. Plus Asia sized as well...a fair amount of the drive is coming from there esp on the rhino poaching side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm an idiot here, so allow me this uninformed suggestion:

Could the elephant's tusks be removed and replaced with false tusks? I'm assuming there would be some way to replace them the way an implant is used to replace a tooth in a human.

If the prosthetic tusk were obvious (a bright color for example) it would signal to the would-be poacher, "No ivory here."

The tusks removed would be destroyed.

<comment><USER11> Any scheme like this results in poachers killing the elephant so they don't wind up wasting time tracking it again later.

I think this was discovered when they poisoned rhino horns (ground rhino horn is a traditional oral medicine) and marked them with bright color to identify them as poisoned. Poachers killed the marked rhinos and left the horns.

<comment><USER12> This suggests the obvious approach of poisoning the horn _without_ dying it. Did anyone try that?

<comment><USER13> How would that help? No one would know it was poisoned until the rhino was dead. The poachers wouldn't even find out until people stopped buying rhino horn because it was killing uneducated, superstitious people thousands of miles away - which is to say, far far too late.

The loss of the rhino and the elephant would be tragic, but those people who consume it do not deserve to die - they don't understand what they're doing or what they're causing, and they are worth more than rhinos.

Edit, since I can't respond to your comment: There is already an information battle to convince people that traffic in and using rhino horn is not possibly good for them. If they will not believe scientists telling them that, they won't believe it's poisoned. Nothing short of a mass market and culture shift is likely to change their beliefs. Telling them it's poisoned would certainly have too many misses and too little reach to be acceptable.

<comment><USER12> > How would that help? No one would know it was poisoned until the rhino was > dead. The poachers wouldn't even find out until people stopped buying rhino > horn because it was killing uneducated, superstitious people thousands of > miles away.

You would tell them. How do people currently know that rubbing alcohol has been poisoned?

> Edit, since I can't respond to your comment: There is already an information > battle to convince people that traffic in and using rhino horn is not > possibly good for them. If they will not believe scientists telling them > that, they won't believe it's poisoned. Nothing short of a mass market and > culture shift is likely to change their beliefs. Telling them it's poisoned > would certainly have too many misses and too little reach to be acceptable.

1\. Yes, you can respond to any comment on its own page.

2\. Yes, if the horns are actually poisoned, people will learn that they're poisoned. The feedback loop here is quite short: you announce that you've poisoned the rhino horns, people scoff, say "they'd never have the guts", and eat the horns, and then a lot of those people die. Word will get around.

If they're not poisoned, then of course people won't believe that, but it's hard to blame them for accurately not believing your self-serving lies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's a state sponsored hackathon series coming up, to create solutions to tackle the demand of ivory and other illicitly poached animal goods. Worth contributing to if you care about this cause: [http://www.zoohackathon.com/](http://www.zoohackathon.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I read another article recently that had a picture of a huge pile of illegally poached tusks being burnt in a large pyre.

I wondered about the logic of doing this. Wouldn't destroying a large number of tusks just increase the scarcity and thus the value, thus incentivising more poachers to kill more elephants?

Burning the tusks wouldn't bring the elephants back to life. I would have thought instead that suddenly flooding the market with tons of cheap ivory would kill the value and reduce profit for distributors. Then again, it would probably spur demand when people see the increase in availability?!?

No easy answer, but at the crux of it, we have to remove the almighty Dollar (oh, ok - Schilling) from the whole equation somehow.

</comment><comment><USER16> Probably there will be no more elephants in 25 years, except for small numbers in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries in developed countries.

At the rate it is going, African wildlife will largely disappear even as the human population explodes. Already there are over 1.2 billion humans on the continent, and not enough food, not enough stability or prosperity. Bush meat is popular and can be bought anywhere, which of course means people are hunting and eating protected species.

There are a couple hundred thousand chimpanzees left in Africa; there were once millions. There are maybe 20,000 lions, down from half a million. There were once millions of African elephants; now they're down to half a million and still dropping. Many other species are facing similar fates.

We humans are like a blight on this planet. Maybe we should quickly develop extraterrestrial colonization technologies, get the population off world, and preserve the Earth as a giant animal sanctuary.

</comment><comment><USER17> The problem is that Chinese use Ivory figures as traditional gifts, and they will not ban them, just in the same way the Spanish won't ban bullfighting. This increases the cost of ivory, which places a high reward for elephant tusks, which translates into their death sentence.

Likewise high end pianos, billiard balls, and such, make use of ivory.

According to surveys, the majority Chinese believe that elephant tusks grow back in the same way nails do, and they do not know that elephants need to be killed in the process.

At least there are studies to make use of synthetic ivory. Now, the use of ivory itself doesn't respond to any actual need other than a cultural one. Many materials that are cheaper can replace ivory in most use cases.

<comment><USER18> If ivory is a Veblen good, efforts to raise the price might actually stimulate demand instead of reducing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I know this is politically naive but I'll say it.

Self-declared police nations (like USA & UK & France & their allies) are so quick to intervene in Not Their Country when issues like oil or political alliances are at stake. So can we see the same level of committment (e.g. military intervention) when large scale extinction events or environmental devastation are at stake?

Soldiers lives are precious. So this is easy for me to say, but would we really be putting much at stake to drop a peacekeeping (read: anti-poacher) presence into Kenya?

</comment><comment><USER20> Wonder if this is related to the rise of China's economy.

<comment><USER21> I thought China had brought in a total ban (finally) on both import and sale last year. Obviously there's still smuggling, but I'd hoped the ban would have a noticeably positive effect.

<comment><USER22> >but I'd hoped the ban would have a noticeably positive effect.

The US bans and controls the sale of a lot of drugs, all we've got 50 years later is another out of control government department.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was in Tanzania last summer and saw elephants in one of these parks where poaching is a big problem. We were lucky to see them; it was beautiful.

Our guides told us that natural selection causes elephants there to grow ever smaller tusks, making them less attractive to poaching. That seemed somewhat hopeful to me: maybe evolution will happen fast enough so they can re-bounce in numbers after they produce no ivory anymore.

<comment><USER15> Or else the smaller tusks will mean poachers kill _more_ elephants each hunt to meet their ivory tonnage criteria?!? Could be a double edged sword.

I heard on a podcast recently that the main cause of elephant deaths in the 1920's and 1930's was.... the manufacturing of billiard balls. Apparently it took roughly 2 elephants worth of tusks to manufacture one set of ivory billiard/snooker balls. Astounding - whereas a piano keyboard would usually only take up less than 1/2 a tusk because they used laminated sheets of ivory.

At least we can be thankful that the modern plastics industry was born out of the need to create 'artificial ivory' billiard balls which exhibited the same bounce and noise properties. Although one could argue that modern plastics are a whole ecological blight in their own right...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Lets look at africa, then look at medieval japan. Two cultures, two times limited ressources (wilderness - forrests). One time, the allmend ressources are managed and tight self-controll is established over society - even during times of warfare and strife. Why does this not work in africa?

<comment><USER22> Medieval Japan didn't have many opportunities to engage in global trade. Oh and what happened to their feudal system once they were exposed to international products?

<comment><USER24> Eh, they transfered it into a cooperate-feudal system, where your feudal Lord is your cooperations CEO?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The Foundation for Wildlife and Habitat Conservation - Zambia is doing some great work on promoting alternatives to poaching. Your donations will do a lot of good there.

[http://fwhc.net/](http://fwhc.net/)

</comment><comment><USER26> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8g-lugXGBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8g-lugXGBQ)

</comment><comment><USER27> I really wish ivory wasn't confiscated and burnt, but rather was infused with poison and released to continue to its eventual destination.</comment>


Tired of Jira? / A Case for SCCS - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/tux0r/tired-of-jira-here-s-a-pure-posix-to-do-environment-versioned-and-awesome-or-a-case-for-sccs-3pfa <comment><USER2> This article is ridiculous from start to finish.

The point of jira is about usability and visualization (dashboards and kanban boards) and to be usable by non tech people too (support tickets).

<comment><USER3> > The point of jira is about usability

In that case, ouch. It's probably the least usable piece of software I use regularly.

A couple of months ago (?) they pushed half of a new look-and-feel. One result is that you have to use the "old" markup format in some text entry boxes, and the "new" markup format in others. Ugh.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Personal IoT scanner and search engine - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wybiral/dex <comment><USER2> Cool. I guess it just tries http requests on port 80 to random IP4 address. Any plans to add other ports or protocols?

What's the legality of actually running something like this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, currently it only looks at port 80 but it would be a trivial change to check others.

So it's great for finding web interfaces for DVR systems, printers, routers, obscure websites, etc. And it's good for collecting a random sample of host=>header data for research.

But it's not going to search for exposed database ports or other protocols unless someone wants to modify it for that purpose.

As far as the legality goes, it's probably on-par with something like nmap and will differ by region. However, it's only collecting the headers responded by a server voluntarily rather than probing all possible ports for exploits. In essence it's like typing random IP addresses into your browser until you get responses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's cool. Though, it's not clear if this is scanning just the local network, or more broadly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now it's scanning random IPv4 addresses, everything accessible. Though it may be a good idea to add some sort of whitelist or blacklist rules.

I've mainly been using it for sampling and exploration purposes. Like a bite- sized version of Shodan.</comment></comment>


Soft Metrics That Have a Significant Effect on Your Bottom Line - <AUTHOR> http://www.pagewiz.com/blog/online-marketing/soft-metrics-marketing-strategy

<comment><AUTHOR> Everyone wants to increase sales and grow their business – that's practically a given in the marketing world.

Increasing sales numbers and related key performance indicators (KPIs) is typically the main task for most marketers. And it is almost definitely the one that your boss cares about the most, regardless of whether said boss is the head of the marketing department, the CMO, or the business owner. And if you yourself are the owner, then you definitely focus on the sales numbers and corresponding profits!</comment>


An Unschooling Manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2009/04/25.html#a2369 <comment><USER2> I was home schooled for grade 2 and 3 and private schooled the rest. Throughout that whole period my best years of learning were grades 11 and 12.

The reason for this was that during all other private school years I was forced to sit and trod through material that was far too easy. I never did the homework because I could still pull of 70s and didn't see the value in having a higher grade. I was invited to province wide math contests, but was only scoring 72% in math. Finally my math teacher in grade 11 asked me how this could be. (He also happened to be the vice principal) I told him clearly: I hate class and I hate homework. They are not challenging, so I refuse to put effort into them.

He suggested the exact same thing that article advocated. The change was immediate. By grade 12 I was scoring 97 in calculus, 95 in linear algebra and 92 in finite math. All because I could move at my own pace. When I had exhausted the course material my teacher gave me books like Aristotle's mathematical proofs. These changed my life.

Imagine if this type of freedom had been available my whole life. My parents tried when I was young (via homeschooling) but my social development suffered too much and I wasn't getting the passion for the subjects that teachers can impart.

If I were to raise children now I would insist on a school that used the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori> style. It might not be the best for everyone, but for even slightly gifted children I think it will drastically improve their mental growth.

<comment><USER3> I think Montessori is unbelievable. I went to a Montessori school through third grade and loved it. But I don't think it works for everyone. My brother didn't enjoy it or do as well in the unstructured environment as I did.

So I think multiple kinds of education are necessary. The problem is that there's a lack of information about education options for most people. And perhaps an issue of affordability. You might say that the public school system ought to offer alternatives to the structured model. And maybe it should. I don't know how much that would cost. But I'm sure a lot of people would take advantage of it.

<comment><USER4> One of the great things about the market model is decentralized choice. Nobody has to decide what choices are offered for everybody. That decision is between the consumers and the producers.

And private school voucher programs that currently exist cost as little as 25% of the cost of educating that same child in public school.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My parents tried to home school me in the late 80's, early 90's (they were very religious). It turned into unschooling, because I was able to plow through the "curriculum" in very little time, and then spent all the rest of my time online. My dad worked for IBM so we had computers around, but when I found out that computers could _talk_ to each other, I fell in love.

This drove my parents nuts, they kept telling me I was throwing my life away, blah blah.

Well, it's obvious how that all turned out.

Let kids follow their passions, and they will LOVE learning, which is the most important life skill anyone can learn.

<comment><USER6> Typical nerd. I love learning, so everyone else must too! Fact: the majority of kids don't give two toots about learning and never will. Most kids need order and discipline. The _follow your passions_ message is great for those with good judgment and disastrous for those without. <http://www.vdare.com/sailer/iq.htm>

<comment><USER7> You'll never find a four-year-old who doesn't love learning. Our culture does something to screw most of them up sometime soon after.

<comment><USER6> _Our culture does something to screw most of them up_

If that's true, there ought to be some culture that doesn't have this problem. Can you name one?

<comment><USER8> Just a guess: Western civilization? Perhaps not today, but before schooling was made compulsory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The whole idea of unschooling is a little too utopian for me. Teaching is a skilled craft. A good teacher will work a classroom to keep all manner of kids involved and engaged. We've all had teachers like that. I had a 7th grade social studies teacher who was fantastic and an accounting professor in college who made accounting exciting. Accounting!

The problem in this country is well known. We have too many poorly trained and poorly paid teachers. And unfortunately with No Child Left Behind, we've stiffled the good teachers as well.

You can't just remove the teacher. Even the author's experience of independent study still relies on teachers to create the curriculum, produce learning materials and monitor progress through tests. That's a far cry to "go learn on your own."

<comment><USER7> > Teaching is a skilled craft.

In the 1800s they used to enlist _prisoners_ to teach the newly-minted public schools, as their community service. These people had absolutely no qualifications to teach; however, the children produced from these schools were more equipped for the world of the time than any child today. (This is something from Gatto, so I have no idea if it's true, but it's a good argument _if_ it is.)

<comment><USER10> Then perhaps you should present it as an unsubstantiated claim, and not a fact.

<comment><USER7> Didn't I? Don't decide on the veracity of something before reading the whole of it. The postscript is just as much a part of my statement as the rest of it, and it's much clearer than injecting numerous "maybe"s any "perhaps"es into the text itself.

<comment><USER11> Yes, it was presented as a fact. Prefixing it with, "this sounds cool but I have no idea if it is true," would have made it honest but reduce its directness.

Also, "postscript", something which comes after the main statement. That it changes the basis of the statement itself, could be called a linguistic hack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "The Grade 12 final examinations in those days were set and marked by a province-wide board, so universities could judge who the best students were without having to consider differences between schools."

United States college admission does not work in the same way, and that is one of the reasons that few schools in the United States would try quite the same experiment. The experiment I've been trying, after years of advocating a "learn in freedom"

<http://learninfreedom.org/>

approach to education, is negotiating with my oldest son about which distance learning courses and local brick-and-mortar courses make a coherent, college- preparatory program to fit HIS personal goals, and then letting him take on challenges that no other high school in town would let him take on. It will be interesting to see what a college admission committee will make of the experiment. In the United States, the college admission process is enough of a black box that applicants have to cast a wide net to make sure they have a decent, affordable college choice. High test scores alone

[http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents- forum/377882-how...](http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents- forum/377882-how-do-top-scorers-tests-fail-gain-admission-top-schools.html)

don't do the whole job of guaranteeing admission to a strong college program at an affordable price.

</comment><comment><USER13> There are so many examples of how a ridiculously small change can make education so much better. And yet so few, really almost none of them are widely applied. This is also very much country-independent. Among HN readers, is there a country whose educational system would accept a non-conservative idea like this?

<comment><USER14> You might be able to try it out in Denmark. Granted it would never fly in the public schools, but we have something called "free"* schools that are largely subsidised by the public, but with very wide rules for what they can do, so you might be able to use that.

* Free as in speech, but I don't think there is anything like that in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sudbury Valley

<http://www.sudval.org/>

"At Sudbury Valley School, students from preschool through high school age explore the world freely, at their own pace and in their own unique ways. They learn to think for themselves, and learn to use Information Age tools to unearth the knowledge they need from multiple sources. They develop the ability to make clear logical arguments, and deal with complex ethical issues. Through self-initiated activities, they pick up the basics; as they direct their lives, they take responsibility for outcomes, set priorities, allocate resources, and work with others in a vibrant community.

Trust and respect are the keys to the school's success. Students enjoy total intellectual freedom, and unfettered interaction with other students and adults. Through being responsible for themselves and for the school's operation, they gain the internal resources needed to lead effective lives.

Sudbury Valley School was founded in 1968. Located in an old stone mansion and a converted barn on the mid-nineteenth century Bowditch estate, the ten acre campus adjoins extensive conservation lands."

</comment><comment><USER16> I finally engineered this for myself at age 14 or 15. I discovered that I could get into _both_ the advanced courses and a dropout prevention program that let me out of school at noon to go work a job doing programming and animation.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned pg's essay on very similar issues from 2005, submitted a while ago to HN:

<http://paulgraham.com/hs.html>

<comment><USER14> We all read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could someone briefly explain how unschooling works for kids under ten? Do you just leave your five year old on her own, since her life is her own?

I'm not trying to be snarky--we home school our kids (although in a more classical way) and I agree with the assessment that the school system in the U.S. has failed (and I've read Illich and agree with much of what he says).

<comment><USER12> I'm homeschooling four children, and describe myself as an eclectic homeschooler with strong unschooling tendencies. My youngest is now six years old, and she spends a lot of each day drawing, building Lego constructions, doing kitchen chores with her mom, playing with her brothers, talking walks outdoors (with various members of the family keeping her company), or occasionally watching videos, some educational, and some not. She is close to being an independent reader. I give her a reading lesson each school weekday, and a math lesson. (My favored materials are Bloomfield and Barnhart's Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach

[http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Linguistic-Approach-Leonard- Bloom...](http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Linguistic-Approach-Leonard- Bloomfield/dp/0814311156)

and the Miquon Math

<http://www.keypress.com/x6252.xml>

series.)

So I guide my children's activities, but they have a lot of free time and a lot of control over how they spend their time. I like promoting QUIET activities like drawing and reading, because much of my work is done at home.

<comment><USER18> As someone who was homeschooled all the way through high school and am now working on my PhD in aerospace engineering, keep up the good work.

My bit of advice would be to join an active homeschooling group (if you're not part of one already). Not only will your kids have a (relatively) healthy social life, but they'll meet some really interesting people. I had (and still have) friends whose interests ranged from writing operas to fellow hackers. Most of my public school friends seemed boring in comparison.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for talking about homeschooling groups.

I am from Germany, where homeschooling is more or less verboten. Homeschooling seems like a good idea. But I always wondered where children would get their social life from, when most of their peers are locked away for at least half of the day.

<comment><USER17> There is an assumption that all home schoolers keep their kids locked up all day away from other kids, or that home schooling requires this. Hardly. Many of the stereotypical home school kids (socially awkward) are that way because their parents purposefully shelter them. For them, home schooling is as much opting out of the culture as it is opting out of the school system. There's also an assumption that typical schooling is, in part, socialization, which seems odd since most of us don't spend our days exclusively around our own peer group.

We've investigated several local home schooling groups, and we're also finding that many unofficial co-ops exists too, once you get plugged into the local learning web.

<comment><USER12> _There is an assumption that all home schoolers keep their kids locked up all day away from other kids, or that home schooling requires this._

Yes, that is the assumption, but that is not at all the reality. We have a very strong local group here specializing in homeschooling "gifted" children (standard term, not meant to be a brag) that is helpful for all the parents and for most of the children. I'm also part of several national online networks related to various aspects of homeschooling, and have been an officer of statewide homeschooling organizations.

<comment><USER8> I would not assume that home schoolers lock their kids up. Rather that the other kids are locked up in school.

So homeschooled kids may have less opportunity to socializing with "school- aged" peers --- unless there are other homeschoolers around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I remember the years I spent in high school and college just to pass the courses. It was boring and useless. All the time I waited for the course to finish to that I can go to home and do whatever I wanted to do. What a waste of time.

<comment><USER20> Nah, I disagree. It's not that bad. I'm in 10th grade right now, and here's the way I see it: I spend a few hours in school every day, where most of the time is wasted, come home, and spend the remaining 6-8 hours of free time I have learning whatever I want.

I used to be pretty annoyed about school in general, but once I realised how much free time I really have, it's amazing how much I started getting done in that same time.

(As for the actually interesting or difficult classes, which sometimes do exist, you can do the same thing; for instance, in the first few months of my calculus class, I bought a textbook and finished learning the material until the end of the year. Now that class is just as relaxing and as much of a breeze as any other.)

<comment><USER21> Good for you PieSquared. May I ask how many hours you spend in school and what country you are in? One of the things that I have noticed is that in many countries school hours are getting longer and longer, so there is less time available to get kids to learn independently and grow in their own direction. No matter how good the schooling you receive is, or what its philosophy, it will never cater to you 100% as an individual.

(Upthread: I _have_ read Jean Piaget so I am hoping that ahoyhere will allow me to post)

<comment><USER20> I'm in the United States, Maryland specifically. My school hours are from 7:25 to 3:00, or, if you include when I get on the bus and get off, from 6:20 to 4:00.

School hours are long, and it doesn't leave that much time, it's true. I compensate by going to sleep around 2:30 regularly, sometimes later, and catching up on sleep on the bus or through smaller naps during the day (and no, not during class :P).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's an idea I've been rolling around in my head for a while, wherein some portion of the day (say an hour) for each class would be dedicated to each student of one grade teaching one of the next younger grade (so two hours per day total per student, one teaching, one being taught). The idea has a lot of potential, both because it helps the educational system scale and provides much-needed individual attention. Individual attention is useful even if it comes from poor teachers. It's much too radical to be implemented in a modern public education system (too much politics there).

The reason I found this interesting is that it gives something to do with class size disparity: have the "best" students in the oversized class work in an independent study format for that hour. It's so simple.

<comment><USER23> I would do something like this if I were running a school as well. There are many obvious benefits to having older kids help younger kids. Besides, partitioning large groups of children by age is a weird idea if you think about it from a human point of view (as opposed to an industrial one).

<comment><USER24> I think the real test of learning something is being able to teach it to others.

I used to volunteer teaching after-school middle school classes with an organization called Citizen Schools and one big part of their methodology was trying to get kids to demonstrate their knowledge and pass it on to others in the end of whatever lesson they were doing.

<comment><USER23> Absolutely, to teach something doesn't only test your mastery of a subject, it helps reinforce it.

I've noticed that in the case of the older child, it reinforces their identity as "someone who knows about X", which feeds back into their own further study of X. It also subtly evokes responsible behavior from the older child simply by putting them in a responsible position, and harnesses the younger child's tendency to look up to older kids in service of their learning. Seems like the kind of thing we ought to do more of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Check out _The Day I Became an Autodidact_ <http://www.amazon.com/Day-I- Became-Autodidact/dp/0440550130>

</comment><comment><USER26> I found this post pretty passionate and moving. I'm biased in that any writing about rethinking education is something I'm going to be pretty rah-rah about :D, but it's still a good read in that it's based both on his personal experience, and rigorous theory.

The book he's reviewing kind of suggests that schools deliberately have the effect of making students "small," which I don't necessarily agree with (I think many people in traditional formal education have pretty decent intentions, and at worst mostly get apathetic about their model). But still, I think it could only help the dialogue to have a book go "too far," in terms of describing the effects of the current state of education.

</comment><comment><USER27> I know that this is highly tangential to the discussion, but I think it's worth sharing...

The author mentions Acquire, which is a brilliant board game of particular interest to this startup crowd. Sure, it is a gross oversimplification of the equity markets, but it is still oddly relevant and a whole lot of fun. It is very easy to learn and games have a bounded duration. Highly recommended for expert gamers and complete non-gamers alike.

<http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5>

<comment><USER8> Board gaming in general strikes me as a good tool for education. It usually requires quick thinking, basic arithmetic, strategy, negotiation. In my experiences fondness for gaming also correlates well with mathematical ability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One of the things I did with my kids was to push them to take courses at the local community colleges while they were still in high school. They got better quality instruction, more advanced topics, and college level credit. My son had credit for all but two math classes in EECS at UC Berkeley. My daughter was able to graduate in four years at UCLA, rather than drag on to 5 years because of schedule conflicts and oversubscribed classes.

</comment><comment><USER29> Great post. I agree that you often need a radical to create enough noise around a real issue that deserves attention. Richard Stallman is a perfect example. A little extreme, but brings the conversation to a needed place.

The tough part here is the 'how'. Maybe we could start at the top and work down: University undergrad programs in North America could become a lot more like grad school, encouraging original thought from the get go.

<comment><USER26> Here's my theory on the "How."

Similar to yours, but starting even a bit more removed:

Innovation will happen (and is happening) first in non-accredited adult (and maybe even non-accredited child) learning environments. Crazy theatrical lectures, Spanish classes disguised as video games, etc. People will have really positive experiences with this stuff, and it will trickle down.

It's probably too scary for some people to just hand over the keys to their kids' "real" education at first. Once people see how comfortable and successful changing stuff up is outside of schools, and it will feel less risky inside of schools.

I see the edge of this already happening on the Internet, with sites like edufire, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I dropped out of school in 8th grade. Shortly after that I got my first modem. My education came mostly from learning what I needed to learn to be able to participate in adult discussions and debates that I found online.

Ideally I would have preferred a (very) small amount of structure, guidance and discipline. But I have no regrets. The actual other option was California public school.

</comment><comment><USER31> Part of the problem is an obsession with diplomas and enforced curricula. Jobs will not hire unless you have the necessary diplomas - until that changes, forced, regimented, rote and curriculum-based learning is the only real option on a massive scale. Consider the alternative: employers become agnostic about your educational background (or even totally blind to it) and instead test each applicant on the relevant skillset for the position - a society that only tests on entry, not on exit. If singular test panels aren't good enough, bring back apprenticeships, internships, etc.

As IT progresses arguments bringing up signal to noise ratios and using school leaver's certificates, a-level grades and university diplomas as first-pass filters become less relevant.

It's win-win for everyone except those who were provided with a prestigious education through the funds and connections of their parents. Employers are exposed to a maximally broad base of candidates - who may have followed an educational path that's totally unique and has made them much better suited to the job than one that distracted, bored, diffused and brainwashed them; candidates get in on merit not so much on the paid-for (private) resources made available to them (though your dad's library or mum's financial freedom to stay at home and teach you will always be one source of inequality).

</comment><comment><USER31> Brings to mind an amazing book - Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society. Essential reading if you're interested in this topic (and who wouldn't be? [http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/intro.h...](http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/intro.html))

</comment><comment><USER32> I wanted to do this in high school so badly. I had friends whom I had met outside of school who had done this and it always seemed like they were a head in life. My co-worker has done this with his children and they are all starting college 2 years earlier or so.

</comment><comment><USER33> Yeah, I hated school too. It's not ever going to change because it's _for the masses_. That's its _sole and express purpose_. Why is anyone trying to redesign the system or otherwise shoehorn exceptional people into a system designed for the masses? Either drop out or shut up, in my opinion. Massive social structures don't have time for unique butterflies. That's the Reality of the situation with a capital R.

The optimum solution is to just get it done at an 75-90% level until you graduate HS or college and get on with your god damn life instead of fighting it for years and years and years and pulling yourself and others down in the process. Just give them the bare minimum of what they want while pursuing your own interests. It's politics 101.

This is why many, many successful people say "I dropped out", or "Oh, I was only a B and C student" instead of "I spent every waking moment of my life trying to rebel against the system in which I had no place in, attempting to reforming it form the inside to suit my specific needs to a tee."

<comment><USER34> The education system at this point is not a designed entity. It has evolved through the interplay of various political forces. It has no purpose. No one would design anything like our system if they were doing it from scratch. It's just no one has a plan to fix it ( or the authority to implement such a plan).

<comment><USER35> >> No one would design anything like our system if they were doing it from scratch.

Why not? If I implemented a system, it would probably involve certain things that I wanted students of different age groups to learn (a curriculum). There would probably be people who were in charge of teaching them (teachers). Along the way, we'd measure how well they learned, or how we taught them (tests).

Why is this so preposterous?

<comment><USER34> Well, personally, I'm an abolitionist. But even if I believed in public schools, there are many aspects of our school system that do not even make sense on their own terms:

1) Kids are mandated by law to attend school, but then when in school, teachers cannot even adequately punish unruly kids because that would violate their civil rights (thanks to a bunch of court decisions in the 70's). That means the worst kids get little discipline, and the good kids get locked in a building for six hours with juvenile tormentors.

2) Schools make less intelligent kids feel like they are inadequate because they are not as good at a narrow range of academic skills. And for what? There are many productive ways to earn a living that require neither algebra, physics, or history.

3) The worst delinquents do not want to be at school. The teachers do not want them at school. They do not get anything out of school because the teachers have no ability to control them. The system is benefiting no one.

4) Teacher pay has absolutely no relation to the quality of their teaching.

5) Districts pay a ton of money for the tools required to equip a vocational school. But those tools already exist in the workplace, and these craft businesses all used to except teenagers at entry level positions where they could learn the ropes for free ( or even get paid).

6) The smart kids who actually do want to learn are usually not allowed to. They are usually beyond the curriculum, yet are forced to go follow the exact curriculum set out by bureaucrats hundreds of miles away.

7) We live in an era where there is far more information in the world than anyone can ever learn, and where most economic value comes from specialization. There is simply no reason to have a centralized curriculum, outside of reading, writing and arithmetic.

8) There is no clear reason to have specialist teachers. Schools could be designed as parental coops. Or as a series of workplace internships. Or as apprenticeships. There are many, many models to use.

9) Why not use older students to teach younger students? It saves money and breeds responsibility.

10) Why segregate by age? Why cut off children from the rest of society in a big box building? Kids always act better when they are trying to impress someone older. Older kids act better when they know younger kids are looking up to them.

11) Despite a tremendous increase in the hours spent in school over the past 90 years, tests of numeracy and vocab among the general public have been flat.

12) Why assume that we need high school. We got through the 19th century just fine without it. What changed?

13) We send kids to college to supposedly educate them, but where the real result is spending 4 years of partying and no responsibilities.

14) The left puts up huge fights against voucher funding for private schools, because they fear that will lead to more class segregation. So instead, many posh suburbs have essentially become expensive private boarding schools where the parents live too. Instead of the different classes living in the same town but going to different schools, they live in entirely different towns altogether.

15) A student has his school paid for for 18 years. But after that he is entirely cut off. Why can't a student take a few years off when he's young and does not appreciate school, and then have the money available when he's older, and realizes he needs to a community college degree to achieve his chosen profession?

16) The school system pretends that it is supposed to raised up the lower classes and increase their earning potential. But in reality, the reason for much of the earning differential between drop outs and graduates is that there are needles barrier to entry laws for many professions. Take away those laws, and lower class students could simply self study and test into the jobs, rather than spending a huge amount on college.

<comment><USER36> There is only one fallacy that invalides your arguments #1, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #15 and #16: if you offer the freedom of not going to school that you seem to advocate, and if the parents don't care about their kids' education, you have a major problem.

In order for your plan to work, it assumes that either the kid is bright or the parents place a high value on education. Think about this scenario and tell me how you take care of it.

In the meantime, the current system does a good job of providing a _baseline_ education for all.

<comment><USER34> _if you offer the freedom of not going to school that you seem to advocate, and if the parents don't care about their kids' education, you have a major problem._

If parents cannot raise their kids properly, well, you have a major problem. Fortunately, parents evolved to care about their kids more than anyone else, and they are also much closer to the problem than any government. The parents that are so incompetent that they cannot ensure their children have basic economic survival skills are very rare.

 _In order for your plan to work, it assumes that either the kid is bright or the parents place a high value on education._

What percent of jobs in the economy need more than reading, writing, arithmetic, and apprenticeship? 10%? 15%? In my observations its much lower than people think. And learning the basics was never a problem in the United States. The U.S. had near universal literacy since 1800(1), long before the modern educational complex was created. The baseline requires two or three years to teach max. So how does that justify a compulsory 12-16 year educational track?

In fact, part of the reason that so many parents do not care about their kids _academic_ education, is that the kids _academic_ education does not matter. Neither the kids nor the parent is part of the cognitive elite, so they are never going the game in striving for cognitive elite jobs. The parents are right, the government is wrong. The idea that 100% of the population needs to stars in the academic fields is a lie ( or more politely, marketing).

(1) outside of slaves, who were actively barred from reading

<comment><USER37> "What percent of jobs in the economy need more than reading, writing, arithmetic, and apprenticeship?"

My Dad lost his welding job around when I was starting high school. He took a few different jobs, one of which was cutting brush with a machete for a local private surveyor. He found the surveying work interesting, so he checked out books from the library to re-learn his Trigonometry (and probably a few other things). This allowed him to get a job with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation surveying group, from which he took early retirement a couple of years ago. I think having an initial exposure to Trig in high school allowed him to realize this career change was possible.

So, it is hard to say what knowledge will be useful, or not, over the course of a lifetime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> OK guys, since this conversation comes up _every single time_...

Yes, public school systems can be very good, and tailored to individual students. Look at Scandinavia, especially Finland and Sweden.

Yes, lots of people do extremely well without structure and authority figures breathing down their backs.

Yes, teachers are underpaid, and yes, paying them more will not solve the fundamental issue.

Yes, unschooling kicks ass, and no, your excuses don't really make sense.

No, you don't need to keep rehashing _your_ story to defend your choices or whatever, will you please take the chip off your shoulder already. It's the internet, nobody knows (or cares) that you dropped out, or that you stuck with it and graduated.

Yawn.

And if you're going to debate - on the Internet - you might want, in the spirit of hacking, to brush up on the material on the topics that already exists by eminent people who've spent much longer thinking about it than you. E.g. if you haven't read John Holt & John Taylor Gatto & Jean Piaget[1], why are you bothering to write?

[1] On the other hand, I will accept novel theories about why all these men are named John.

<comment><USER8> > [1] On the other hand, I will accept novel theories about why all these men > are named John.

Selection bias?</comment></comment>