Ask HN: HN is so unstable these days - <AUTHOR>

I am getting "We're having some trouble serving your request. If we're down, @HNStatus might have more information" a lot lately. What's going on. <comment><USER2> Same here. Get it about 2-3 times a day, but when I refresh the page all works fine. For me it says it is a Cloudflare issue.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd take a hunch and say it's not Cloudflare, but rather cloudflare having link issues back to HN. Given that all the HN traffic likely proxies through Cloudflare, you're seeing a custom down page when Cloudflare can't complete the request.

<comment><USER4> What stack is HN built on?

<comment><USER5> The app / app server / web server are written in arc. Arc runs on top of Racket. There's source code for an old version of HN over at arclanguage.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I asked the same thing a week ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7276780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7276780)</comment>


Javascript is a buffet, not the enemy [video] - ezequiel-garzon https://scriptconf.org/blog/javascript-is-a-buffet-not-the-enemy-chris-heilmann/ <comment><AUTHOR> I haven't watched the 55-minute talk yet, but the 82 slides can be clicked through (ironically, the embed in the article didn't work for me on /any/ browser, but here's a direct link: [1]).

The slides channel an uplifting attitude; it's okay to try tools and solutions you end up not liking in the end; it's okay to experiment; we're all in this together, and the like. One thing that stood out is the inevitable reference to how JS is a multi-implementation environment and monoculture is bad, but sadly this is much less true now than it was five years ago.

Like it or not, this multi-implementation environment has coalesced (for various, sometimes bitingly valid reasons) around a _very_ limited number of implementations, and that's just at the runtime layer; in the wider sense of environments that expose a JS engine and some APIs like Browsers or server- side runtimes, there's also not much choice left.

To play on the buffet metaphor, a bewilderingly diverse selection of frameworks, tooling, and quickly-spoiling userland shenanigans exist at the topmost layer, which is fantastic for user choice, but the Web APIs underneath are growing every year, surfacing previously nonexistent functionality in the browser that every website must then decide to ignore or implement. All the while, the language itself has exited the awkward 10-year stalemate, and is receiving yearly revisions with major features.

The meme that JS is an awful language needs to subside; the truth is JS is a now-mature language that is used in a rapidly evolving platform, whose APIs are hardly a bastion of stability. These days, that platform is largely driven by the whims of a single vendor, with dominant marketshare on the client, and a significant presence on the other end.

(edit: before it comes up, I'm aware JS is used in various, very different environments e.g. the GNOME desktop environment -- some of these criticisms don't apply to those, but then again, neither do most of the tooling and libraries. JS in terms of this talk does seem to mean 'The Browser', and not even Node)

[1] [https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/ILjHOTLR...](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/ILjHOTLRvArC2q)

<comment><USER2> I take issue with the last point: JS has matured like bread, not cheese. No matter the age or ingrained status of a language, we have to be able to admit its flaws, rather than go on with some learned helplessness over the whole ordeal.

We can be dismissive about "memes", but sometimes groupthink is also a thing people think in a group, because it's justified by common experience. JS has been developed and provided for out of extreme necessity, and I don't think it's fair to try and prop it up using the infrastructure that arose out of that necessity - in some sense, it is the ecosystem around a sewer pipe: important, but nothing worth building a national park over.

The day we stop asking "why aren't you using something other than Javascript?" is the day we collectively take a step back in terms of design thinking.

<comment><USER3> > _JS has matured like bread, not cheese._

Considering that the language made huge strides forward with ES2015, ES2016, and ES2017, what does that mean?

> _The day we stop asking "why aren't you using something other than > Javascript?" is the day we collectively take a step back in terms of design > thinking._

Spirited debates about JS vs. OCaml are implementation thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I look at what the front-end developers at the company I work for have had to go through with respect to package and dependency management to get an Angular application going, I cringe.

The problem isn't that JavaScript is a bad language (that's purely subjective), it's that it has a terrible ecosystem and a community that, apparently, is willing to accept very low standards in library and package management.

<comment><USER5> I have similar feelings about Python.

<comment><USER6> I think JS ecosystem is an order of magnitude more unstable. I can still write a Django/Flask/Pyramid app in roughly the same way I did 5 years ago. The key libraries have longer and more consistent development. The whole environment is just easier to use. Maybe I am biased from nearly a decade of heavy Pyhton use, but I have written a non-trivial amount of JS code. Angular 1 is basically a relic. It just isn't a user friendly sandbox to play in. Python has its warts but we build and use tools in Python and it seems much easier than JS.

<comment><USER7> You can still write an Express, Jade, haml, whatever app like it is 2011. The js world moves fast, but the old libraries are still out there. Plenty of people writing jquery or knockout code.

Web dev has a fast cycle time, mainly (imo) because products are created and used and discarded quickly - lots of websites are short-lived one offs. So, naturally, there's churn.

And as to what my sibling commenter said, I agree. I'm starting to move from angular 1 to 2, and 2 is better. It has some downright amazing features, and the tooling is quite excellent. That's why, personally, I'm learning the new thing.

<comment><USER8> I'm still in the Rails/Bootstrap/jQuery camp. When you need something quick, that will function, and not look like shit - you really can't beat this option. It's also easy to teach junior developers, and they strengthen on the fundamentals first.

<comment><USER9> Needing something quick is subjective honestly. Personally I could build you a service worker that makes your app offline capable and throw in React components on whatever pages you need, or setup a whole React / vue / vanilla js / whatever app structure in 30 minutes thanks to the time I've spent investigating good packages to use. So I'd say there's many options that are great and it's sad to see people here in this thread (not you) complain that there's so much js churn when isn't the whole reason We are developers because we have a passion for constant learning and building cool things?

<comment><USER6> It is true and you are correct t but as a JS novice it is very hard to know which things are good and which are just new junk.I love learning and mastering things as much as the next individual. (BTW I have moved to Vue when I need a fancier front end and Love it). I guess my complaint, if you can call it that, is that it is hard to find the good stuff and easy to spend hours fighting node packages and Packers and get nowhere.

<comment><USER9> It keeps coming down to finding the right resources and not wasting time on the bad projects. And that's totally valid.

We need some sort of js beginner walk through that has a section for each step in the process and explains the solutions and differences between projects.

ex: step 1 is language fundamentals, step 2 dom manipulation step 3 bundlers and why you need them. Step 4 frameworks and libraries to build your frontend. Something like this would be useful but I don't know if anyone is building something like this for beginners :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When the author of the best book on JavaScript programming says we need to "think of the children" and come up with something better, we probably need to come up with something better.

</comment><comment><USER11> Here's a question. The latest versions of Javascript supposedly aren't so bad, but some legacy features of the language give problems. There's already "strict mode", which at least requires that variables be declared. Consider a "strict 2" mode, with more restrictions, intended for new, cleaner code. What features should "strict 2" disable?

<comment><USER12> I don't think you have to think much about strict mode these days. Most transpilers automatically compile to strict mode anyway (I think Babel and TypeScript do).

<comment><USER11> What, nobody writes JavaScript directly any more?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> JS is compilation target for most modern x-platform UIs. Every big JS project is compiling some how: ES6/7/etc, TypeScript, Flow (ok, not exactly compiling), CoffeeScript, Elm, PureScript, Reason, GHCJS, ClojureScript, JSX, etc. etc.

And that is ok. Until WebAssembly matures, then those compilers will all just add it as a compiler backend.

<comment><USER14> To the detriment of the end desktop. You end up with an angry fruit salad that completely ignores the user's color, font, size, etc choices, and tends to have accessibility problems as well. Cross-platform javascript is just plain bad.

<comment><USER13> I'd say that at some point the accessibility options are better for website and webapps then for traditional desktop apps.

Color choices are the last of my worries, and we see that this is also greatly neglected in modern desktop apps (e.g.: Spotify and Chrome taking over the window title bar on most OSes).

<comment><USER14> There are reasons I try to avoid such "modern" desktop apps. Those choices make them much less usable and much less discoverable. Native widgets aren't some plague, they allow consistency and ease of use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The thing I hate most about Javascript is that if I allow it in my browser, I expose myself to Javascript vulnerabilities. The other things I hate are ads delivered by Javascript and tracking enabled by Javascript.

If it weren't for this triumvirate of evil, as a user I wouldn't have a problem with Javascript at all.

<comment><USER16> I have Javascript off by default, and whitelist specific sites. (Tiny extension, one-button switch.)

I encourage folks to try it even for a little while, because it's _shocking_ how much more quickly many sites will load and how much more responsive they are to things like scrolling or text searches. News articles and arbitrary google-results especially.

<comment><USER17> I've done the same and it's amazing (and depressing) to notice how different my experience is between 'no js/ads by default' on my laptop (uMatrix + uBlock), and 'regular' on my iPad/iPhone.

Even worse, the difference seems to be getting worse and worse. It's a pretty regular experience for me these days to end up on a website that barely works on iOS: ridiculously slow, stuttering scroll behavior, inability to scroll because there's an ad in the way, inability to close popups, fixed position elements taking at least a third of the screen, and so on. You know the drill.

There's one website that, if I don't use the 'add to instapaper' button within the first few seconds of loading, completely blocks safari.

Now I can understand how a website becomes bloated and shitty while still being somewhat usable; users either might put up with it, or it might be difficult to measure the negative impact of these 'thousand cuts'.

But it baffles me how websites can exist that don't work at all on mobile/iOS when it's relatively easy to fix (enough to make it shitty usable). Does nobody look at bounce rates?

<comment><USER18> > But it baffles me how websites can exist like this

They do so because of the economics of the web. No-one pays for content, but basic advertising is low revenue. So user experience is squeezed instead, with video ads and popups.

There are other factors too, of course. Businesses have strange priorities and can be quite myopic when they compare the value of a new feature with the value of leaving the site uncluttered. But the main reason scripting is slow is advertising.

<comment><USER17> Yes, I do get that (and said as much). What I don't get is websites that are _literally_ unusable on mobile/iOS. There's no upside to that.

<comment><USER18> From my experience,

i) the people who push features don't actually use them;

ii) people overestimate the pain users will go through to reach their services;

iii) in a lot of businesses it's actually really _hard_ to advocate doing nothing - no new features, no further investment, no changes. So something is done because something seems better than nothing, and thuse the product slowly accumulates cruft.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I've had similar experience. But never to the point of making a website entirely unusable on mobile (which is pretty easy to test for...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> meta: it would be good if not _every_ thread on HN about javascript devolved into unproductive complaining about how bad you think it is. It's really not interesting or enlightening to read, and javascript's various flaws are already thoroughly covered elsewhere.

<comment><USER20> Don't forget the threads on HN about Git that descend quickly into a celebration of how much Git sucks.

But contrary to your thinking, I see these consistent regular events as a deeply worrying symptom that somehow as an industry we have managed to wind back progress over the past decade and end up using a pile of sucky stuff.

<comment><USER19> I see it more as a worrying symptom that software as an industry is full of people who complain about things they don't understand and don't want to learn about. the complaining about javascript is very HN culture specific. there are certainly places where people do complain about it, but only here is it indulged again and again and again ad nauseum.

there certainly is room in the world for recognising the flaws in javascript or git and working to fix them, or building something better. but just whining about how bad it is achieves nothing and it is irritating to read.</comment></comment></comment>


Bye, Bye B-School, or why even hedge fund managers no longer believe in MBA - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/business/16mba.html?ex=1347595200&en=b862d0447dec4711&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

<comment><USER3> This article seemed a little strange to me: it seems almost obvious that getting an MBA is a bad idea for many areas of finance. I interned on a trading desk at a major investment bank last summer and will be starting a full time job there in a week. Very few of the younger people there had MBAs, and hardly anyone was planning to get one. The people who had MBAs seemed to be people who hadn't started off in trading but came from another career (e.g. computer programming). The MBA gave them an "in" at the bank, when they otherwise wouldn't have been considered.

It seemed like MBAs were more common in traditional investment banking and corporate finance. The people I knew in IB seemed to think of an MBA as a symbolic, but useful credential. That opinion may be changing though.

Finally, the article was spot on about people who are getting MBAs two years in. If you did well in your first two years at a bank, you're looking at 200k-300k in total compensation. Why would you give that up to get a degree that won't significantly increase your future earnings potential?

<comment><USER4> business school is good for: 1) building a network 2) changing careers 3) getting a brand on your resume.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, and it's a little surprising that the Harvard Business professor in the article basically acknowledged that.

<comment><USER4> indeed. and there will be a massive influx of banker, private equity, and hedge fund b-school applications this year. i'm guessing the majority of that article was penned +2 months ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was considering posting something making fun of MBAs, but then I realized that would have made me feel guilty. Which almost says something in itself.

</comment><comment><USER7> According to Jim Cramer (Mad Money guy), he has little interest in degrees - <USER2> track record or successful investing is the main thing. This viewpoint works well for software too.

<comment><USER4> cramer wants more people churning the stocks he talks about.

<comment><USER7> With a net worth estimated between 50-100M, Cramer has little to gain from this. I'd really like to hear more evidence behind your opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ..."Some, of course, plan to stay in finance their entire careers, and they, too, are very focused on earning fat bonuses fast."

duh.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure on the policy, but linking to articles that require registration seems like a bad idea.

<comment><USER10> NYT is free now.

<comment><USER9> Indeed it is, but it still requires registration AFAIK

<comment><USER11> I'm not doubting you, but how come I can see the full article? I have no subscription or account at all, yet the full thing shows up for me.

<comment><USER12> Because I fixed the url using this: <http://nytimes.blogspace.com></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sarah Palin's email hacker is imprisoned, against judge's recommendation - <AUTHOR> http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/01/13/sarah-palins-email-hacker-imprisoned/ <comment><USER2> Instead of the blather at this blog, read the original news report here: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12176463>

The judge didn't "recommend" that he serve it in a half-way house; he just said that 'even a half-way house would be sufficient punishment' . That doesn't mean he said "it must be in a half-way house".

Also: he's been sent to a low-security prison, and not a Super-Max.

<comment><USER3> The burden of being sentenced to a prison significantly far away from your current home and family is a terrible burden, regardless of security level. The justice system understands the punitive damage of this sort of measure, and surely took this into account in sentencing.

<comment><USER4> The facts of the case are (almost) undisputed. What the guy did implicated him for several felonies. He had exceedingly good legal representation --- just read any of the court record to see that. His team managed to deadlock the jury on the most serious charge he faced. The one felony he got dinged with resulted from his destruction of evidence. And all this after (quick reminder) the guy broke into the still-active email account of John McCain's running mate during the 2008 election.

It is very, very hard for me to imagine mustering much sympathy for him. People are routinely imprisoned for computer-related crimes less blatant than this one. More importantly, people are routinely imprisoned for truly victimless crimes like "intent-to-distribute" escalations of simple drug possession. None of them have the resources this guy seems to have had.

I'm not sure the "burden" of a low-security prison far from his home is an injustice of a cosmic scale.

<comment><USER5> There's so such thing as being "dinged" with a felony. He will wear that albatross around his neck for the rest of his life.

It's not an "injustice of a cosmic scale" so it may not rise to your threshold of caring, but he's still a young man going to prison for what is essentially a prank. Have a little compassion.

<comment><USER6> This isn't a prank. This is an attempt to influence the election of the most important position in the land using felonious means. He's _lucky_ he's only getting what he's getting, what he did is far more serious.

It is blindingly obvious that most expressions of sympathy here are because people approve of the target of the felonious actions. Had he hacked Biden's email the press would have called for his head and wrung their hands so hard about the evils of people who oppose Obama/Biden that they might have fallen off due to lack of blood flow.

But creating an environment where it's OK or acceptable to do this sort of this thing to "acceptable targets" is creating an environment where one day, _you'll_ be an "acceptable target". Take a stand. Attempting to influence elections like this is wrong and can't be tolerated, in addition to the fact that hacking emails is wrong and can't be tolerated. Being sympathetic because you like the target is embracing the rule of men, not the rule of law.

<comment><USER7> Had he hacked Biden's blog, he probably wouldn't have found official business illegally done on a personal email.

How come Palin hasn't been charged with anything? She just resigns and people don't bother to follow up. That's fine and all, but it's a nice backdrop to this kid getting the book thrown at him.

<comment><USER4> There is immense incentive within the state of Alaska --- where Palin is _extremely_ unpopular (in Wasilla, her hometown, her memoir is shelved at a bookstore under "Alaska Fiction") --- to charge Palin with crimes. She has been under near continuous investigation since assuming statewide office.

The only people I see suggesting that this email spool contained evidence of wrongdoing are partisan armchair legal theorists. And, for the record, I think Palin is a genuine force for evil in our country.

<comment><USER7> Is there, though? I mean, she was being investigated for a bunch of things, going after people who had p'd off her husband and such, and then it just dropped after she left office. Bush is unpopular too, but I don't see anyone going after any of the stuff that his admin did.

Meanwhile, if your email was hacked? No way the feds take the case. That's what I'm upset about, mostly. The dufus broke the law but it seems we have an entirely different standard for enforcement.

RE: evidence of wrongdoing, state business over personal email is illegal, period, and for very good reasons. This is professional ethics 101 if you've taken an oath to serve the public in elected office. If you're doing public business, it has to be on the record. It's legal not theory, it's legal fact.. if it applies to an Alderman, it applies to the Governor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> from the other thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2099885>

The flip side to "I want my e-mail treated like normal mail" is that the same penalties will need to be levied. Private citizens can get in a lot of trouble for tampering with regular mail.

</comment><comment><USER9> Just be be sure we're clear on the "crime", it was that he guessed Palin's yahoo mail security question "Where did you meet your spouse?" to which the answer was "Wasilla High".

source: <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/09/palin-e-mail-ha/>

He didn't even have to guess or crack a password. This is really a major security flaw on yahoo's part, which still exists. The fix in the meantime is to avoid accounts with such questions, or to answer them with random strings of characters.

Should this even be a crime? I propose that to keep something secret you should have reasonable security measures. Easily guessable security questions like mother's maiden name as used by banks should not be considered legitimate protection any more than using a bag twisty to hold a gate closed should be considered the same as a chain and padlock.

<comment><USER10> Using a bag twisty to hold a gate is considered _exactly_ the same as a chain and a padlock for the purposes of trespassing.

If it's clear to you that you aren't to enter my property, you don't enter my property and it doesn't matter how difficult I make it for you to do what you already know is wrong.

The issue here is the severity of the sentence, not his guilt, and especially not blaming the victim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That's ridiculous. That means that EVERYONE who has used <http://codebutler.com/firesheep> can go to prison.

<comment><USER12> I don't see how that's ridiculous.

Firesheep is a tool whose sole purpose is to facilitate hijacking a user's session. If you use Firesheep to gain access to a user account which you don't own, you're guilty of breaking the law.

The fact that the tool makes this easy has no bearing on its legality.

So yes, everyone who has used Firesheep to gain access to another user's account without their permission is guilty of breaking the law.

<comment><USER11> I'm well aware of that. But I think that's ridiculous, it's Internet, not your house. Even though people nowadays seem to think that you have privacy on the Internet, you don't. Do you go to jail if you open another phone in your house while your sister is talking to someone on the phone? You don't. Yes I think he did put some effort in guessing the question and took control of her account, and yes he should be punished. But jail?

That's ridiculous. He didn't deform anything, he just presented the information he had. You also break the law when you go too fast on the highway and you don't go to jail.

<comment><USER12> This isn't listening in on the phone to your sister's phone call. This is closer to listening to someone else's voicemail by guessing what their PIN number is (also not legal).

There are things which are yours, and there are things which are not yours. In many instances, accessing things which are not yours without the express permission of the actual owner is a crime.

And I'm not going to argue with you if you're saying that the sentencing for computer-related crimes is ridiculous. I agree, I think it's totally out of whack (like a lot of sentencing in this country).

And depending on how fast you are going on the highway you do indeed go to jail (most jurisdictions will charge you with reckless driving).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Palin went on to claim to the court that the email hack paralysed her campaign to become the USA's first female vice president."

Palin has done 100x worse than this kid, but she doesn't get caught because she paralyzes other candidates campaigns the legal way. By not getting caught when dredging dirt on other people's campaign. However Palin was still unsuccessful because now we have a muslim Kenyan extremist turban-wearing islamic terrorist fist-bumper as president.

<comment><USER4> Yes. That is how it works. When you do things the legal way, even if they are evil things, you tend not to end up in prison. On the other hand...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If this was really the tipping point for keeping that lunatic out of public office I would have done it myself.</comment>


The difference between depression and recession - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12852043

<comment><USER2> "However, these reassurances come from many of the same economists who said that a nationwide fall in American house prices was impossible and that financial innovation had made the financial system more resilient. Hopefully, they will be right this time."

I hope they are learning something from current events.

</comment><comment><USER3> When your neighbor loses his job, it is a recession; it is a depression when you lose your job</comment>


Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://pedestrianobservations.com/2018/07/03/why-are-canadian-construction-costs-so-high/ <comment><USER2> As I can see from living in Canada and travelling the world there can be several reasons:

\- corruption, especially in QC

\- over-the-top safety requirements, regardless of project size. E.g. in Toronto every road work sight has a police officer present who's just standing there bored out of their mind. In Montreal it'd be two persons on each side holding a flag - a job in Europe replaced by a temporary semaphore.

\- lack of experience and expertise. Canada is a relatively young country with very few major infra projects under its belt.

\- lack of funding due to low density. You just can't build ambitious infra projects for such sprawling city design. Every city, except Montreal to some degree, suffers from urban sprawl and low density.

\- lack of care by citizens. Most Canadians aren't well travelled outside of Americas. They don't know what good cities look and feel like. Even when they go on vacations it's generally cheaper destinations in southern parts like Cuba, Mexico and Dominicans.

<comment><USER3> _\- corruption, especially in QC_

If you think corruption is bad in Quebec, look at BC. One of the first things our current government did was to pass a law requiring that all government- funded construction must be performed by workers belonging to unions which donated to the governing party's last election campaign. A short time later, they changed the procurement rules from "lowest cost bid" to "best bid", with the rules for determining "best" explicitly including how many jobs would be created for members of the aforementioned donor unions.

<comment><USER4> Taking lowest cost bid isn't always optimal. In Germany it is required to take the lowest cost bid which leads to all kinds of failed projects as the winning bid can't hold its bid. As well, life-time of things built this way have become awfully short.

<comment><USER5> Imagine if you were forced to buy all your stuff from the dollar store. Pretty obviously the results would be hit and miss, mostly miss.

<comment><USER6> Imagine a twist on this: you have to buy from the dollar store, but they dollar store has agreed on a level of quality. They may have a separate back room with only the things you are allowed to buy because that is where items that meet your quality standard are. (They may or may not allow others into that room)

The reality is for big projects quality should always be part of the contract. Use substandard quality materials and the whole contract is void.

<comment><USER7> > the dollar store has agreed on a level of quality

The problem is that "agree on a level" and "lowest cost" are fundamentally opposite goals which require constant outside monitoring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In Canada general construction costs like home renovation/building are not that high.

As soon as the government gets involved in a public construction/renovation project costs sky rocket. I can only attribute it to bureaucracy, corruption, and indifference since the tax payers pockets are endless. Contractors all have to be Unionized (good/bad?), it seems there is no urgency to do anything quickly or in a cost effective manner.

When you look at the renovations on the subway taking place at Royal York Station, it's comical. The project shouldn't take more than 3-6 months but it seems they want to drag out the job so they can retire after it's complete in 20-30 years. Runnymede Station took about 5 years and I'm not sure they're finished. Something like pulling up 200 sq/ft of tile can take a 1-2 months of 2-3 guys working 8 hours a day.

This is what happens when there is corruption with no oversight and the source of payment is the tax payers pocket.

<comment><USER9> Alternate take:

Large civil projects are more complex than home renovation projects and are thus less likely to be accurately assessed by our simple planning heuristics. (see "the planning fallacy"). Each gap in the actual vs. planned outcome requires change-orders that slow down schedules and cost more money.

[http://freakonomics.com/podcast/project- management/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/project-management/)

<comment><USER10> It's what happens when there are many contractors involved, each intertwined in a complex relationship, each needing to schedule around each other and each with half a dozen sub contractors under them with the same complex requirements.

So 200 square ft of tile takes three months because the tilers are hired by the tiling company who is hired by the contractor hired to finish the walls who was hired by the main contractor who was hired by the construction company. Along this long chain someone schedules tiling on the same day the electricians are wiring up the lights. They reschedule and crew arrives only to find the materials are missing, no one knows who ordered them or who to talk to. Once they sort that out and get the materials delivered the project is put on hold because someone stubbed their toe on a box of tiles and a stop work order is issued. A safety inspector arrives with the cast of CSI miami to figure out who to blame. Meanwhile, while everyone is busy blaming each other, the tiling contractor steals the materials for another job and everything goes right back to square one. Now multiply this story by the number of individual items to be coordinated... All this while, the crew has to be paid for their time even though they couldn't work. Absolute madness.

<comment><USER11> Seems like laws need to be drawn up to make this unprofitable. It should be easy enough to get out of paying people standing around not behaving in a "competent and workmanlike manner." Or even the entire company. If it doesn't happen, why pay?

As you've described, what is going on is corruption due to lack of oversight.

<comment><USER9> Similar to the coordination problems among different trades, I think there's a lot of interplay between competing interests that make something that seems simple on the surface much more complex.

Take crane operations for instance. An organization may require union crane operators as a means of oversight to help guarantee trained and certified operators for a hazardous operation. However, this often has unintended consequences as union crane operations may also require positions like a crane oiler, which are largely obsolete in modern equipment.

I don't think that constitutes corruption because it's completely transparent and above board, even if unwise.

<comment><USER11> Corruption is a moral issue that exists besides the law. If the payment occurring produces no net benefit then I see no reason to consider it just.

These problems seem complex and may truly be, but if they lead to payment for nonperformance then that needs to be addressed. I expect the market can figure it out from there.

<comment><USER9> I don't think I agree on your definition of corruption. Corruption in the legal sense is, by definition, illegal fraudulent activities, generally defined as using a public office for private gain. The fact that an operation is unproductive doesn't necessarily make it corrupt.

Even while I have libertarian leanings, I would be hesitant to "expect the market can figure it out" largely because of asymmetries of information and the tendencies of present bias in making decisions, especially those with a profit incentive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Disappointingly, the answer from the article is "I don't know."

This article could be condensed to a table.

<comment><USER13> Unlike most articles with a question. This person is actually asking a question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In any market, there'll be a limited number of contractors capable of doing a really big job like building a railway line (or constructing an aircraft carrier, or a fighter jet, or whatever).

These contractors have a game theoretic choice to make: either they work hard to compete on price, or they inflate their budgets and count on their competitors to do so too, safe in the knowledge that there's enoigh projects going around that everyone can have a nice fat slice of pie.

Theoretically a new competitor could enter the market and eat everyone's lunch, but... all the institutional knowledge on how to build a train line or aircraft carrier belongs to the big players and it's too hard to enter.

The difference in construction costs between various different markets seems to just be different game theoretic equilibria at work.

<comment><USER15> Careful design of regulation can lower the barriers to entry, and thus make colluding harder.

You are right about the scale of the big players making it hard for upstarts to compete. One of the most straightforward ways to still get competition, is to make it possible (or even easy!) for foreign companies to bid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In addition to the others reasons meantioned by others: NIMBYism, political projects, and suboptimal planning. Toronto has a whole subway line going through low density neighborhoods and it's not like any densification plans are happening there soon. On the other hand Liberty Village was given to hi- rise developers because it was a wedge of industrial land squished between railway and a highway. Now it is a bustling neighborhood but pretty problematic to get in it out with the overloaded streetcar line bearing the brunt.

It is not only about upfront costs, ongoing maintenance is important as well, and one needs certain level of density for the infrastructure to be a bit closer to self-sustainable

</comment><comment><USER17> If you want some fun, read the investigation reports about the corruption surrounding construction business and politicians in Montreal, QC. Not sure which year it was, could be 2015.

<comment><USER18> Montreal has a never ending construction. A colleague of mine says the mafia controls the construction business in Montreal. Seems like corruption is a tad high in Québec than Rest of Canada

<comment><USER19> This may be indeed true. Some say the construction is the fault of the city being old but I've seen the same street being worked on throughout the summer for two consecutive years. There is construction everywhere as well compared to other cities I've visited.

<comment><USER20> Montrealer here. Constant construction of everything is the norm.

The roadways are a nightmare of poor construction and tons of detours.

The thing that bugs me the most is that they can't seem to get the hang of painting lines properly on the roads. Lines painted last 2 months at most, then are gone. I was driving this weekend on 3-4 land highways, that curve around corners and have no lines painted.

Luckily our public transit is decent so I don't normally have to drive.

<comment><USER21> > _Lines painted last 2 months at most, then are gone._

This is due to federal environmental standards; the old oil paints that actually worked are banned.

<comment><USER20> I actually wasn't aware of this. I was wondering why there wasn't a better alternative, but it seems there are environmentally friendly paints more durable than what is in use in Montreal.

It's just more expensive.

I don't really understand how that can be the blocker in a city with strong economic activity, high income taxes, high fuel taxes, and high property taxes (>4% in our downtown core on non-residential properties).

<comment><USER22> Of course not. The company uses the substandard paint to ensure that there's a future need thus future income. The fac t that the shorter lasting paint is cheaper just gives the company a leverage point in the bidding.

Google 'mafia', 'phoebus cartel', and many other examples of skimming, profiteering, and collusion to fix prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is the same case in US. The cost of construction has far outpaced inflation by order of a couple of magnitudes while technology keeps getting cheaper and labor prices are still stagnant for decades. Amazingly, it's exactly reverse case in China where construction prices have fell through the roof.

<comment><USER15> > [...] and labor prices are still stagnant for decades.

Labour's share of GDP has roughly stayed constant. GDP per capita has increased, both real and nominal.

<comment><USER24> It's fallen significantly: [https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/estimating-the- us-...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/estimating-the-us-labor- share.htm)

 _However, in the late 20th century—after many decades of relative stability—the labor share began to decline in the United States and many other economically advanced nations, and in the early 21st century it fell to unprecedented lows._

PS: In terms of overall GDP a numbers (edit: not real data) 21% vs 17% may seem more or less stable but that's a 20% drop or roughly all inflation adjusted per capita GDP growth over the last 20 years.

<comment><USER15> Where does the 21% vs 17% come from? The graphs in that article seem to hover around 56% to 66% for the labour share since 1947. What am I missing?

But looking at the graphs, there seems to have indeed been a big drop in the labour share since the dot com boom.

If I remember right, the capital share has been stable. But the share going to real estate has exploded.

And that's likely for the same underlying reasons construction costs have skyrocketed. See [https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/deciphering-the- fall...](https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/deciphering-the-fall-and- rise-in-the-net-capital-share/) and [https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/02/03/1759582/piketty- and-t...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/02/03/1759582/piketty-and-the-case- for-land-capital/)

<comment><USER24> Sorry, the context was missing. The 21% vs 17% was not meant to be representative of overall numbers. I just recall someone minimizing the impact by referring to some income bracket then comparing it to GDP. My point was simply people overestimate how much per capita GDP is growing, so numbers that look similar can represent large shifts.

Anyway, it's 1AM so I am a little out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Still lower than the U.S. I went to a couple of cities in Canada in the past year and there's construction everywhere, from skyscrapers to roads. My corner of the Bay Area has a couple of 5-story apartment complexes going up.

<comment><USER26> > Still lower than the U.S. I went to a couple of cities in Canada in the past > year and there's construction everywhere, from skyscrapers to roads

NYC has had skyscrapers going up left and right the past decade: Central Park, 111 West 57, One Vanderbilt, 432 Park, 30 Hudson, 3 World Trade, 53W53, 35 Hudson, One57, 1 Manhattan, 220 Central Park South, 15 Hudson, 125 Greewich, 425 Park, etc.

All of those are taller or nearly as tall as the tallest buildings in all of Canada. In one US city. What does that prove?

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

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

<comment><USER27> You name dropping one of the largest and most urbanized cities in the world proves what?

<comment><USER28> NYC doesn't even make it in the top 10 biggest cities in the world. In fact NYC comes just behind Chengdu in 38th place. And in terms of density, NYC isn't even in the top 50.

<comment><USER29> >And in terms of density, NYC isn't even in the top 50.

I don't believe that. If you look at Manhattan alone, you'll see something very different. Unlike many other cities (particularly in the US, but also other places), NYC is basically a collection of cities. Manhattan is dense, but Staten Island is definitely not, so that drags down the average density. It's not fair to compare that with many other places.

<comment><USER28> So do you not believe that or is it not fair?

<comment><USER29> Any "top 50" list of cities by density is inherently biased: How do you demarcate where the city's borders lie? Do you count surrounding municipalities? The whole thing is going to be comparing apples and oranges, because different cities are organized differently. It just isn't something you can easily distill down into a list like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is why (for U.S. at least) [https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=784223122033567](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=784223122033567)

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm currently in the process of building a laneway suite building on my existing Toronto lot, which is typical of the city - 25 feet wide by 160 feet long. There's a driveway and a laneway at the back.

I spent two years and $25,000 to just get to the point of having building permits. The most egregious part was that I had to pay the city around $3,000 to cut down a tree on my own property, because due to a city bylaw, I did not own the tree, the city did, and I had to pay them for their "loss".

The bureaucratic nonsense and nickel and a dimeing people to death with multiple fees and taxes, added with the premium cost of materials, makes building far more expensive than it needs to be.

</comment><comment><USER32> Here is a theory.

Builders chargé maximum what they can.

Home prizes has increased rapidly in Canada, some say possibly to a bubble level.

Banks create new debt out of nothing through fractional reserve banking. Central banks support negative interest rates.

A conseque of low interest rates is that many can afford to borrow to high real estate prices.

The high real estate prices drive up building costs, since builders can charge higher prices. Ie want a piece of the cake.

<comment><USER33> Builders are actually in an extremely competitive marketplace, with a race to the bottom culture on costs. They also bear a huge amount of risk, usually committing to fixed fee contracts. The profits go to those who hold the money / land - the developer.

<comment><USER34> Except when the developer is also the builder, which is becoming more and more commonplace.

And fixed fee contracts? What planet? I don't know of anyone who has built anything in the last decade or two that hasn't gone over budget. If you're buying materials through the developer they're taking a margin.

<comment><USER6> Developers are taking their margin on materials, but houses are easy to bid to an exact price. Many developers are building houses before there is a buyer. As soon as the hole is in the ground it goes to the real estate market, at any time you can buy it, and they will make changes per request - they assume you will choose paint color (any color is the same price), if you want to add a fireplace that will cost you. Often these houses are finished without before they are bought and go on the market at market price.

Of course the point is no builder would take the above risk unless he could estimate his costs with enough accuracy to ensure that he makes a profit on the deal.

Edit: Note that builders build enough houses to have processes and procedures to estimate them. If you build anything to a standard such that it is like everything else that is vastly cheaper than if you build something unique. There is a lot of ways to make a house custom within the standard, but if you want a round tower that will cost because builders don't know how to make round (but settle for octagon and suddenly you are back to standard)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Design, land, environmental permitting and remediation, noise and dust remediation, aboriginal/metis consultation, utility components on LRT/subway projects can span years and costs millions of dollars per utility and a given kilometer may have 100. and then you have to actually build whatever it is.

Just doesn't seem like an analysis with enough detail.

<comment> blaser-waffle Yeah, surprised no one mentioned environmental permits and aboriginal consults -- those were the two items that were/are holding up the big pipeline projects in Canada.

<comment><USER35> I do t think the person who wrote the article or the average hm user know much about environmental permitting or indigenous consultation. Or building much either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Recent and related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21589204](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21589204)

</comment><comment><USER37> Firstly, the cost of construction ___EVERYWHERE_ __is going up. In America, every major construction is TWICE the cost per mile than it is in Europe. Australia is 50% higher again.

eg Sydney purchased surplus trams from Spain. To create a tramline from Randwick to the city (25min bus trip) has already cost USD 2,100 Million (AUD 3,100 Million) and is years late. Spain did the whole line for USD 115 million.

<comment><USER38> Wait till you cross the ditch to New Zealand, our materials costs are through the roof...

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm going to guess that Canadian construction is inefficient because they just take their time. It feels like there isn't the drive to get things done quickly and consequently cheaper. The work is good but just takes longer.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think the main issue is why American costs are so low. It still amazes me how you can buy a big beautiful house in the sun belt for a few hundred thousand. If Canada is more expensive its probably sensible.

I realize I'm being downvoted but you have to realize that most of the developed world has a great standard of living but a new build 4 bedroom house on a 1/4 acre of land is completely unaffordable for most people.

<comment><USER41> This article is about public transit construction costs, so your comment is fairly off topic. In the realm of public transit, American costs are absurdly expensive

<comment><USER40> Yeah I hate people that never read the Posted Article. I didn't this time.</comment></comment></comment>


Surprise someone with a paper greeting card - <AUTHOR> http://www.flutterpost.com <comment><USER2> This might make a good "Show HN".

Is there a story behind the company?</comment>


The first few weeks of Papermill, an Instapaper client for Android - <AUTHOR> http://papermill.me/firstweeks/

<comment><USER2> "Given that the media coverage and user interest has already far exceeded what I expected, I find it hard to believe the sales rate could increase, let alone maintain their current rate."

Isn't this a big stumbling block for indie developers? It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see sales continue to increase.

He mentions the lack of sales on Amazon. My impression is that Amazon buyers really like seeing some reviews, maybe more than any other app store. So doing whatever it takes to get those first reviews could open up the Amazon market. The $4.00 price there could be working against him. Getting it to $3.99 might make a difference to a buyer.

<comment><USER3> Lowering the price might work, but more than from 4 bucks to 3.99. Something like lowering it to 0.79 might bring in some users.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but they're often not the users you want. Especially with needing an Instapaper subscription, I don't think 99 cents (or lower) is a good place for this app.</comment></comment></comment>


Coolest Cooler - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryangrepper/coolest-cooler-21st-century-cooler-thats-actually?ref=most_funded

<comment><USER2> This is now the biggest kickstarter ever - and failed previously trying to raise $125k. The verge have quite a nice write up but I imagine there's a lot of interesting writing to come on this one. [http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/27/6074101/the-biggest- kickst...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/27/6074101/the-biggest-kickstarter- ever-failed-the-first-time-around)

<comment><USER3> In the original video, at 2:54, you can see the red trim in the upper right come unstuck. The new design is obviously more well thought out and way more pleasing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can anyone offer an explanation as to how this product just became the biggest Kickstarter ever? In no way was that a dig at the product -- props to them for their success -- I'm just having a hard time comprehending how a coolbox has exceeded every other project on Kickstarter.

Is it an American thing?

<comment><USER5> I have similar thoughts concerning the coolest (and I am an American). My conclusion was that its appeal is inherently different than the Ouya or Pebble, and that my conceptions of what should and shouldn't be a wildly successful kickstarter are constrained by my tech-oriented mindset.

I'm assuming their product appeals to a different (and larger crowd) than the early adopters of wearables or a new gaming system, in which case their success, though unpredictable, seems much more reasonable.</comment></comment>


Mt. Gox Shuts Down, Loses $409,200,000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/02/25/bitcoins-mt-gox-shuts-down-loses-409200000-dollars-recovery-steps-and-taking-your-tax-losses/

<comment><USER2>
        744,000 MtGox 2014
        400,000 MtGox 2011
        154,000 MyBitcoin 2011
         43,000 Bitcoinica 2012
      1,000,000 Satoshi early mining estimate
      </comment><comment>---
      2,341,000 ~20 % of all bitcoins in circulation (12,400,000)

Assuming no overlap at least around 20 % of all bitcoins are not in circulation or stolen. Just throw away the block chain, start over and make less mistakes the second time. This would at least make the thieves unhappy, too. ^^

<comment><USER3> Not sure what not in circulation has to do with anything - it just increases the value of all other bitcoins, it isn't a problem.

Also, this isn't how many bitcoins are stolen, this is how many _have been stolen at some point_. How many dollars have at some point been stolen? Quite a lot I bet

<comment><USER2> That is why I said "assuming no overlap". The number I wanted to estimate is the number of bitcoins (currently) not in use or in illegitimate possession; the number of bitcoins that would not hurt anybody or hurt the right people if one would abandon the current block chain. Satoshi not caring to lose one million bitcoins is of course a wild guess. And don't take the whole thing to serious because it makes a lot of not necessarily justifiable assumptions, for example that the thieves did not already cash out their booty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No source beyond the 'leaked' presentation of questionable reliability. I don't see how this adds any value to previous discussions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294762)

<comment><USER5>
      Thus, your Bitcoin losses will be deductible forever until
      you've used them all. This means that the $409.2 million
      dollars is worth a potential $122.8 million dollars in tax
      refunds.

That looks like value to me.

I assume you did not read the article?

<comment><USER6> I'm not an accountant, but doesn't this assume that the person has already paid taxes on the capital gains? Can you claim the loss if you never claimed the gain? I can't imagine that many people with Bitcoins were rushing to pay their taxes to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last couple of years...

<comment><USER7> If you make a $100,000 loss on an investment and the next year make a $100,000 profit on a (different) investment you can point to the loss and point out that overall you have made no profit and therefore are liable for no tax. Obviously each loss can only be used once.

<comment><USER6> Is that true? Again, I'm not an accountant, so it's an honest question. I was always under the impression that you can write down that $100,000 loss only $3,000/year. So the 2nd year, you'd have $97,000 profit to be taxed on.

<comment><USER8> In the US, capital losses can be applied to capital gains without any such limit. Perhaps you are thinking of the amount of carried forward cap loss that can be applied to offset ordinary income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The referenced document was leaked and it's authenticity is uncertain. Meanwhile mtgox is serving the following index file

         <html>
    	     <head>
    		     <title>MtGox.com</title>
    	     </head>
    	    <body>
    		    <!-- put announce for mtgox acq here -->
    	    </body>
        </html>

<comment><USER10> What does "acq" stand for? Acquisition?

<comment><USER11> Either that or acquiescence. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Transition from Rails development to iPhone/Android? - <AUTHOR>

About a year ago I started learning web dev in my spare time.  First HTML/CSS, the moved on to RoR and with it, Haml and Sass.  I am in love with the simplicity and ease with which RoR and related tools lets me develop web apps.  Recently, I picked up a book on Objective-C and iPhone dev. BAM! Brick wall.  This kind of work seems to be much more painful.
So HN, I asks:
Is there any method, toolkit, library, etc that provides me the same ease and simplicity for iPhone/Android development work? <comment><USER2> If you are coming from a rails background then I would highly recommend having a look at Rhodes from Rhomobile (<http://rhomobile.com/>). There's lots of good things going for it and it also offers in-roads to developing on devices outside of just iPhone and Android.

If you don't find Rhodes a good fit, then have a look at PhoneGap (<http://phonegap.com/>) which offers similar functionality on a pure HTML + Javascript solution. I can't see you being disappointed with Rhodes though...

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you looked into jquery mobile? Still in alpha, but a nice toolkit for building mobile apps that run in the browser but look and feel like a native app.

<http://jquerymobile.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> You could also try out <http://www.appcelerator.com/> It is similar to Phone Gap, and a lot of people use it to build simple iphone apps.</comment>


Introducing Project Paper Cuts - <AUTHOR> https://blog.github.com/2018-08-28-announcing-paper-cuts/ <comment><USER2> This is actually the most exciting "feature announcement" that GitHub has made in a long time for me. User experience is to a large extend a sum of little things. Being able to select and copy diff contents without the ± markers is a great example and very much appreciated already!

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not holding out hope. They recently made it very difficult to edit PR descriptions as a result of the change to make it easier to "copy the URL of a comment"[1].

Previously there was an edit button. Now there's 2 buttons: "add a reaction" and "•••" which has a sub-menu containing copy URL & edit. I wonder which of all 3 of these I'm most likely to want.

In effect they've added a huge paper cut for me, not removed one.

[1]: [https://blog.github.com/changelog/2018-08-17-copy-url- commen...](https://blog.github.com/changelog/2018-08-17-copy-url-comment- action/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Unsure how much this will actually improve things, but I'm at least hopeful that they're thinking about the problem in this way; my issues with GitHub have very much been in the "death by a thousand cuts" camp.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hey look, they took feedback rather than banning all extensions that modified github! Good job, guys. Take a hint, Slack.

</comment><comment><USER6> fingers crossed they fix PR discussions becoming hard to find after you update the commented area. That's been a bugbear for me for quite some time.

<comment><USER4> They seem to be rolling out and/or maybe A/B testing the basics of comment resolution, which is promising. Hiding comments when the chunk gets updated seemed like a poor approximation of actual comment resolution, so if they're implementing the latter in earnest, they might fix the approximation.</comment></comment>


Stuff Harvard, MIT, Stanford & Caltech People Like - <AUTHOR> http://blog.echen.me/2011/09/29/stuff-harvard-people-like/ <comment><USER2> _Berkeley, sadly, is perhaps too large and diverse for an overall characterization._

So true. As a Cal alum, I think he is spot on here. :-)

 _I pulled about 400 followers from each school, and added a couple filters, to try to ensure that followers were actual attendees of the schools rather than general people simply interested in them_

How did he ensure followers were actual attendees of the schools programmatically? It would be really hard to find out this type of information. And can be considered as borderline creepiness in some cases.

EDIT: He also works as a data scientist at Twitter. So I'm sure he has access to lot more internal data rather some sort of mashup between Twitter, FB, LinkedIn APIs.

<comment><USER3> _How did he ensure followers were actual attendees of the schools programmatically?_

He mentions in the comments "I basically just checked that they didn't follow any other schools (from a small list). It's certainly not the greatest filter, but it did seem to work for a small number of people I hand-checked."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting. Would also like to see p(topic|school=X).

<comment><USER5> Well, god gave us Bayes' rule for a reason.

The article does not point out that sampling quora users might not be (I would say is probably not) an unbiased estimator of the the students of these places as a whole. Quora attracts a certain kind of person, I've never seen it mentioned anywhere outside of techy startup / valley circles. Maybe that's implied by virtue of it being in the HN ecosystem, but still it should be explicitly stated as a flaw in the method. Lies, damned lies and statistics etc.

<comment><USER6> _The article does not point out that sampling quora users might not be (I would say is probably not) an unbiased estimator of the the students of these places as a whole._

From the article:

 _Also, a word of warning: my dataset was fairly small and users on Quora are almost certainly not representative of their schools as a whole (though I tried to be rigorous with what I had)._

<comment><USER5> I _completely_ missed that, mea culpa, my apologies to the author. I'll leave the message above unedited as a little warning sign to other people who can't read: you too can look silly like me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> MIT and Stanford like Hip-Hop Music. I'm pretty sure MIT prefers Biggie and Stanford prefers Tupac (note: this has nothing to do with east/west coast, but rather pure skill vs. charisma)

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting, but wrong use of conditional probabilities. All OP is saying is that the frequency of people from school x following topic y is p.

The dataset is just not the right one to say that P(x|y) = p, because of, say, all the people who follow food in NYC and go to NYU which were not taken into account here.

</comment><comment><USER9> Surprisingly diverse interests, considering the huge bias in the dataset (public quora profiles). Well worth reading, though I was left wondering about the inverse probabilities.

</comment><comment><USER10> Article title should be "Reverse index of where people went to school who talk about various topics".

Obviously, the author chose a more wieldly title, but a far less correct wrong.

</comment><comment><USER11> Taylor Swift ?

<comment><USER12> Dude Taylor Swift is awesome. I can relate.

But good eye on that. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Berkeley, sadly, is perhaps too large and diverse for an overall characterization."

That isn't sad at all. It's great. As a UC grad, the diversity of the student body was one of the absolute best things about my college experience. Do I wish I went to Harvard or Stanford? Sure, but not for their homogeneous student bodies.

Otherwise, pretty interesting read.

<comment><USER14> It was a tongue-in-cheek comment :) -- sad from the perspective of me trying to find a cute pattern for Berkeley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting thing to read while sipping your morning coffee but that's it, really.

<comment><USER16> Which is just what I did. Nothing wrong with that.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I make money from a startup? - <AUTHOR>

Am I allowed to just start accepting money from people through paypal for services my website offers?<p>What legal concerns should I consider before accepting money from users? <comment><USER2> You just have to pay your taxes, and you are all good. You can set up an LLC to funnel all your payments through, but you can also just pump them into your checking account and give Uncle Sam his due.

Make sure you write off any business expenses - whatever space you use to work, hosting bills, etc. TurboTax will help you make all the right deductions no problem.

If you don't live in the US, I don't know :)

<comment><USER3> I would say yes you can do this, but as soon as you make a little bit of money you should really consider filing for a S-Corp not an LLC. Realistically, if you are doing so little business that you can't afford to set it up right, you are not going to make a blip on the govs radar, but don't take that as legal advise.

Also make sure that you register a DBA for you website name, as you can get in trouble for doing business in any other name that your name if you don't have a DBA.

For example if you have XYZ.com and you saying on your web site "we at XYZ pride ourselves on customer service" There is no XYZ entity and it is considered deceptive to operate as XYZ when legally it does not exist. Fraud happens this way, so a DBA tells the gov that, hey it's legit, I john doe am XYZ. Now when you register a corp then that becomes the legal XYZ entity.</comment></comment>


Best Microsoft .NET books list - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlascode.com/blog/best-microsoft-net-and-related-books-list/ <comment><USER2> I have an apress book by Troelsen and there are numerous errors including in the code samples, plenty of waffle, and no errata on the apress website.

The C# x in a nutshell and pocket guide are excellent.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, it is probably good books but several are a bit outdated. If you want to start with .NET development today, you should probably pick something up that focuses more on .NET Core.</comment>


How can they afford to do this for free? What's the business model? - <AUTHOR> https://tawk.to

<comment><USER2> Just because it's always free to have it on your site doesn't mean that everything they will ever offer you is free.

Using WebRTC, the actual cost of operating this service is very small, as the connected browsers will be using P2P rather than going through a single server.

</comment><comment><USER3> Freemium?</comment>


The Master, the Expert, the Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://zedshaw.com/archive/the-master-the-expert-the-programmer/

<comment><USER2> I agree. Over the last few years, I've start to really ponder if we're layering abstractions and creating black boxes way too frequently. Ah, well. It's a young profession. I'm sure we'll learn from our mistakes.</comment>


Apple allows analytics data collection, but not for Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/08/apple-modifies-ios-developer-terms-to-allow-limited-analytics-data-collection/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure how Apple gets a free pass for this kind of stuff. Sure, they get a blog post or two written about them, but it never sticks. People grumble a bit, but in the end everyone gets back in line for the next iGewgaw.

Some nasty things Apple has done:

      * Blocks all non-licensed integration with their products (notably iTunes).

      * Banned Flash from iOS

      * Banned iOS devs from using cross-compilers

      * Blocked apps from the App Store that compete with Apple products/services

Apple has far surpassed Microsoft as abusers of the"lock-in" strategy to grow their business.

I await the day that Google decides they've had enough of this bullshit and drops support for all Apple products. I'm not sure how compelling the iPhone would be without Google Search, Maps, YouTube, Gmail, etc. The cherry on top would be for Adobe to do the same with their creative suite.

I suppose that's just a savage fantasy. The reality is that Google will simply continue to improve Android and, like a slow motion replay of the 90s, Apple will watch the iOS lineup pushed back into the luxury niche that the Mac has enjoyed for all these years.

<comment><USER3> "The reality is that Google will simply continue to improve Android and, like a slow motion replay of the 90s, Apple will watch the iOS lineup pushed back into the luxury niche that the Mac has enjoyed for all these years."

I've thought about this a lot, and I think that Android is gaining ground right now because it's across so many carriers. As soon as Apple breaks it marriage with AT&T and gets it phones into Verizon, Sprint, and all the other major carriers I think the Android growth with slow.

FWIW, I just bought an HTC EVO because I refuse to sign an AT&T contract.

<comment><USER4> I am not so sure: in Denmark Apple has an agreement with a reasonably good carrier but I still see a lot of Android phones around.

<comment><USER5> Anecdotally, here in my office in New Zealand, we have 4 HTC Magics, 2 iPhones, and then a raft of SE/Nokia devices for lesser peons such as myself ;). This is despite the fact that Android devices aren't available for retail through a large Telco (Vodafone/Telecom) and need to be parallel imported.

Corporates are scared of iPhones, because the level of control that's handed to Apple is reasonably unacceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apple used to be the underdog fighting against "the man" Microsoft, but these tactics are reminiscent of Microsoft's heavy-handedness that landed it in so much hot water. It's hard not to see these things are start seeing Apple as the bad guy.

<comment><USER7> Apple has always behaved this way. The only reasons that they got away with it was a combination of cultist loyalty and being the underdog. Apple has always been considerably more evil than Microsoft.

<comment><USER8> _Apple has always behaved this way._

Not before the iPhone. There were never any restrictions on what developers could do with Macs, and OS X is very hacker-friendly.

<comment><USER9> PT_DENY_ATTACH.

<comment><USER8> Good point. That was to placate the RIAA with iTunes, so I'd say that they started to go downhill with the focus on closed devices; first iPods, then iPhones to a much greater extent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Given the Justice Department's inquiry into Apple, Google should just go ahead and press the issue by collecting the data anyway.

<comment><USER11> I would rather have nobody collect the data.</comment></comment>


IRS targeted groups critical of government - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/irs-targeted-groups-critical-of-government-documents-from-agency-probe-show/2013/05/12/bb38e5bc-bb24-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html?hpid=z1 <comment><USER2> Quite often when privacy is discussed, some people ask why we need privacy. Some then continues on and say that its already lost and what ever harm is done and are things we need to live with.

Well, this is the harm. Selective use of government "scrutiny" against those that are perceive as a threat. The only positive side of this news is that they haven't gone very far. String search of groups names feels very much like how block filters worked before deep-packet inspection. With the social graphs[1] already in existence, this type of targeting could be made very efficient and only requires the sharing of data between different government branches.

[https://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2012/freedom-to- conne...](https://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2012/freedom-to- connect_moglen-keynote-2012.html)

<comment><USER3> Very well said. In my not-so-democratic home country, in many businesses the norm of doing business is not strictly by the law and the government turns blind eye on this as long as you play the ball. Whenever somebody upsets somebody in power, the might of the legal system crushes them without touching their cooperating competitors. It is completely legal way to silence anybody who you don't like that much. The non-profits are even more exposed.

We even have a mayor who tried to demolish the campus of a prestigious university that issued reports about contamination in the drinking water, putting political pressure on the mayor. After some media circus(the mayor sent bogus samples to be analyzed but when university took the samples by itself, the results were much different), somehow he found an irregularity in the papers of the buildings and issued an order to for demolishing the 60 years old, architecture awards winning campus. Thankfully the court decided that destroying the university was not in benefit of the society and blocked the order.

I have to note that this happened in the capital of the country, the irregularity was that the drawings were not in the exact same scale that the town required and somehow the legal system proceeded so quickly when lagging for years to prosecute many scandalous building projects of some friendly businessmen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not accurate. This was politically self-defeating (for the IRS personnel concerned, in that period in Ohio) but it wasn't Orwellian. These groups are anti-tax, associated with the Sovereign Citizens movement, and also applying for a nonprofit status that legally constrains political activities that these were likely to engage in. And in the end, they all got their nonprofit status anyhow. So the screaming about how they were picked on is really disingenuous.

Tax collection is a necessity for every first world country and unfortunately that means not taking every application for a nonprofit status at face value.

<comment><USER5> Moreover, it was also a decision at the staffer level that was corrected by superiors as soon as they found out about it, ie, before it had any meaningful impact.

Fixing things before they break... puts them one up on the banking sector by my count.

<comment><USER6> _...was corrected by superiors as soon as they found out about it...puts them one up on the banking sector..._

The staffers involved were fired and forever barred from working as government bureaucrats again?

(FYI, that is typically what happens at a bank if compliance catches someone deliberately misusing client information.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the aspects of this that is completely unreported is the fact that in 2008, Congress gave the IRS sweeping new investigative powers. [http://money.usnews.com/money/personal- finance/articles/2013...](http://money.usnews.com/money/personal- finance/articles/2013/05/09/next-target-of-irs-robo-audits-small-business)

This allows them to do thing like pull all your emails and social activity simply on suspicion of doing anything wrong -- if you are flagged for any reason (as in this article) These processes are being automated.

This means that it is possible, but currently unlikely, that whoever flagged these groups could have then automatically pulled down all the email and social networking chatter of the organizers behind the groups. This would have effectively given the government a "God's Eye View" of everything critics were saying and planning.

This has been a year full of stories about the loss of freedom, but as far as the U.S. goes, this has the potential to be the biggest story yet.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a classic approach used in Russia and other countries against anti- ruling-party organizations, but I had (probably naively) expected USA to be better than this.

<comment><USER9> These are anti-tax organizations. Imagine that the taxing authority might be interested in their activities. The head of the IRS is a Republican appointee, who if anything would be sympathetic to them from a political standpoint.

<comment><USER10> Would you advocate in favor of DEA agents harassing marijuana legalization non-profits? Preemptively: if not, why are you defending the practice of the same being done to your political opponents?

<comment><USER4> That's a nonsensical question, because the DEA does not have the authority or responsibility to decide anything about applications for non-profit status under tax law.

IRS does. And if they stop investigating right-wing organizations selectively (while still investigating other applications) because it will be perceived as unfair, then they will be doing the wrong thing.

<comment><USER10> My understanding is that they are focusing on right wing organizations. If they are just investigating them at the ordinary rate the.n this is not a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Many of these groups would like the IRS to go away entirely. Many of these groups would like to not pay taxes at all.

Why would the IRS spend an equal amount of time investigating everyone, when certain groups go out of their way to paint big targets on their backs?

<comment><USER12> It's the IRS's job to collect tax revenue. It's not the IRS's job to protect its own existence. That's politics, and the IRS should not be involved in politics.

<comment><USER13> I think you are misunderstanding. I believe the parent's point is not that the IRS is targeting anti-tax groups out of umbrage or fear, but that people who loudly declare taxation to be illegitimate are signaling, "Hey, I'm especially likely to try and evade paying taxes."

Similarly, if there were a group dedicated to the idea that seducing little boys was OK, you could expect it to get some extra scrutiny from the FBI. This is not because the FBI is made up of little boys who feel threatened, but because these people are waving a big red flag that they're probably engaged in activities that the FBI has an interest in.

<comment><USER12> You're using an extreme example, and I think a lot of people will agree in that case because it's extreme, but might have reservations about applying the same logic elsewhere. For example, should it be ok to single out people who advocate marijuana legalization for drug crime investigations?

There has to be some restraint, or else people will be afraid to participate in the political process.

<comment><USER14> I think it depends on what kind of "singling out" is being considered. What the IRS agents did in this case definitely crossed the line. But they _should_ be allowed to scrutinize applications from suspect groups, and probably also be allowed to ask for more information to the extent that they would in a random audit. Further than that should require strong probable cause and warrants and all the other due process that was ignored by the IRS agents in this case.

A drug case would probably get to the point of needing a warrant much sooner, since a pro-legalization activist isn't usually directly initiating contact with the government, so the government has no business asking for information without a warrant. But if a pro-legalization activist makes public statements about their illegal activities or intentions, it's okay for the DEA to keep an eye on those public statements and to use them to try to get a warrant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's worth noting the IRS also targeted various Jewish organizations (eg Z Street) as well, not just those critical of the government and taxation like the Tea Party.

Clearly the IRS has a problem with targeting bias.

</comment><comment><USER16> This should be solved by removing tax-exempt status under 501c4 for all parties of any persuasion.

Then remove tax exempt status for all religious organizations which is a huge scam anyway.

This would be win-win for both stereotypes of the right wanting to "widen the base" and the left "liking taxes".

<comment><USER17> Or just scrap the whole tax thing. We were building roads and services before taxes.

Every justification for taxation not only has evidence that there is no correlation between tax revenues and resolved problems, but that we are more than capable of solving these problems ourselves through voluntary collaboration, rather than coercive.

<comment><USER18> > We were building roads and services before taxes.

That's all I need: Paying to use Verizon Interstate Highway in order to traverse my state.

Infrastructure is one of the few things that taxes are pretty good for, as most everyone benefits from roads, utility grids, etc.. War, scanning air travelers, and installing the Great Eye of Sauron at every intersection are not good uses of public money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Pretty outrageous to hear the IRS is doing this.

</comment><comment><USER20> Between 2010 and 2012, applications doubled in volume. A large part of that increase was Tea Party groups. Seems like the review was pointed at the right target (when I owned a business, I inspected the work of the new guys more than the people who had been with me for a few years). The real issue should be that 300 groups were reviewed and none were rejected. The 501(c)(4) class is filled with "social welfare" groups that provide no social welfare. The only "social welfare" I see is lobbying and ads filled with half truths (this goes for liberal groups as well, though not as much). If you want to limit abortions or allow more access to guns (just examples, not a description of the groups involved), feel free to do so with donations that get taxed. Just don't tell me it's in the name if social welfare.

<comment><USER21> "Between 2010 and 2012, applications doubled in volume. A large part of that increase was Tea Party groups."

Really? Do you have a source for that? I'm having a hard time finding a list of all these types of groups. There are some listed on wikipedia, everything from the Colbert SuperPAC to the Washington Science Fiction Association, so what constitutes "social welfare" seems to be pretty loosely evaluated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> As a counterpoint to a lot of the outrage, it's worth noting that the rules around 501c4 organizations are fucked.

As Ezra Klein points out "The IRS was wrong to target the tea party. They should've gone after all 501(c)4s."

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/10/t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/10/the- irs-was-wrong-to-target-the-tea-party-they-shouldve-gone-after-all-501c4s/)

The fact that this has become a political issue is a huge failure of governance, not politics.

<comment><USER23> Wow Ezra Klein gets it completely wrong. I think he's confusing 501 c(4) and c(3). c(3) are traditional social welfare charities and donations to them are tax exempt, c(4) are explicitly for political lobbying and donations are taxable. (I worked as an executive in this space for a decade). c(4) cannot get involved in elections (they can't call for the election or defeat of a specific candidate) but they can do "voter education". But in any event, the donations made to a c(4) are not tax-deductible and are private. By the way, the c4 privacy rules emerged out of the civil rights movement, when there was a concern about the government punishing people supporting civil rights. Many groups-- think Sierra Club-- have both a c(3) and a c(4) and have internal accounting in place to keep track of it all.</comment></comment>


Chinese medical staff request international medical assistance against COVID-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30065-6/fulltext <comment><USER2> > Due to an extreme shortage of health-care professionals in Wuhan, 14 000 > nurses from across China have voluntarily come to Wuhan to support local > medical health-care professionals.

Nothing about Wuhan in unique. Once it becomes a pandemic (which it has, but not yet WHO announced) it will be like this everywhere at some point.

Except there will be no 12,000 nurses available to come in, they will have their own areas to worry about.

Wuhan also got flooded with supplies. Many countries have run low on supplies already, before it's even hit.

<comment><USER3> I live in France, a few hundred kilometers from north Italy.

In my city the main hospital already has a bad reputation of mismanagement in "peace" time. I shudder to think what will happen when we will be hit by the virus.</comment></comment>


Yahoo Shareholders Could Have Done a Lot Worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-25/yahoo-shareholders-could-have-done-a-lot-worse <comment><USER2> I enjoyed this quote:

"Business models can't change," he says. Once a business learns how to make money one way, it's almost impossible to shift gears. Still, there is one slender reed of hope: "While businesses can't change, corporations can."</comment>


Ask HN: How much does your startup cost? - <AUTHOR>

Once I had a dream. In that dream Google purchased my startup for $9 mln. I remember my hard feelings - it was not enough. In my dream I assessed my startup for $19 mln. I try not to think about this. I'm just curious to know what is the approximate price of my startup and who might be interested in purchasing it. What are your assessments of your startups and why? <comment><USER2> I built Musi ([http://feelthemusi.com](http://feelthemusi.com) and value it at roughly $125k. It's extremely lean to run, has tens of thousands of users (most of which are active), brings in a decent amount of advertising revenue, has a pretty nice database of user metrics, and has many possibilities for growth.

</comment><comment><USER3> 9 mil is nothing to scoff at. Sell it and start a new company, or work out deal where you continue to work on the product if you simply cannot part with it.

All hypothetical of course =)

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately $9M from my dream can't help me:) but yes, in real life it might be a great opportunity to start next startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Who are current & past competitors? Who bought them? For how much? What type of traction did they have? How do you compare?

<comment><AUTHOR> My main competitors are Facebook events and MeetUp. But as I said Google has bought my startup in a dream:)

<comment><USER4> One thing I would also add to my questions above is: Where would company X want to be strategically in? Is it easier to acquire you than build it in- house? That's not necessarily a good enough reason to start something but can be proxy for who might be interested.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not a problem for such big guys as Google or Facebook to create clons of lots of startups. But they usually buy them. Probably because they find them promising or competitory. I guess they are intending to monopolize the market

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wouldn't turn down $25M for Improvely today. I might in a year.

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems like you really love Improvely:)</comment></comment>


Usborne 1980s computer programming books for kids become free downloads - <AUTHOR> http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/feature-page/computer-and-coding-books.aspx <comment><USER2> I learned to program in BASIC from a copy of "The Beginner's Programming Handbook" that my father gave to me. Like many other commenters on this thread, I didn't have a computer, but the illustrations in the book itself made it clear that programs were always written on notepads (just look at the cover [http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/medium/PR...](http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/medium/PRODTHM-9483.jpg)). As soon as I found a sufficiently yellow notepad I knew I had everything required to code.)

This book showed me how to code simple car crash games, in-memory databases, Eliza, bubble and shell sort.

I loved this book so much I've carried it with me over an accumulated 22,800km, in the hopes that one day, my kids too will have their imaginations full of gaudy little robots who run to interpret code on yellow spiral-bound notepads.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the early 80s, when I was 5 or 6, I got Basic for Beginners and Programming Tricks and Skills (along with a couple of other Usborne books which were about video games) from my local K-Mart in rural Australia.

These books kicked off my love affair with programming, and like many of you I was writing out code without even owning a computer! I remember trying to make a computer out of cardboard and graph paper, and was disappointed that it didn't work. The fact that I could comprehend a for loop before the laws of electricity is kind of trippy.

Anyway, these books were my introduction to a lifelong love affair with programming, and I owe my entire career to them.

At the risk of sounding like a greybeard, things were very different then. If you grew up in the Internet age, it may be difficult to grok that there was a time when information was scarce, and that just carrying around books like these gave you immense understanding and potential.

<comment><USER4> information was scarce indeed, till this day i still feel a little sorry i was not born 10 years later. Since when i learned (gw-)basic from the 3 books our public library had to offer i was full of enthusiasm, but after that my development practically stalled due to lack of information. Until the internet came around, but that was 10 years later and i was already in my early 20s :|

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow. "Introduction to Computer Programming" was quite literally my first intruduction to programming. I didn't have access to a computer until several years later, so I just wrote programs on a piece of paper.

<comment><USER6> Computer Battlegames was my first introduction to programming after finding a dog-eared copy in the local library in the late 80s.

I spent many happy minutes carefully retyping all the code into quickbasic and then spending endless hours trying to frig the c64/zx81 syntax to work.

Good times. After lunch i'm going to go back and finally get the missile game to work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> These books were beautiful. They gathered your attention and fantasy even before playing and they were inspiring. I obviously admire the technical quality of today's games, but remember what the power of imagination was able to do when i was playing 8bit games in the '80s!

</comment><comment><USER8> From the website: "These books were written for 1980s computers such as the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro. The programs will not run on modern computers."

Not true! They'll all run perfectly on RISC OS on the Raspberry Pi, especially easily on RISC OS Pico.

I remember several of these books very fondly, it's great to see them made available like this. Usborne Books in general are brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER9> I can't tell you how much I loved these books growing up. I also own the collections of their puzzle books and wish they'd reprint their ghost puzzle collections.

<comment><USER10> I think you can. These books resonate with many of us. I remember checking them out from the school library again, and again, and again, and again...

Trying to port them to my MS-DOS machine running QuickBasic was a bit hit-and- miss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oh wow! I remember borrowing these from the library when I was a kid! Awesome!

<comment><USER12> And going back every second Saturday to renew the same book, again & again...

<comment><USER13> it was you!! - sleep with one eye open, timthorn

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used to take these books with me when I went on holidays to the country in Australia. There wasn't a computer there, so I would write down the code on sheets of paper so I could type them into my MicroBee when I got home.

These books are directly responsible for me being a programmer today!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The free downloads (PDF) are on the right-side of the page. Some classics include:

      - Machine Code for Beginners
      - Introduction to Computer Programming, BASIC for beginners
      - Write your own Fantasy/Adventure Games on your microcomputer

</comment><comment><USER15> It's great enough that they've released them, but I love how they've used them as a draw to the page where they present their new/current computing books by presenting both on the same page instead of hiding them away somewhere.

<comment><USER12> I got the Computers and Coding flap book for my 6 year old this Christmas, and got second-hand copies of many of the original books for myself. It's striking how closely the new publication's content matches that of the older books, despite the changes in the industry.

There are several other books from the Usborne 80's catalogue not shown on that page but worth having: Understanding the Micro, Usborne Guide to Computers, How to Make Computer Controlled Robots & How to Make Computer Model Controllers

<comment><USER16> It took me several passes at the Lifeline Book Fair and an occasional trip to Ebay but I think I have the entire range now.

The Usborne books were great fun at the time and still a model, I think, for teaching programming concepts to kids of all ages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Brilliant books, and like many of the commenters here, they were my real introduction to programming. The way they visualized the abstract concepts was fantastic.

The biggest downer back in those heady 8-bit home computer days, was the plethora of platforms and the differences in the BASIC dialects. Made getting those code listings working a bit of a pain.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm fairly certain that the book "Practical things to do with a Microcomputer" I had when I was a small child was partly responsible for my career in Software Engineering, even though as a teenager I hated computers and just wanted to become a mechanic.

</comment><comment><USER19> That's incredible. Usbourne books including some of those filled my shelves as a kid along with Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston's fighting fantasy series. Nostalgia is cheap these days. I'll be buying some Usbourne for my children soon...

<comment><USER19> And I'm not finding the source code any easier to read. Thank God we moved on from one char variable names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The "Computer Fun" book is what first taught me about programming, on the C64.

I remember typing in the program that tells you how old you will be in the year 2000. At the time it seemed unimaginable that I could ever be 21 years old!

Feeling very nostalgic looking through this.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've created a github repo where we can rewrite all of the games in the "type it yourself" books in many different languages: [https://github.com/rcraggs/Usborne-1980-Programming- Polyglot](https://github.com/rcraggs/Usborne-1980-Programming-Polyglot)

Please go ahead and start to rewrite them in your favourite language or one that you want to learn.

The one I rewrote in python was surprisingly fun to play.

</comment><comment><USER22> Awesome.... I have a bunch of these sitting on my bookshelf :)

</comment><comment><USER23> I might actually try these on an emulator. Relive the past for an hour. On a side note, the fact that coding is part of the curriculum in the UK makes me very happy. I went to my son's open day at secondary and some kids were at the computer lab learning Python. They are learning at 14 what I make my living on.

</comment><comment><USER24> What would a modern programming book for kids look like? Would it use javascript?

<comment><USER6> If it did, I like to think it'd feature 100 pages of setting up and debugging your module loader, preprocessors, dependency resolution, mvc framework, polyfills, unit tests and build scripts. ;)

<comment><USER6> Full disclosure: I basically write JavaScript for a living. I quite like it, and the above comment was supposed to be humerous rather than an attack on thin-skinned js aficionados as the downvotes would suggest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> They feel like the Head First series...only more fun.

</comment><comment><USER26> These are fantastic. Just browsed through the fantasy game book, and the illustrations are lovely. Especially like the comments done as goblins with speech bubbles beside the listings :-)

I missed the days of BASIC that required line numbers, but this reminds me fondly of my first programming class, in QBASIC on old 386 DOS clones

</comment><comment><USER27> I have a real Beeb, C64, VIC20 and Atari 800 right here, going to enjoy these for a second time 'round :-)</comment>


Studying fire ant rafts could mean better waterproof materials & robots - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/fire-ant-floating-rafts-study-may-lead-to-better-waterproof-materialsrobot-behavior-20110426/

<comment><USER2> Wouldn't the examination of the hydrophobic qualities of their bodies reveal more than their raft configurations?

Is the hydrophobia of their bodies a function of their mass, thus the preclusion for the water tension to break?</comment>


Ask HN: Which docker image do you use for Ruby? - <AUTHOR> I am wondering what's the recommended Docker image for Ruby, alpine or debian one? Does it make sense to always stay one version behind the latest available ruby version? <comment><USER2> Ruby2.4-alpine

What I feel is one should stick to a proven ruby version rather than keep updating to the latest release always. I tend to stick to whatever ruby version I started the project till I find things breaking due to non-backward- compatibility.</comment>


Ask HN: What are canned reports? - <AUTHOR>

What is the difference between canned reports vs standard reports?<p>We build fundraising and CRM software for nonprofit clients and recently, we were asked if our SaaS solution offers 'canned reports' in addition to 'reports'. <comment><USER2> Reports that are pre-defined and parameterized so a business user doesn't have to design the entire report but can just fill in some fields and get the results, like putting in start and end dates and getting a sales summary for the month.

</comment><comment><USER3> Canned reports typically require you to have some level of knowledge about your niche. Different users need to see different data in different ways. You might consider taking a look at competing companies to see what they offer in the way of reports. It might make you a viable option for your potential customers.</comment>


Extract Editable 3D Objects from a Single Photo - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oie1ZXWceqM&hd=1

<comment><USER2> I can't find PDF or any software except this link: [http://www.faculty.idc.ac.il/arik/site/3Sweep.asp](http://www.faculty.idc.ac.il/arik/site/3Sweep.asp). This link looks very cool but I wonder if this is just demo ware.</comment>