How to Stop Advertising Notifications from the Google Photo App - <AUTHOR> https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/qwJMmOiAvZY;context-place=forum/photos <comment><USER2> > The reason why I bought a Pixel from Google directly is because I do not > like the adware and bloatware that comes pre-installed on phones from other > carriers.

Bloatware mandated by google on all android phones:

1\. Google+

2\. Google Duo

3\. Google hangout

4\. Gmail

5\. Google play music

6\. Google play games

7\. Google play movies

8\. Google play newsstand

9\. Google drive

10\. Google sheets

11\. Google chrome

12\. Google maps

13\. Google assistant

14\. Google app

15\. Google photos

16\. Youtube

Seems like the author made a decision diametrically opposite to his desire. I literally use 4 of these 16 pre-installed apps. Keep in mind that these are non-removable too. You can disable them, but they will forever sit in the flash storage you paid for.

<comment><USER3> It's surreal to me that Microsoft faced years of legal repercussions worldwide for including a browser in their OS.

<comment><USER4> Microsoft had a monopoly. Google does not.

<comment><USER5> So both Apple and Google control the market, and each uses the "not a monopoly" excuse because of the other company.

There's no practical difference.

<comment><USER6> Many (or most?) bundled iOS apps can be removed [https://support.apple.com/en- au/HT204221](https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT204221)

<comment><USER7> > Removing built-in iOS apps doesn't free up storage space on your device.

So it does the same as disabling them on Android.

<comment><USER8> The linked article was for iOS 10. iOS 11 deletes the apps properly: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208094](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT208094)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why does it feel like every choice for a phone is a losing choice nowadays:

\- "Pure" Android from Google (Pixels and co): You end up being controlled by Google and enclosed in their ecosystem. They manage and decide the ToS for everything and you have very little say about it (as this issue proves).

\- "Modified" Android from other manufacturers: Full of bloatwares and basically unusable after 6 months

\- iPhone: Closed source and managed by Apple. Not a lot of technical options to customize if you don't like the default behavior (An issue I have with every Apple product).

For a non technical person, as a comment said above the iPhone is the best ethical solution. You get what you pay for and there are no shenanigans.

As a technical user however, I feel it is kind of sad to own an iPhone as I like to go deep and being able to modify a lot of settings and behaviors. I simply don't like the overly opinionated way iOS or MacOS handles the user (Which again would be fine for 99% of normal users).

<comment><USER10> For a technical person, you have another choice: LineageOS (optionally with microG, which is what I use). It's nearly-stock Android without the Google apps, and with a few extra features. (Privacy Guard is very nice.)

microG lets you use apps that depend on Play Services without actually having Play Services - it's not complete but most of the common APIs are there.

There are other ROMs, but LineageOS (formerly CyanogenMod) is the only one I personally have experience with.

<comment><USER11> Just curious how is performance and how old is the phone you are using with it? My biggest issue with android phones, even the google flagship ones is they just fall apart after 18 months both physically and with software overwhelming them to the point of extreme lags in every interaction with the device. Does the same dividend exist here as on desktop where it's pretty expected to be able to run a 10 year old pc by running Linux on it without much issue?

<comment><USER12> I personally use Lineage on a Samsung Galaxy S5 and love it. It's far better than the stock roms. It offers access to newer OS versions (currently Nougat) and quicker access to security patches. Better battery life, a cleaner less bloated experience, and options for tweaking settings to your liking. There are some downsides though. Mainly reduced camera performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are so many apps that abuse notifications. I often find that I have to turn a new app's notifications off after installing it.

For example, the Kindle app (on iOS) keeps bugging me about random things that are basically ads for Kindle. The Etsy app does the same. I recently installed the AliExpress app, and it started sending me notifications daily about deals ("Still looking for wigs? Look what we found, just for you!" \-- just because I was entertaining myself the other day by browsing through all the crazy crap that AliExpress sells, it now thinks I want a wig).

Apple (and Google, presumably) really should penalize app creators for abusing notifications.

<comment><USER14> I find myself clicking terribly targeted ads just to screw the metrics and waste the advertiser's money.

Targeted ads are a joke in 2017.

Notification abuse is honestly worse. It is mostly stupid notifications that were clearly not written by someone with any advertising experience.

<comment><USER15> Targeted ads are basically homeopathic medicine in a different market:

They take a small group of people with money who don't care about the shit you sell and honestly resent seeing your beef jerky ad when trying to buy a couch, dilute it with a bunch of people who once Googled "beef jerky" to figure out that one brand or make a funny meme so as to neutralize statistical qualities about the cohort you might not like, and pretend it'll do something for your business besides act like a sinkhole for your money.

But I've slowly come to think most business statistics are deeply flawed, but now we're trapped using them because there was an upward slope to the cliff and people are dumb. Even if you point out that their flawed number models caused their businesses to collapse over and over for no reason but poor optimization, most people just hear "made money for a while".

C'est la vie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I also received this notification. I have an S8, not a Pixel.

This is the kind of marketing spam done by crapware apps. Should we also expect this from Google now? I've come across too many nontechnical user's phones with hundreds of spam push notifications to have any patience for this crap.

<comment><USER17> I don't know when this trend started but I noticed I started getting texts from facebook as well about 6 months ago. I haven't been on the platform for over 3 years and never specifically remember authorizing them to text me.

<comment><USER18> Same here!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really appreciate that his/her argument is cogent, compelling, and lacking cynical sarcasm. I hope they are successful.

That said, this is one of the many reasons I have been moving out of the Google ecosystem to paod services.

</comment><comment><USER20> Amazon sells phones "with offers and ads" for a discount on the MRP.

In comparison, this phone is sold at a premium and then displaying ads? It seems Google wants to have it's cake and eat it too.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is, as of me writing this, only one reply to the original post in support of its complaint — mine. Perhaps those willing to post comments here should consider also posting them there.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've used a firewall on my phone: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.greyshirts...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.greyshirts.firewall) The firewall is brilliant in that it sets up a 'VPN', that all connections must go through. Bam, no more notifications from any shitty apps that got a request from a marketer to annoy you. However, it won't help with the apps that you have a love/hate relationship with (ie Viber).

You will be SHOCKED at how many apps insist on a connection to the internet despite not apparently needing a connection. I even had apps I never use, still try to call home!

On a sidenote, I love how the app also gives Wifi or Mobile Data option. ie, prohibited updates unless over WiFi.

<comment><USER23> Last updated 2014, doesn't support ipv6 so it is pretty much useless in most countries?

Are there any decent no-root firewalls on android?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I also got an ad for Duo in my Pixel's phone dialer

[http://i.cubeupload.com/7PGmMo.jpg](http://i.cubeupload.com/7PGmMo.jpg)

<comment><USER14> Will it ever be possible that Google develops one messaging and video app instead of 9?

<comment><USER25> You mean like Google Hangouts used to be, before they butchered it? I'm still mad about that - it actually was the reason I bought my first iPhone. I no longer have a messaging system that does everything on Android, so I switched ecosystems for iMessage.

<comment><USER26> Or how Google talk was before hangouts. With talk, at least, you could use any XMPP client, and the web ui was wonderful for the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I liked the Growl notification customizations on the Mac, where every possible notification type for an app was listed. That's how it should be; then you know everything that the app can possibly send. You could make broad preferences where desired, and granular settings as needed.

I hate that installing new apps enables every stupid notification by default, seemingly only fixable by going 3 levels deep into every app's settings and disabling things. Designers talk about the importance of having good defaults, and notifications have really, really stupid defaults coupled with bad UI for fixing them.

<comment><USER28> Android took a big step in this direction in Oreo, with a built-in central manager of the permission and notification settings of every app on the system :)

<comment><USER26> Android 7 has that too, under the "permissions" setting for apps. It's a "I don't want any notification" or "I want all of them". Are those settings in oreo better?

<comment><USER29> Yes in Oreo every notification belongs to a named "channel" and you can customize by channel. So for example saying yes to new messages and no to promotions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Been debating between the V30 and the Pixel 2 XL. If true, this report destroys perhaps the primary reason for the Pixel.

<comment><USER30> I have been looking around for my next phone, most likely android. The thing I've come to realise is that I'm no longer able to buy an Android phone, instead I am buying either a Google phone or Samsung phone. Even the "pure" android experience is really a Google experience.

Since I will be in the market to replace my aging phone sooner rather than later, the phones I've been eyeing are

HTC U11 Unlocked

Essential Phone

OnePlus 5T

Google Pixel 2 (not the XL to avoid screen issues, it's mfg'd by HTC and similar to the HTC U11)

This list is US centric, etc.

I would consider the iPhone 8, but not the X personally.

<comment><USER31> OnePlus has spyware.

[https://betanews.com/2017/10/11/oneplus- telemetry/](https://betanews.com/2017/10/11/oneplus-telemetry/)

<comment><USER32> Just listened to interview on All About Android and their explanation sounded plausible that it was done wrong and they will delete any collected data. I just bought a 5T and did not hear about this so I'm interested. Sounded like they are removing in OTA update. I'd probably have switched to iPhone if Apple didn't lock development to their OS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Buy an iPhone. ;-)

<comment><USER34> This. I pay Apple money and they give me stuff. A very simple transaction. I don't get spammed constantly, I don't have third party crapware on my phones or computers and I don't have stickers all over my stuff that makes my electronics look like a NASCAR car.

<comment><USER35> Yes but I also have to necessarily buy into the Apple ecosystem and pay a lot of money compared to Android, which I can just root and remove all this crap more easily than on Apple devices.

I also don't really trust Apple to keep my data secure, I'm sure they have plenty of security measures, but I feel safer putting my data on my own servers via Nextcloud and stuff.

<comment><USER34> _I also don 't really trust Apple to keep my data secure, I'm sure they have plenty of security measures, but I feel safer putting my data on my own servers via Nextcloud and stuff._

So why do you think that your servers using third party software is more secure than Apple's? Have you personally audited every line of code in NextClouds software or every line of code in Android for security vulnerabilities?

<comment><USER35> No, but I trust myself more than Apple. And I trust myself in who I choose to trust, which is not Apple.

Have you personally audited every line of code in Nextcloud or every line of code in an iPhone?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> A Google Bot will reply in that forum soon.

<comment><USER37> "Please try this: reboot to recovery mode, and select 'clear cache'".

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Doesn't this sort of notification violate the Play Store ToS?

<comment><USER39> It doesn't violate the ToS when you write the ToS.

<comment><USER40> Not that I've read the Android ToS, but that's presumably not true, unless Google has a clause that says "none of this applies to us".

<comment><USER41> A ToS is a contract between a service provider and a user, Google doesn't need to agree to that contract to use its own services, I don't even know if it makes any sense legally. Of course ethically one would like the same rules to apply to everyone.

<comment><USER42> Is a violation with the Play Store ToS really necessary for Google to be allowed to throw you out? Last year, they did a witchhunt on third-party YouTube-apps capable of background playback on the basis of those supposedly violating the YouTube ToS, not the Play Store ToS.

<comment><USER38> the play store developer agreement says your app can't violate anybody else's ToS. A violation of the youtube ToS is an implicit violation of the Play Store ToS. Violating Facebook or Twitter's terms will get you kicked off the play store too.

"4.4 Prohibited Actions. You agree that you will not engage in any activity with Google Play, including the development or distribution of Products, that interferes with, disrupts, damages, _or accesses in an unauthorized manner_ the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or _services of any third party_ including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator."

[https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_us/about/developer- distribu...](https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_us/about/developer-distribution- agreement.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I mean, it's 'advertising' a new feature of the photos app ... I get the frustration but it's not like it's a third party advertisement.

<comment><USER44> What is relevant is that it is an advertisment, not that it is "third party" or "second party". It is an ad. It wants your money.

<comment><USER43> Would it be considered an ad if instead it just said 'hey new thing now you can create and print photo books right in the app!' without mentioning price?

<comment><USER14> Yes. Ads are distractions from things I care about. This sort of notification is an attempt to make me care about something.

<comment><USER45> The philosophical question that arises from here, now, is that if someone really cared about that offer to be introduced through the app (like a new feature notification), would it still be called an 'advertisement'? But then, to know whether you "care about" this feature to be introduced in the app so that it wouldn't be an advertisement, they'd need to track what you care about and what you don't. But people have issues with tracking :). Not supporting or opposing anything here, just thinking aloud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Long press on the notification. Disable app notifications. Granted this is blunt force and is a bandaid on the bigger problem.

Alternative is to Disable the preloaded app.

<comment><USER46> He mentioned this in the letter as being overkill. He is asking for a preference to disable the notifications that a reasonable person would consider advertising, so that (e.g.) he can continue to get notifications about friends photo albums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Is there a way to view this without having to sign in with a google account? The page seems to mostly load before it redirects to a login...

<comment><USER48> Open it in an incognito/private window. For some reason that trick is necessary for all Google Groups content as well.</comment></comment>


Let's record the Amazon Prime Air predictions so we can see who was right - <AUTHOR> https://preddict.com/p/7aa344caa470

<comment><USER2> Lets do it!</comment>


LIVE Stream: Man Attempts to Climb Trump Tower in NYC - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QobWf20dXs <comment><USER2> I don't want to give a channel named "Donald Trump Speeches & Events 2.0" any views.</comment>


Quantum vastly outperform supercomputers when it comes to energy efficiency - <AUTHOR> https://physicsworld.com/a/quantum-computers-vastly-outperform-supercomputers-when-it-comes-to-energy-efficiency/ <comment><USER2> Summit is the 5th is the Green500 list[1] which means that it is pretty efficient for a supercomputer and outperform by a NISQ. However, this doesn't include the time of the calculation. If this take 10s with summit and 1 month with a quantum computer, I can maybe have the same enery efficiency with a raspberry and a solar panel. Joke aside, if the time for the solution is greater with a quantum computer, it can void the interest of the result.

[1]: [https://www.top500.org/green500/lists/2019/11/](https://www.top500.org/green500/lists/2019/11/)</comment>


Samsung unveils (two) new Gear 2 smartwatches, ditches Android for Tizen - <AUTHOR> http://9to5google.com/2014/02/22/samsung-unveils-new-gear-2-and-gear-2-neo-smartwatches-ditches-android-for-tizen/

<comment><USER2> Is this Samsung's way of sneaking Tizen into a larger market? Expose people to it through other gadgets, get developers familiar, and later focus on Tizen OS phones instead of Android?</comment>


Is everything we eat associated with cancer? - <AUTHOR> https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/97/1/127/4576988 <comment><USER2> Aren't cancer cells made out of protein, carbohydrates, fats?</comment>


Scott Adams: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big (video, 2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJVxkr9eE9A <comment><USER2> I liked his friend who went to interviews for jobs he didn't want. I wish I thought of this when I was looking for work.</comment>


Inequality and Web Search Trends - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/upshot/inequality-and-web-search-trends.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> > The rise of inequality over the last four decades has created two very > different Americas, and life is a lot harder in one of them.

This would be a fascinating appendix for Charles Murray's book _Coming Apart_. If you liked this article, you might enjoy his quiz about which of these two Americas you are likely to live in: [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/white-educated-and- wealt...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/white-educated-and-wealthy- congratulations-you-live-in-a-bubble/) (Edit: I scored 46 and the description is completely accurate: "A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents")

<comment><USER3> The description you suggest is "completely accurate" applies to scores between 11 and 80, on an entire scoring spectrum of 0-99.

I'm not overly impressed.

I scored 27 but I'm a Brit living in the states and a lot of the blue-collar culture stuff doesn't translate (NASCAR).

I'm perfectly fine not being involved with the more pop culture stuff. I've only watched House of the shows they listed.

Is this a worrying new trend though? I'm pretty sure the world has always had its haves and have-nots.

<comment><USER2> The "coming apart" of American culture isn't because too few people watch NASCAR or eat at Applebee's, it's a problem because in one America lots of people do it and in the other America people _never_ do it. It's slowly creating two separate cultures where people have trouble relating to each other because they're growing up with two distinct sets of cultural experiences. It's only incidental that the divide in culture is being driven by meritocracy picking the haves and have-nots.

I'm not surprised you found the results unimpressive, since Britain has a far different history with class and mobility than the United States. I was impressed with how the questions ascertained that I'd grown up in a rural area then moved to a wealthy suburb in adolescence. Things like going to parades, eating at Applebee's, or going fishing were strongly present in the first half of my life and completely absent in the second half. I crossed a major divide in American culture without even realizing it.

<comment><USER3> I'd argue that there has always been this divide, or similar divides through the course of US history. There's a rural/urban divide which has slowly but inevitably moved in the direction of the urban side throughout the last 100 years. There's a rich/poor divide which I already referenced as haves and nots. There's an educated/uneducated divide which closely mirrors the wealth divide. None of this is anything new.

You seem to have some beliefs about US history which I don't share. I don't believe in the myth of upward mobility in the US, while there are certainly examples of this, the story is oversold. I don't believe the society is as meritocratic as it is made out to be. The biggest predictor of a person's success is their parent's wealth.

I'd also argue the fact that you apparently crossed this major divide in American culture without even realizing it suggests that maybe you didn't cross a major divide of anything at all.

This is without even going into the immigrant/religious/racial divides that exist. We aren't going to have a homogenous group of 300m people - this isn't a bad thing, and it isn't a new thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These results are pretty much exactly what you would expect -- people who are struggling aren't likely to be googling for luxury items -- and I would venture to guess that they would be fairly similar even if The Upshot used only income, or only education level, rather than a blend of six metrics, to determine "hard" and "easy" counties to live in.

What I find especially intriguing are some of the explanations Leonhardt posits, which presume a causal link and attempt to suggest what that cause is. That's part of the reason why I enjoy running Correlated.org -- it's fun to try to guess what the connection might be between two seemingly unrelated things.

But let's remember: Not all correlations entail a causal link. (I prefer that way of putting it over "Correlation does not imply causation," because correlation does _imply_ causation ... it's just that it often wrongly implies it.)

<comment><USER5> i hate county level data like this, though they did address that they basically had no choice.

I'm not sure you can consider obesity as part of 'a hard place to live'. thats an action an individual chooses regardless of geography. You could argue that poor people have no choice, they are obese because they are poor for example, but that would be like double counting income if they are highly correlated.

income is also tricky since taxes and costs of living has a huge effect. this could possibly explain why the places to live shown are largely opposite to most 'happiness' indicators that I have seen. at least looking at its map: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/upshot/where-are-the- harde...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/upshot/where-are-the-hardest- places-to-live-in-the-us.html?abt=0002&abg=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      There is evidence of the nation's cultural divide in the results,
      with "Zoolander" (a 2001 movie starring Ben Stiller) and Vengaboys
      (a Dutch dance-pop band) popular in the easiest places and Kenneth
      Nixon, of the rock band Framing Hanley, popular in the hardest
      places."

Vengaboys, huh?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zbi0XmGtMw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zbi0XmGtMw)

Are the easiest places to live in the TV advertising markets of Six Flags, by any chance?

</comment><comment><USER7> Wilcox, Alabama...8% disability?

Is that entire county committing disability fraud? What's going on there?

<comment><USER8> [http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/](http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/)

 _In Hale County, Alabama, nearly 1 in 4 working-age adults is on disability.[2] On the day government checks come in every month, banks stay open late, Main Street fills up with cars, and anybody looking to unload an old TV or armchair has a yard sale.

Sonny Ryan, a retired judge in town, didn't hear disability cases in his courtroom. But the subject came up often. He described one exchange he had with a man who was on disability but looked healthy.

"Just out of curiosity, what is your disability?" the judge asked from the bench.

"I have high blood pressure," the man said.

"So do I," the judge said. "What else?"

"I have diabetes."

"So do I." _

<comment><USER7> Man, I need to find that guy's doctor and lawyer. I could start collecting disability checks for my high blood pressure.

I'm 24, can run three miles and work 50 hours/week.

High blood pressure is not a disability.

<comment><USER9> High blood pressure can be disability depending on (1) the specifics of the condition ("high blood pressure" is a broad range, not a single binary condition that manifests identically in all people suffering from it), and (2) the persons usual line of work -- disability determinations are generally [1] made based on your ability to do the work you did _before_ the disabling condition manifested.

> High blood pressure is not a disability.

 _Your_ high blood pressure, as it currently is, is clearly not a disability _for you in the work that you do_. That does not mean that high blood pressure is not a disability.

[1] The exception is that each state agency also has a "List of Impairments", a catalog of specific conditions and combinations of conditions that are considered unconditionally disabling; if you have a condition on that list, or one judged as severe as one on that list, you are considered disabled without analysis of the specifics of your previous work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> nb-4l

If this is the #3 search term, the data must be thin. Anyone familiar with this dataset want to chime in? I have a similar camera that is used pretty often and I couldnot even recognize the name without a google search. Did I just get lucky by buying 2x nb-6l ? maybe the nb-4l is really a pain point? Maybe some users of the elph series have real issues with this thing?

<comment><USER11> > If this is the #3 search term, the data must be thin.

I can see why one might think that, but it's actually not necessarily the case.

I'm not sure how they're defining 'highest correlation to our index' (there are a few different ways to interpret that statement), but for example, with a latent Dirichlet allocation[0][1], a word or phrase that is rare but is almost exclusively limited to a given subgroup might still end up being one of the top associations for that group.

Another example using a similar technique: For "The Real Stuff White People Like"[2] we analyzed millions of fairly lengthy profiles, and still the results yield some phrases that you might think are relatively uncommon (though not rare), but are _very_ highly associated with certain groups. We did the same thing for sexual orientation[3], and you can see similar effects there.

One other thing to keep in mind is that search terms are usually a few words, which is much shorter than the typical OkCupid profile.

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

[1] An LDA is only one possible way of analyzing data of this sort, but it's a reasonably common one so it's easy to find other examples for comparison

[2] [http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white- peopl...](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-people-like/)

[3] [http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/gay-sex-vs-straight- sex/](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/gay-sex-vs-straight-sex/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Dog Benadryl"

</comment><comment><USER13> What if the only thing poor, unhealthy, superstitious regions really need is more hobbyist cameras?</comment>


Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds - <AUTHOR> https://dot.la/calpers-venture-capital-diversity-2646204153.html <comment><USER2> What's the end goal here, to have people hired "because they are black?" I guarantee that will happen if there is money to be made by doing it.

<comment><USER3> If you haven't noticed, that's been the goal for a long time now. People get accepted to college because of the color of their skin. People get better SAT scores now because of the color of their skin. Every major company has diversity boards which make sure to hire people based in the color of their skin. Hollywood and big business choose who to be in ads, movies, and other customer facing media because of the color of their skin. Groups decide their memberships based on the color of people's skin. CHAZ protesters in Seattle are arguing for judging people in court differently based on the color of their skin.

It's really so interesting that these groups of politically motivated people think they're ending what they perceive as racism ... by being as racist as it's possible to be.

<comment><USER4> > It's really so interesting that these groups of politically motivated people > think they're ending what they perceive as racism ... by being as racist as > it's possible to be.

The existing system is already very biased against them, I don't have a problem with some corrective action.

"In fact, companies are more than twice as likely to call minority applicants for interviews if they submit whitened resumes than candidates who reveal their race—and this discriminatory practice is just as strong for businesses that claim to value diversity as those that don't."

[https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job- resumes...](https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get- more-interviews)

<comment><USER5> I would actually blame the corrective action for it. Companies are not personal, they are purely about managing business and risks. When you hire a person, you care for 2 things:

1\. How likely will they perform their duties in a way that is profitable to the company?

2\. How much will it cost to the company to fire them, if they turn out to generate loss.

Some people may have a stereotype that people of certain backgrounds would perform worse than people of other backgrounds, so that would affect heir judgement at point 1. However, if we make special rules that make it harder to fire underperformers from certain backgrounds, it greatly increases the costs at point 2, making them actually much less favorable candidates.

So in the current political climate, companies at the same time are forced to:

1\. Claim that they will prefer diverse candidates and have diversity policies.

2\. Actually avoid diverse candidates, because in case they underperform, laying them off would be considerably more expensive due to PR issues.

The study very much confirms this behavior, and I bet that making more special rules will only make it worse.

<comment><USER4> > Companies are not personal, they are purely about managing business and > risks.

Let's completely refute this notion:

"Companies with more culturally and ethnically diverse executive teams were 33% more likely to see better-than-average profits. In McKinsey's previous study—conducted with 2014 numbers—that increase had been 35%. At the board of directors level, more ethnically and cultural diverse companies were 43% more likely to see above-average profits, showing a significant correlation between diversity and performance."

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2018/01/25/more-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2018/01/25/more- evidence-that-company-diversity-leads-to-better-profits/#203436fc1bc7)

<comment><USER5> I would dare say the causality is reversed here. Once your company reaches a certain size, NOT having a diverse executive team will very quickly get you labeled as racist and will cost you dearly. Nobody cares about a mom and pop bakery, but imagine the outrage in the media, if Apple or Google did not pick their executive teams based on the diversity constraints.

<comment><USER6> Not only that, for the time period when this study was done, the most successful businesses will be in cities where there is statistically a more diverse pool to draw from.

Is the cause the diversity or is it that cities are generally hyper- competitive places that draw the most competitive people in society and filter out those that can't hack it.

Your reason and my reason are just two possibilities of reversed causality. I'm sure there are many others.

The conclusion of that study is basically a wet streets cause rain conclusion.

One only needs to look at foreign firms like those in China that are crushing it to see that many non-diverse businesses are doing very well. I'm sure those businesses weren't included because it wouldn't support the conclusion the researcher wanted to arrive at.

<comment><USER7> China is a great example, very mono-cultural (relative to the US, I know there is different great diversity in China) and (personal experience) a bit racist or dismissive of Non-Chinese.

Yet they absolute crush it with almost everything they do? How do we square that circle and say well..if everyone just looked different we would be better off. Minus the white people, they shouldn't be around anymore.

<comment><USER4> It's pretty easy to pick this apart. China is actually quite diverse culturally, but communism has long had a focus on equality. They're demonstrating that equality is a competitive advantage.

<comment><USER6> I've lived in China and the US and it doesn't even come close to the diversity of thought as the US. That said, they still crush it despite the lack of diversity of thought. With the US diversity of thought also comes the diversity of work ethic. China doesn't have that issue. A lot of the diversity of thought China has typically comes from expatriates that have returned home after meaningful experiences living abroad. This alone demonstrates that genetics is a terrible proxy for diversity of thought. What matters is cognitive diversity and diversity of experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> tuna-piano What person from an underrepresented group wants to be chosen just because of their group status? Isn't that highly patronizing for someone who likely had worked hard to get to where they got? Do you want to be "pretty great for a xxxxx person!" or just "one of the best".

Is this a lesson that people want their kids to learn?

Doesn't this also lead discrimination actually being a rational (and maybe ethical) thing to do?

Simply put- if the top 100 medical students (based on MCAT, boards scores, etc) are chosen to become heart surgeons, choosing a heart surgeon from those 100 based on race or gender is not only absolutely egregious morally but it's also irrational.

But if the top 90 of the 100 medical students are chosen and then 10 are chosen because of non-relevant factors (race, gender, etc)... doesn't it become rational (and maybe morally acceptable) to try and avoid choosing those lesser-qualified 10 for your life-or-death surgery?

<comment><USER8> >>What person from an underrepresented group wants to be chosen just because of their group status? Isn't that highly patronizing for someone who likely had worked hard to get to where they got? Do you want to be "pretty great for a xxxxx person!" or just "one of the best".

For comparison, consider the case of people who get their jobs via nepotism. The people who are hired for nepotism are seldom concerned with the fact that they were chosen because of who their parents were. In many cases these people are reasonably qualified and do just fine in spite of the fact that they were given the job because of their family's status.

When there is a preponderance of talent and success is hard to quantify precisely, choosing the best means choosing between a number of comparably good alternatives (to within the large uncertainty of the measurement). In certain cases there are very meritocratic scenarios where I think your statement holds, but when there is a surplus of talent for a role and quantifying success is very imprecise, I'm not sure if meritocracy makes sense. Given that many hedge funds are basically glorified ETFs that average to the market, I'm not if there is much difference between reasonably qualified candidates for these jobs.

<comment> tuna-piano I think your nepotism example and "preponderance of talent and success is hard to quantify precisely" are nice arguments and give me something to think about, thanks.

But when you say "I'm not sure if meritocracy makes sense"... you are really saying that instead of trying for meritocracy, they should just use skin color?

How do you feel about the idea of blind auditions for orchestras (auditions where the candidate cannot be seen, only heard)? These were originally done to eliminate the possibility of discrimination.

I think orchestras could also qualify for "preponderance of talent and success is hard to quantify precisely"... should they eliminate blind auditions so they can choose performers based on skin color+gender?

<comment><USER8> Well I'm not really advocating for choosing people based on skin color or gender per se. Rather that in a cases where there is an surplus of talent for the role we should consider making a choice based upon serving the interests of society more broadly. Sometimes this will fall along racial lines. For example, having doctors of color to serve communities of color has demonstrable positive health outcomes for society more broadly.

In the case of managing portfolios, I think that there are compelling reasons from a risk management perspective to cultivate different perspectives (a room full of Bulls will get burned in a downturn). Increasing the number of people from working class backgrounds, genders with different spending priorities, or races with different community ties can potentially add a lot of important perspectives to a financial portfolio.

Blind Auditions in orchestras are an interesting idea. People are actually much better and judging sound quality of violins than they are judging the quality of stock options, so it is easier to definitively state that someone is the 'best' Violinist in a group.

<comment><USER6> > we should consider making a choice based upon serving the interests of > society more broadly. Sometimes this will fall along racial lines.

This line kind of contradicts this line:

> Well I'm not really advocating for choosing people based on skin color or > gender per se.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If we are going to have rules like this, then we need to sort out what legally counts as a minority.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/lynnwood-man- tried...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/lynnwood-man-tried-to-use- a-home-dna-test-to-qualify-as-a-minority-business-owner-he-was-denied-now-hes- suing/)

[https://www.vox.com/2014/12/22/7431391/guess-where-white- ame...](https://www.vox.com/2014/12/22/7431391/guess-where-white-americans- have-the-most-african-ancestry)

</comment><comment><USER10> "At this moment of heightened public awareness, forcing big public pension funds to commit to putting more of their dollars in funds controlled by minorities could have a major impact. These public institutions, unlike their corporate kin, represent a wide and diverse swath of the country, making investment decisions for public servants like teachers, firefighters and municipal workers."

While I think this is a phenomenal idea, it should be noted that systems like this that currently exist are frequently, almost typically, gamed. I went to work for a Federal Government certified 8a minority woman owned business with at the time about 20 employees in my mid-20s. I remember thinking how cool that was.

The "CEO" was a highly competent woman of Filipino descent who, after having kids, had chosen to become a stay-at home mom. She was CEO in name only, and her husband (a big giant white dude who was also highly competent) was the actual CEO, but with a different title.

The company's main source of revenue was acting as a prime contractor on contracts only available to 8a companies, then subbing the work out to large contractors. Another regulation on the company was a cap on it's profits, as well as a cap on salaries of individual employees. Their way around that was that the acting CEO and his wife both earned max level salaries. Another C level co-founder also payed his wife the maximum salary, and near as we can tell, her sole item of work for the company was sending out holiday gift baskets.

Again, good idea, but we need to think very hard about how to ACTUALLY help, rather than just making a small number of people who know how to game the system wealthy.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. It describes common practice for US Federal government business in response to the creation of minority business preferences in contracting.

Many companies that are not actually minority-owned essentially rent minority- owned shell companies to clear the qualification hurdle for contract preferences, it is _de rigueur_ unless you have unique capabilities that make it likely you'll get a contract award regardless. The obvious consequence is that once every company is "minority owned" no company is and you are back to where you started, just with some middlemen.

<comment><USER12> It's probably getting downvoted because people who support the preferences view it as someone trying to keep minorities down. I've seen a lot of people game the system, where they'll have specialized knowledge from the government of military, then start a small contracting company and make their wife the CEO so they can win contracts. I've also known people doing government contracting where the prime won because it's an Alaskan Native company, but they subcontract out all the work, and there's only 1-2 natives actually doing work on the contract.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I still don't see the value in diversity for diversities sake. Having read much from Thomas Sowell on the matter I think most of these terms will lead to much worse outcomes than what we have present day.

<comment><USER14> Diversity of viewpoints is essential for long term prosperity - it allows for a marketplace of ideas and limits blind spots.

The first time this really clicked for me was when I dived deeply into the history of the First World War. If I could restate the root cause, it was complete failure by both the British and especially the Germans to envision a point of view different from their own. They each operated like they were sparring with themselves, and shit got out of control. The problem is that it's now vogue to assume what point of view a person holds bases entirely on their race/gender/etc.

P.S. If WWI sounds interesting, I very much recommend the podcast "When Diplomacy Fails."

<comment><USER6> > Diversity of viewpoints is essential for long term prosperity

Maybe the solution here is to develop a standardized test that measures diversity of viewpoint in a way that is blind to genetics.

<comment><USER7> Hey I agree, once we say "you're genetics give you a diversity of viewpoint" we are typecasting by genetics. Once we say, "you're genetics make you think this way" we are walking right down the path of eugenics....seem's wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Side Note for anyone joining later: I/someone should make a timer for post visibility, contest to see which gets buried faster by HN.

Do some heuristics, we might even calculate a bias score.

</comment><comment> tuna-piano For those who don't read the article, here's a quote: "Unless you're only selling to white people, if I was at a firm I would want every point of view represented in the investment process"

Is this how people view the world these days? Where skin color is important?

I feel like I'm totally lost and saddened by this new race-focused world. Can someone please tell me when I can go back to caring about the quality of air traffic controller's[1], the quality of a manager's returns[2], and a restaurant's food[3] and NOT their skin color? I'm exhausted by it.

[1][https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/affirmative-action-lands- in...](https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/affirmative-action-lands-in-the-air- traffic-control-tower-1433283292)

[2]The article from this discussion

[3][https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2020/06/09/uber- eats-d...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2020/06/09/uber-eats- delivery-fees-cancelled-for-black-owned-restaurants/#516926009f15)

<comment><USER15> How fortunate you are to merely be "exhausted" emotionally. This isn't really a conversation about skin color its a conversation on how we treat each other and we happen to treat people with certain skin colors in ways that make their lives worse and in some cases more dangerous. Talking about it like its about skin is foolish. It's about behavior.

<comment> tuna-piano Who is this "we" that you speak of? What institution anywhere in the US treats people of certain skin colors worse than others? I know of many (including those referenced in the linked article), but yet all of them discriminate against whites and asians, not blacks and hispanics.

Why do you believe that racism is so widespread? If there is evidence of widespread racism among people and institutions, please share (the only evidence I've seen is some name-on-resume-callback studies that appear more to do with class than with race).

I'm guessing you believe that there is widespread racism because of disparate outcomes. But disparate outcomes between groups doesn't mean discrimination.

For example, Iraqi-Americans avg income $32k, Iranian $78k income. How many Americans even know the difference between those two peoples even if they wanted to discriminate?[1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "diversity and inclusion" initiatives are coming up on a long overdue reckoning. The premise is to allege discrimination, based solely on "evidence" in the form of inequality of outcome, and then use that unilateral accusation as justification for the accusing party to practice the discrimination they claim to oppose. Bonus: you are liable to lose your job for criticising these practices.

The comments ITT suggest that perhaps the taboo surrounding criticism of diversity initiatives is finally lifting, and rightly so.

<comment><USER17> You can't conclude anything from a single thread. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23555398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23555398)

Would you please review [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and stick to the rules on HN? I'm afraid you've been breaking them in two ways. First, it's not ok to use the site primarily [1] for political or ideological battle. That's probably the single most destructive thing people do here, because battle mode and curiosity mode do not go together. Some political overlap is ok [2], but it's not ok to use the site primarily this way.

Second, please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. [3]

[1] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20primarily%20test&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[2] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20political%20overlap&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[3] [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20community%20identity...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20community%20identity&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

<comment><USER6> For people to use a consistent identity especially with issues where you get fired for an unorthodox opinion, it's necessary for people to be able to go back and delete comments that could be used to doxx them. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of HN and why I increasingly use throwaway accounts.

<comment><USER17> I can meet you partway on that by agreeing that there are lots of constraints on this problem. But if someone is repeatedly creating accounts on HN just to post on flamewar topics, that's not a high quality use of the site.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What non PHP framework resembles the structure/deployment of Laravel/Yii - <AUTHOR> PHP has been my main language for years, but I want to learn other languages to create web apps. The thing I like the most of PHP is how easy it is to deploy and develop an application. When deploying your app, you only have to update the files with a file transfer or a deployment script, because a PHP interpreter is always running.
Furthermore, all PHP frameworks like Yii, Laravel and CodeIgniter follow the same conventions for structuring a project.
I've tried to learn Django and like the syntax. However, I don't like the idea that a project contains multiple apps. I prefer to have large applications that do multiple things. Also, the whole template/view part is a bit confusing for me.
I'm curious what other platforms/languages are the most similar to the structure and deployment of Yii and Laravel projects.
The Java play framework seems like an interesting option. <comment><USER2> Ruby on Rails. You'll immediately notice an 'app' directory. Resources are in app/assets, controllers in app/controllers, models in app/models and views in app/views. There's a routes.rb file and a command line interface ('rake routes' does the same as 'php artisan routes:list', 'rake db:migrate' is the same as 'php artisan migrate').

While you can deploy Rails by just copying files (it will reload classes and recompile assets on page refresh whenever possible) it's still a best practice to have the dev and production environment different.

<comment><AUTHOR> Damm RoR is nearly Laravel with a different syntax. Development and deployment is also very easy. I was always wary of RoR, because I read online that it's so good at simplifying and abstracting stuff, it can become a black box that is hard to debug.

However, apart from that, this is exactly what I sought. Thank you for making me reconsider Ruby :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14974767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14974767)

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw that thread before, but nothing really appealed to me.

<comment><USER3> Same, except Laravel was new to me in that thread. Looks pretty similar to what you get with Rails but for PHP.

Given the criteria I laid out in that post it looks viable. I'm honestly surprised since I left PHP for Ruby about 12-13 years ago. I think Cake was the wannabe at that point which must have been PHP 4 or 5. There was much I disliked then but Laravel seems better.

So I'll pose the question, does Laravel have a compelling feature which you think makes it better than Rails or do you think they're about even?

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the things I like really well about Laravel is that it integrates with modern front-end development tools and frameworks.

They have an excellent asset manager called Elixir that acts as a wrapper for Gulp. You can even use it without Laraval. In your gulpfile, you just have to require Elixir and tell it what are the source and output directories. It even has an option to automatically suffix a random hash to your app.js and style.css for cache busting.

In your template, you only have to include the style.css or app.js and it will auto inject the latest version like this: <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ elixir('css/all.css') }}"> will become <link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/all-blabla.css">.

You can read more about it here: [https://laravel.com/docs/5.3/elixir](https://laravel.com/docs/5.3/elixir)

The Framework also has a lot of build in stuff to simplify connecting Vue.js components to your PHP backend.

Laravel is mostly built on the idea that everything is loosely coupled.

For example, in Yii2 (another popular php framework) everything is built around the Yii ORM and routing system. Laravel strictly separates all components.

Apart from these two things, there really aren't many benefits that make Laravel stand out. I have worked a lot with both the Yii platform and the Laravel platform and it's mostly a matter of preference.

Laravel also has an official stripped down derivative called Lumen. It's meant for building API's.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How a rogue appeals court wrecked the patent system - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-a-rogue-appeals-court-wrecked-the-patent-system/

<comment><USER2> The second page is really good stuff. Particularly the part about Supreme Court intervention and the need for a specialized patent appeals court. I think the Supreme Court patent jurisprudence over the last several years has been extremely good, and I think the need for a specialized patent appeals court is questionable at best. People tend to think we need specialized patent judges who can understand the technology, but I think this is misguided. Judges are experts at quickly learning the 10% of any field they need to make a decision. Technology isn't any more complicated and in need of specialized judges than say a dispute involving complex insurance or securities instrument. At the same time, generalist judges would be much better at weighing the larger issues of fairness involved in a case. There is a real lack of balance in the Federal Circuit and I think that's partly because Federal Circuit judges don't field other kinds of cases.

<comment><AUTHOR> The article talks about the idea of the Federal Circuit "overruling" the Supreme Court by gradually chipping away at the principles behind SC precedent.

Interestingly, similar charges have been made of the DC Circuit with regard to the Supreme Court's national security jurisprudence, especially _Boumediene v. Bush._ [1] (The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has essentially become the US terrorism court — because among other things — they are the only court allowed to hear Guantanamo detainee appeals. But DC Circuit judges do hear normal cases as well.)

So it seems to me the problem with CAFC is not just in its "specialist" judges but also in allowing the law in one field to develop almost exclusively in one court. This also makes Supreme Court supervision much more difficult.

1.<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1838402>

<comment><USER2> That's a very interesting point. Thanks for the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It seems pretty clear that something was broken with the old system, before the creation of the CAFC. Plaintiffs were only winning 20-40% of the time.

Considering that

1\. the plaintiff is starting with a rebuttal presumption of patent validity,

2\. it is the plaintiff who makes the decision whether or not to sue, which should weed out a lot of weak cases, and

3\. this was before software patents, back when examiners actually had a deep understanding of the art in the fields whose patents they examined, so there was not a flood of bad patents being issues,

I'd expect in a fair system for plaintiffs to win the majority of cases.

<comment><USER4> 1\. That's like saying a law against speeding is valid, so the defendant is probably guilty of speeding. That a patent is valid says absolutely _nothing_ about whether a defendant is infringing it.

2\. Sorry, all I can do is laugh. Do you actually follow the US legal system?

3\. Again, whether a patent is bad or not has _nothing_ to do with whether it's infringed in any particular case.

<comment><USER3> 1\. Read more carefully. I was not talking about infringement.

2\. Yes. I acquired a passing familiarity with the US legal system in law school.

3\. Again, read more carefully.

<comment><USER4> 1\. The numbers you're quoting sure are. Look at the chart and surrounding text again. And all you said was "Plaintiffs were only winning 20-40% of the time.". "Winning" in a patent case hinges on infringement. If you're not talking about infringement, what could you possibly be talking about?

2\. That's not an answer to the question I asked, it's an irrelevant and evasive appeal to authority.

3\. You're projecting.

<comment><USER3> 1\. I was talking about validity. A hint to that effect was that my sentence explicitly talked about the burden of proof of patent validity. To win a patent case, you must have a valid patent and that patent must be infringed. The plaintiff enters the case with an advantage by law on the validity issue, which was the point of #1.

I dealt with why the plaintiff has an advantage on the infringement issue in point #2.

2\. You asked: "Do you actually follow the US legal system?"

I answered: "Yes". Please explain how that is not an answer to the question you asked.

<comment><USER4> You've done nothing to explain how the presumption of validity implies the plaintiff will ultimately win, nor how my analogy to the validity of a law is wrong.

If the answer were really just "Yes", you shouldn't have felt it necessary to bring academic credentials into the discussion, instead of just leaving it at "Yes".

We know from history that extremely weak cases are filed all the time, usually hopes of attempting to force a settlement, and that there have been few effective barriers to such tactics. There were even fewer barriers during the era before the Federal Circuit came to be.

Your bald assertion about "weak" cases being weeded out is contradicted by real-world observations of both the distant past and more recent history.

<comment><USER5> In most cases I disapprove of flaunting academic credentials to strengthen an argument, since that is just appeal to authority. But in this case I feel it was relevant to your question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is pretty interesting stuff. For example, I wasn't aware of the "jurisdiction race" that happened when new patent were issued. It puts into context some of the changes at least.

The most depressing, even alarming, part of this is:

> Instead, patent appeals are exclusively heard in DC by judges who live and > breathe patent law. Unsurprisingly, this leads to insular thinking. For > example, when we interviewed Paul Michel, who served as the Federal > Circuit's chief judge from 2004 to 2010, he didn't seem to understand the > problems facing small software companies. "If software is less dependent on > patents, fine then. Let software use patents less as they choose," he said, > seemingly oblivious to the fact that software companies don't have the > option to opt out of patent troll lawsuits.

Seriously? The court seems to have no idea of the Pandora's Box they've opened by loosening the "obviousness" constraints.

<comment><USER7> Sure they do. This Pandora's Box contains cash, for lawyers.

<comment><USER2> The cynical answer is not always the right answer. You should hear the CAFC judges speak. They genuinely think that the patent system is good for innovation. Most engineers I know, outside the software bubble, feel the same way. They think in terms of patents regulating unfair business practices in the competition between Dow Chemical and DuPont or Lockheed and Raytheon. They think it's a Bad Thing (TM) if they work on a new chemical for 10 years, getting it through expensive and time-consuming testing and regulatory approval, only to have a competitor be able to copy it the minute they release a successful product.

They don't necessarily have insight into the dynamics of how patents function in the software space, but that doesn't mean their actions are just a cynical money-grab.

<comment><USER7> So you're saying they just don't understand the software industry? I can believe that. I do see a lot of cynical money grabs though, so it's an easy thing to believe.

<comment><USER2> I think the judges are a reflection of the broader engineering community, and there are big differences in how different parts of the engineering community view the patent system. Look at the background of some of the judges. They're Chem/Bio/EE and worked at places like American Cyanamid and the Naval Surface Warfare Center. My own background is in aerospace engineering and the defense industry, and my experience has been that engineers in these industries view patents very positively. The first think that comes to these engineers' minds when talking about patents isn't Amazon's double click patent, but the patents on vulcanized rubber or HDPE.

More generally, people don't become federal judges because they want a payout. A court of appeals judge makes about $185,000, or about what a third-year law firm associate makes before bonus. And unlike many other civil service jobs, a judgeship is a capstone to a career so it's not like judges use the judgeship as a stepping-stone to a lucrative private-sector position. They are by and large people who genuinely care about overseeing a justice system that facilitates the orderly activity of the economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Clearly a bit biased but the argument that patent law should rise up through the circuits like any other branch of law is a good one. That is something actionable you could ask your representative to 'fix' (note to would be lobbiests, the best results are when you whine for something achievable, this wins on that basis it "makes sense" (which should patent law be special now) and its within their purview.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm glad not to be the only one saying the Federal Circuit defied Supreme Court precedent in _State Street_. I do think we're a long way from a Diehr/Flook/Benson standard for software patents, though. The Supreme Court is being very careful these days to say nothing beyond answers to the questions brought to them. You won't see any long rants against lower courts like in Diehr.

</comment><comment><USER10> Uh oh. I understand Europe is planning on introducing a specialist patent court. That could go similarly badly as it is even more likely to be full of patent specialists.

</comment><comment><USER11> I know this is (re)opening a can of worms, but the interesting part about this article is that it _very clearly_ highlights why it would have been a terrible idea for the recent Apple vs. Samsung trial to be decided by a jury of patent specialists instead of laymen.

<comment><USER12> It seems that the trouble in Apple vs. Samsung was that one of the jurors thought he _was_ a patent specialist instead of a layman.

<comment><USER11> Perhaps. I've heard the argument that because he was a patent holder himself, he was able to convince a significant portion of the jury that he was an expert in all things patent-related, and this swayed their decision in favor of Apple. But that's just the rumor machine. We'll see what the outcome of the appeals process is in a few years.

<comment><USER12> That part of it is not really a rumor; he gave several interviews where he explained in detail exactly how he influenced the jury. All that remains is to see whether or not those statements actually invalidate the verdict.

But in case it's not clear, I completely agree with you: a panel of patent experts would have been even worse. The problem in this case was the judge trusting this guy when he said he wouldn't let his previous experience as a patent holder color his judgement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yet another wonderful legacy of Ronald Reagan.

<comment><USER13> You can be sure this wasn't his idea.

<comment><USER14> Few things were.</comment></comment></comment>


An open letter to Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/11/20/anOpenLetterToGoogle.html <comment><USER2> As genius as he is, doesn't everything seem to boil down to a battle of wits or a vendetta with Dave? Wouldn't be the first time ( [http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2881/letter-dave- winers-...](http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2881/letter-dave-winers- attorney) ) or the last.. :-) Similar rows broke out when Atom wasn't even called Atom, but Echo.. [http://news.cnet.com/2009-1032_3-5059006.html?tag=fd_lede1_h...](http://news.cnet.com/2009-1032_3-5059006.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed)

<comment><USER3> Or in the nicely chosen words of Tim Bray, "A lot of people don't get along with Dave"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Could someone quickly summarize the technical differences between RSS vs. PubSubHubBub?

[Yes, I could google it myself :) -- but am also interested in various 2nd order issues (e.g. which is trending up/down, why does Winer not like PubSubHubBub) which would take more searching to learn.]

<comment><USER5> The latter is an attempt to remove polling from the architecture and thereby make the updates more realtime. A client would actually run a small server (in the "listener" sense of the word "server") that a "hub" would hit when there's a resource update.

Dave made significant contributions to RSS, and I suspect that he's experiencing the motherly instinct to protect his baby. Note the phrasing of point #2, and how he refers back to it from point #15. He's underscoring how he's not in "competition" with Google. But that doesn't mean that his ego is completely decoupled from the success of RSS.

On the one hand, I abhor polling and usually love to see it removed where possible. On the other hand, I've never thought RSS was insufficiently realtime. I tend to flood myself with too many feeds, and then it becomes an issue of self-discipline to trim or ignore it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love Dave Winer. I don't always agree with him but I love that he expresses his ideas. More power to you, Dave.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you live in a car/RV? - <AUTHOR> I live out here in the Rockies and always meet people living in their cars. I'm seriously starting to consider this lifestyle. Just wondering if anybody on here is doing this full-time. If so, how does this impact your professional life? <comment><USER2> I am homeless, with no car. I sleep in a tent. I am open about that in forums, and I blog about it. My homeless blog is one of my more successful websites.

I left a corporate job to go sleep in a tent because I have a serious medical condition and my job was keeping me ill. I do freelance writing and I also do resume work these days. My health is improving and so is my income.

I don't meet clients in person and I can't say if my living arrangements cost me potential clients. I assume it does, but it is better than the way I had.

I think if you figure out how to make this work and don't give clients excuses based on your living arrangements (and don't be too in your face about it), a lot of people either will not notice or will not care.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm thinking the same. I found a diy rv guide [http://thevanual.com/#gallery](http://thevanual.com/#gallery)</comment>


Should every website send you an email when you login? - <AUTHOR>

Two factor authentication (where google, yahoo,etc) send you a text with a secret code for you to login is a bit of a pain. I would rather have a 'log' of my logins whereever I go in my email. Obviously if I see an access I do not remember (time or IP) then I know something's up. Is this a reasonable strategy/request for better security? <comment><USER2> I would not want my inbox flooded with notifications every time I log into a site (I would probably just make a rule to put them in the trash, which would defeat the purpose). Gmail has pretty good system where it notifies me every time I login from a device that I haven't used to login to gmail before. Since most of the time I am checking Gmail from the same two devices I rarely get these notifications. It is nice to know that this security is there, I would quickly realize if someone else was trying to login to my account.</comment>


Is Linux Still The Safest Operating System? - <AUTHOR> http://www.security-faqs.com/is-linux-still-the-safest-operating-system.html <comment><USER2> Can we take seriously something that discusses secure server operating systems without mentioning any of the BSDs? Nor that Linux is something OSs like Debian, RHEL et al are based on, without itself being an OS.</comment>


Ask HN: What blew your mind? - <AUTHOR>

What is something you have seen recently that...<p>...gave you the chills ...made you question what is possible ...made your mind race with new ideas? <comment><USER2> My mind is like a war zone, i blow it up very often. Most recently it was my realization that is math easier(and much more fun) if you approach it as a mystery to be solved, rather than a sport, like they teach you in school. Yes, they do teach it like a sport: learn the skills, and then apply them to 4 problems in 40 minutes, each problem is harder than the previous, and if you succeed, you get rewarded with a better grade. This is the most boring sport ever! This is mind-blowing to a 19 year-old who spend 12 years in pointless training of a sport that isn't fun, to get rewarded with something he doesn't care about. Man, i feel cheated.

Other examples of recent mind explosions include:

when i "got" recursion last summer.

when i "got"(sort of)pointers in C.

when i "got" what trigonometry really is, now all i have to do is "get" it itself.

when i found hacker news :D

</comment><comment><USER3> It was 15 years or so back, but the Diagonalization Proof and Godel's incompleteness theorem blew me away.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument>

The first time I grokked relativity is also seared in my memory.

<comment><USER4> Along similar lines... the proof of the Halting Problem: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem#Sketch_of_proof>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Compressed sensing. Specifically, Candes-Romberg-Tao's really simple explanation of it.

<http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/0503/0503066v2.pdf>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The forgetting curve and its application in flashcard programs with spaced repetition.

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

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

</comment><comment><USER6> Mostly the Sistine Chapel - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel_ceiling>, but also a few other art pieces as well.

One guy, did that, in 4 years ?! Makes me want to work harder/smarter to do something amazing too.

</comment><comment><USER7> Leaving Christianity and realizing that I alone am responsible for my destiny....my will be done...

<comment><USER8> Sounds like Lucifer's "non serviam".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hope it doesn't come across as narcissistic, but what I'm doing with my startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's that?

<comment><USER9> It's a new way to structure and query data -- essentially a new type of database, a variation of a graph database -- and the result is that anyone can use it and model their data without realizing that's what they're doing. I wish I could describe it in a sentence or two, but the upshot is that while Google is great at finding text in web pages, a business or a schedule of events doesn't want to be a web page -- it wants to be found. So by allowing people to structure their own information, you get a different type of web experience: show all babysitters near me who charge less than $6/hour, or send a message to all co-workers who play squash. Things like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wake up in the morning and I'm still here.

<comment><USER11> How could it be that you wake up in the morning and you're not still here?

Just wondering ...

<comment><USER12> <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/qm-and-identity.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Plan 9 From Bell Labs

<comment><AUTHOR> Plan 9 blew my mind as well.

Everything's a file!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs></comment></comment>


Friend Software Labs Releases FriendUP v1.2 Release Candidate - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/friendupcloud/friend-software-labs-releases-friendup-v1-2-release-candidate-637d7bf800d4 <comment><USER2> As maintainer of Wekan [https://wekan.github.io](https://wekan.github.io) , I warmly welcome this new release :)

A moment ago I installed installed Friend server to my laptop and tried it with locally installed Wekan in iframe, source code to Wekan FriendUPApp is here: [https://github.com/wekan/FriendUPApp](https://github.com/wekan/FriendUPApp)

More related Wekan at Friend links are here: [https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Friend](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Friend) I will add more instructions there how to that page. Wekan is not yet at Friend Store, there will be login, file dialogs etc integrations needed before that.

I have already partly translated Friend to Finnish, and plan to translate rest of Friend to Finnish.

I'm open to any questions about Wekan and Friend :)

BR, <USER2>
</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats to Friend dev team on many great additions and improvements for this release!</comment>


Will Our Understanding of Math Deteriorate Over Time? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2015/07/will-our-understanding-of-math.html <comment><USER3> _"In mathematics and theoretical computer science, we read research papers primarily to find research questions to work on, or find techniques we can use to prove new theorems."_

This is why figuring out an elegant, concise, and powerful set of mathematical models which apply to multiple domains, and then devoting effort to simplifying, organizing, and explaining those ideas in an accessible way is so important.

Incentives for researchers are mostly to push and prod at the boundaries of a field, but in my opinion mathematical ideas are only of marginal value in themselves; more important is the way they help us understand and interact with the physical universe, and for that building communities, developing effective languages and notations, codifying our understanding, and making it accessible both to newcomers and to outsiders is the most important task for a field, and perhaps for our society generally.

Just like with software projects or companies, the most "success" comes from helping a range of other people solve their problems and extend their abilities, not from making technically beautiful art projects for their own sake (not that there's anything inherently wrong with those).

Perhaps more generally, while theorem proving has overwhelmingly dominated pure mathematics and related fields for the past 80–100 years, and has been an important tool since Euclid, theorem proving is only one way of approaching the world, and in my opinion is a mere tool, not an end in itself. Just like simulation is a tool, or drawing pictures is a tool, or statistical analysis is a tool.

I like this bit from Feynman: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaUlqXRPMmY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaUlqXRPMmY)

<comment><USER4> But sometimes the connection between "beautiful art project" and "practical tools" is totally unexpected. We often invest time in projects that seem simply like "beautiful art", and then much later stumble upon something practical.

I think a great example of this is cryptography. The foundations of it come from number theory (prime numbers, modular arithmetic, elliptic curves), but the subject of number theory, before the advent of computing, was possibly the most useless kinds of mathematical 'art' that could have existed. I imagine it was the mathematical equivalent of frolicking in the fields.

Mathematicians explored Fermat's little theorem starting in 1640, but they didn't do it because they knew it'd be useful several hundred years later in RSA. They did it simply because math is worth exploring in itself.

Even if you don't subscribe to the idea that we should pursue math for math's sake, history shows us that it's very difficult to know what parts of math will be useful to humanity, especially hundreds of years later. Since people work best on what they find interesting, mathematicians should continue exploring the topics that most interest them, because we really can't say with any certainty what will prove useful (or even essential) to future generations.

<comment><USER5> That's a popular meme but its mostly false. See [http://lesswrong.com/lw/4kt/the_value_of_theoretical_researc...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/4kt/the_value_of_theoretical_research/)

The vast majority of "useless" mathematics really do turn out to be useless. In the rare exceptions, there's not much evidence that doing the work beforehand is actually an advantage. E.g. Einstein wasn't aware of most of the work on non-Euclidian geometry before developing relativity IIRC.

Stuff like prime numbers have eaten up millions of brain hours of highly intelligent people. I remember thinking it was weird that so many project Euler problems were about prime numbers. And I looked up what the applications of them were and couldn't find anything significant beyond cryptography.

And they seem to have been chosen for cryptography simply because it was a well studied problem with certain properties. Not because cryptography inherently needs prime numbers and would be impossible without centuries of previous work studying them.

<comment><USER6> > Einstein wasn't aware of most of the work on non-Euclidian geometry before > developing relativity IIRC.

That's the worst example you could find, because Einstein didn't develop the mathematics for general relativity. He relied on the math invented in the XIX century for non-Euclidian geometry. If nobody had though about such a "sillY' geometry with "no practical value" it would probably take much longer because the necessary results would be out of the reach for Einstein.

<comment><USER7> Riemann's contribution is overlooked far far too often. The early non- Euclidean geometries were spaces of constant curvature - spherical and hyperbolic - and Riemann brought the idea of a manifold, and the notion of having a geometry that changes as you move around the space. And he did it in a fantastic lecture with only one equation in 1854, a good 50 years before special relativity.

Einstein was also definitely familiar with the work of Helmholtz, who did some fascinating work on non-Euclidean geometry in the context of ophthalmology: Lenses change the amount of curvature we perceive in space (think of fish-eye lenses), and provide a great jumping off point for the notion that the universe might not be as flat as it appears.

The Dover book 'Beyond Geometry' collects a bunch of the major papers in non- Euclidean geometry leading up to relativity, and is a fantastic read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a very good and thought-provoking essay for a short blog post, and I have already shared it in a Facebook community heavily populated by professional mathematicians (where the moderator, with a Ph. D. in math from Berkeley, has given it a thumbs up). Thanks for sharing.

I really like the overall point of the post that mathematics once known can be forgotten or neglected, and mathematics written up for mathematics journals can be difficult to understand. Professor John Stillwell writes, in the preface to his book _Numbers and Geometry_ (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998):

"What should every aspiring mathematician know? The answer for most of the 20th century has been: calculus. . . . Mathematics today is . . . much more than calculus; and the calculus now taught is, sadly, much less than it used to be. Little by little, calculus has been deprived of the algebra, geometry, and logic it needs to sustain it, until many institutions have had to put it on high-tech life-support systems. A subject struggling to survive is hardly a good introduction to the vigor of real mathematics.

". . . . In the current situation, we need to revive not only calculus, but also algebra, geometry, and the whole idea that mathematics is a rigorous, cumulative discipline in which each mathematician stands on the shoulders of giants.

"The best way to teach real mathematics, I believe, is to start deeper down, with the elementary ideas of number and space. Everyone concedes that these are fundamental, but they have been scandalously neglected, perhaps in the naive belief that anyone learning calculus has outgrown them. In fact, arithmetic, algebra, and geometry can never be outgrown, and the most rewarding path to higher mathematics sustains their development alongside the 'advanced' branches such as calculus. Also, by maintaining ties between these disciplines, it is possible to present a more unified view of mathematics, yet at the same time to include more spice and variety."

Stillwell demonstrates what he means about the interconnectedness and depth of "elementary" topics in the rest of his book, which is a delight to read and full of thought-provoking problems.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387982892/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387982892/)

<comment><USER9> >"The best way to teach real mathematics, I believe, is to start deeper down, with the elementary ideas of number and space. Everyone concedes that these are fundamental, but they have been scandalously neglected, perhaps in the naive belief that anyone learning calculus has outgrown them. In fact, arithmetic, algebra, and geometry can never be outgrown, and the most rewarding path to higher mathematics sustains their development alongside the 'advanced' branches such as calculus. Also, by maintaining ties between these disciplines, it is possible to present a more unified view of mathematics, yet at the same time to include more spice and variety."

While I do agree, we have to remember why most math classes actually exist: to teach calculus to physicists and engineers, and, as my stepfather's undergraduate advisor once said, "to keep the children from running in the halls".

(For the mathematician's extremely self-centered view of "children" as "anyone who has yet to ace two semesters of real analysis".)

I've been starting into real analysis myself via Pugh's textbook[1] after not taking a serious math class since multivariable calculus, and found that, once I get past the applied stuff, I really _like_ the approach of building up calculus from its foundations in real numbers (taken as Dedekind cuts), limits (Cauchy-convergent sequences), the set-theoretic construction of functions, and the construction of topological and metric spaces "from scratch". But I can tell that I like it because, deep down, I have the mind of a theoretical computer scientist (which is what I like to be when I'm not writing firmware), which is a kind of mathematician. I appreciate that someone has to teach the applied classes to the people who _aren 't_ going to kvetch about "how can I trust that works!?" and who _demand_ to just get their math over with as quickly as possible.

[1] -- [http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Analysis-Undergraduate- Te...](http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Analysis-Undergraduate-Texts- Mathematics/dp/144192941X)

<comment><USER10> > _I 've been starting into real analysis myself via Pugh's textbook[1] after > not taking a serious math class since multivariable calculus_

Do you have recommendations for other books? I stopped at multivariable calculus as well. For what it's worth those yellow Graduate Texts in Maths books feel like reading TaoCP or CLRS; I'm looking for more approachable textbooks. I feel like I'm not even up to the 1800s, math-wise, not even up to Gauss.

<comment><USER3> There are hundreds of good math textbooks to recommend, it really depends on your interests.

For a broad overview at an undergraduate level, with a great job explaining the context of various mathematics topics, these Russian books from the 50s, _Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning_ by Aleksandrov, Kolmogorov, and Lavrentiev, are pretty fun. Amazon link to the one-volume Dover reprint (but I'd recommend finding a used three-volume hardback copy): [http://amzn.com/0486409163](http://amzn.com/0486409163)

Or check out John Stillwell's _Mathematics and its History_ : [http://amzn.com/144196052X](http://amzn.com/144196052X)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> But the proofs survive because they are proofs; if they don't communicate the proof of the result then they have failed and should not be accepted by journals. At the extreme end, machine-checkable proofs are in standard, documented formats; an alien reading them in ten thousand years should still be able to understand what's going on, at least if they understand the notation and the axioms.

<comment><USER12> And codes does what code does. Given some binary executable, an alien reading it far in the future should be able to understand what's going on, at least if they understand the architecture. :P

I've written a few machine checked proofs, and there's really two ways that I've seen, either writing it for the next human to read, or just enough that the checker accepts it. The latter makes free use of tactics like `crush`, which brute force solutions out of current assumptions, exploring the search space automatically. That's really convenient, but can make reading the proof very un-enlightening.

<comment><USER9> Chlipala, if you're on here, I want to be the second person to say: `crush` is the _least_ communicative tactic I have _ever_ seen. Where the hell is `unsafePerformIO` when I want some reporting on _exactly_ how you crushed my proof goals!?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ludwik Fleck's "Genesis and development of a scientific fact" goes very much in the line of "[science] only exists in a living community of mathematicians that spreads understanding and breaths life into ideas both old and new." (written pre-WW2; it served as an inspiration for Khun). Its most eye-opening example is the history of [the concept/knowledge/science/... of] syphilis, from ancient to modern times.

PDF (of print from 1979): [http://www.evolocus.com/Textbooks/Fleck1979.pdf](http://www.evolocus.com/Textbooks/Fleck1979.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> Integrate concise and effect explanations into the relevant Wikipedia articles and you at least give future generations a good head start on understanding these things.

<comment><USER3> Most of the Wikipedia articles on technical subjects, and especially on mathematical topics, are terrible as introductory exposition. They are jargony, highly technical, and self referential. They usually contain much that is irrelevant, and they almost never properly explain the context for an idea.

The main problem is that Wikipedia articles are tiny and atomic, so it's difficult to synthesize and organize ideas into a coherent story. The culture of Wikipedia frowns on the kind of exposition found in textbooks or lectures. And perhaps most importantly, no one is responsible for either individual articles or sets of related articles in a field. Working within those confines is not the best way to spend your time if the goal is to give future generations a leg up, in my opinion.

If you want to learn about mathematics, even a mediocre textbook is nearly always better than the relevant Wikipedia pages. The Wikipedia pages are then useful later, as a reference, for people who already understand their content.

<comment> vezzy-fnord _The Wikipedia pages are then useful later, as a reference, for people who already understand their content._

Which, if I'm not wrong, is exactly the intent of an encyclopedia. It's a reference work.

<comment><USER15> If the only people capable of understanding what you are saying are the people that already know it, saying it is quite useless.

Reference material or not.

<comment><USER16> If I (still) knew it, I wouldn't need reference material. But I agree, if I never knew it, then reference material is... not quite useless, but quite useless _to me at the moment_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Of course. Most modern mathematicians aren't fluent with half the material in (the ~100 year-old text) Whittaker and Watson "A Course of Modern Analysis". This was standard material even 60 years ago. You can get a PhD in mathematics today without once seeing an elliptic function, because computers are good enough at numerically solving the problems they were once used to solve symbolically.

<comment><USER18> How many people know how to multiply two numbers expressed in Roman numeral format without reference to an algorism (not a typo!) or other methods based on Hindu-Arabic numerals?

How many people are fast at computing fifth roots without recourse to computational tools such as Hindu-Arabic numerals?

Are those things math or arithmetic?

<comment><USER19> > multiply two numbers expressed in Roman numeral format without reference to > an algorism (not a typo!)

Thanks for making me waste my entire afternoon on wikipedia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> To make it readable, paste this in the console:

        document.querySelector('.date-outer').style.backgroundColor = 'white';

<comment><USER21> 4real. What a color scheme!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Whatever about Mathematics, this is certainly true of Computing. Well understood ideas are continually being reinvented, frequently badly. New programming languages and frameworks spring up like mushrooms and everyone wants to jump on board the next big thing.

Nowhere is it more true that those who don't know the past are condemned to repeat it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Most people use math less and less (even your average cashier will have issues if the machine isn't working).

Will Myron Aub give us the feeling of power back?

[http://downlode.org/Etext/power.html](http://downlode.org/Etext/power.html) by Isaac Asimov on just this topic.

<comment><USER24> I am a cashier. Never use math. I doubt anyone outside academia and parts of industry ever uses math in its proper sense.

<comment><USER25> It may be that there are few industries that require it professionally, but just because one's _profession_ doesn't require it doesn't mean that one can't, or doesn't, use it. Consider, for example, Fermat, Young, and legions of other, perhaps less well known, amateur mathematicians (for example, Garfield ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem#cite_ref- Ga...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem#cite_ref- Garfield_22-0)) and Napoleon ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon%27s_theorem)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon%27s_theorem\)))!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I read the SA article the blog refers to and I couldn't decide if that particular colossal theory on symmetry was just an isolated incident or that "deterioration" is really happening to many disciplines/theories of math. It is certainly an obvious fact that things become popular and then eventually forgotten and then sometimes brought back. There is also different levels of understanding: breadth vs depth. I recall at one point there was concern of the opposite. That is too much depth and not enough breadth (the above theory is depth problem as many mathematicians know of the theory just not the exact proof).

I still think the unpublished problem ie "publication bias" is a bigger issue which I suppose is somewhat in similar vain. Supposedly google was working on that.

<comment><USER27> The theorem the SA article is talking about - CFSG, the Classification of Finite Simple Groups - is somewhat special in that respect. Lots of things in math fall out of fashion and get forgotten, often whole subfields. CFSG is different because the theorem itself is so basic and important that it's not likely to be forgotten in any foreseeable future. But its _proof_ is so long and complicated that it's not even clear that there's one person who understands all of it, and the heap of details is not organised well enough for someone to just study it from books/articles without the help of people who lived through proving it back in the 70ies.

Suppose there just isn't enough interest in the younger generation of mathematicians to study _the proof_ , even if the old guard are able to organize it better before they retire. Then we may reach a situation in which CFSG will still be used as a proved theorem and not a conjecture - <USER2> it's so powerful and important in many fields of math - but its proof will be lost to collective memory. I'm not sure, but I think that state of affairs might be without precedent.

(Here's a quote from Gian-Carlo Rota's _Indiscrete Thoughts_ on forgotten and rediscovered math:

"The history of mathematics is replete with injustice. There is a tendency to exhibit toward the past a forgetful, oversimplifying, hero-worshiping attitude that we have come to identify with mass behavior. Great advances in science are pinned on a few extraordinary white-maned individuals. [...]

One consequence of this sociological law is that whenever a forgotten branch of mathematics comes back into fashion after a period of neglect only the main outlines of the theory are remembered, those you would find in the works of the Great Men. The bulk of the theory is likely to be rediscovered from scratch by smart young mathematicians who have realized that their future careers depend on publishing research papers rather than on rummaging through dusty old journals.

In all mathematics, it would be hard to find a more blatant instance of this regrettable state of affairs than the theory of symmetric functions. Each generation rediscovers them and presents them in the latest jargon. Today it is if-theory, yesterday it was categories and functors, and the day before, group representations. Behind these and several other attractive theories stands one immutable source: the ordinary, crude definition of the symmetric functions and the identities they satisfy.")

<comment><USER28> How are categories equivalent to group representations?

<comment><USER29> I agree. To some extent new generations invent notations that subsume existing ideas, but I don'tthink they are claiming to reinvent symmetric functions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Exactly, this unfortunate "saturate and move on" can be observed in pretty much any area.

</comment><comment><USER31> Ah, I remember a lecture course where we classified all groups of order up to 1000.

Joy.... "Like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick."

<comment><USER31> Not sure why the downvotes, it _was_ an interesting course: a lot of tricks to show isomorphisms / reasons why certain groups couldn't exist. It just went up to order 1000, which was a __lot __of cases (30 lectures + exercises worth).</comment></comment>


Why the gulp-rev-all is in blacklist? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gulpjs/plugins/issues/215 <comment><AUTHOR> I am a user, both gulp-rev and gulp-rev-all. They are totally different. The reason "gulp-rev-all": "duplicate of gulp-rev" in the blacklist is not reasonable. gulp-rev-all is do a better work then gulp-rev do when i need handle resource dependences.

i use gulp-rev-all in more then ten projects in my company. it sovles our problem when we use CDN.

being simple and composable does't not mean being crude and can't working.</comment>


Are your data really Pareto distributed? - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0100 <comment><USER2> I lived this in the 1990s. I wish I could upvote it 10 times.</comment>