Going mobile: mobile website or app? - <AUTHOR> http://www.webdragon.com.au/2962

<comment><USER2> In my experience (as an iOS app developer) people overestimate the returns they'll get from being listed in the app store. It might make sense for big brands because people might search for them, but smaller brands will not be more visible than when having a mobile site. In fact, when it is necessary to search, getting an app from the store and then using it takes a lot more steps then searching in the browser and going to the website.

My standard response when people ask me about building an app is if they've considered creating a mobile site. Unless they have something platform/device specific in mind, like in app purchases, push notifications, using the camera or compass or if the UI is important, it often does not make sense to create an app.

Most important, however, is the user (surprise, surprise). What is the task the user will perform at your site/with your app? If it's something they'll only do a couple of times (or even once) it's not worth an app (unless, maybe, you want them to pay for it). Installing an app is a much bigger upfront commitment (even if it's free) than visiting a website.

</comment><comment><USER3> For most, starting with a mobile website is the best option as the cost is lowest to develop and you reach the widest audience.

If warranted, you can follow up with apps for specific platforms.

<comment><USER4> I agree. Native apps are great if you have some features you want to implement that aren't practical in a web app, but I can't think of any case where a website with a native app for mobile devices has any good excuse not to also have a web app to fall back on.

<comment><USER5> With things like games, you can see that an app could be the only option. While HTML5 is almost there, it still doesn't offer the performance and capabilities of a native app, while Apple's stance on Flash means Flash-based games are a no-no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I very much like the idea of producing webapps rather than iPhone apps in my business, and I think they could probably provide all the functionality I require.

For me the catch is monetisation. With the App Store, this is clear: I release paid apps. With webapps... Advertising seems viable, except that my apps need to work offline (and may solely be used in that way), which as far as I know scuppers the advertising approach. So what's the alternative? Set up a paywall and require users to login to get the webapp in the first place? That seems to defeat the point somewhat.

Anyone have bright ideas or links to clever thinking on the subject?

<comment><AUTHOR> The equivalent of an app store fee is a pay-wall to the application. It would probably drive away more customers than the equivalent app store fee, but I don't think it is defeating the point at all.

Offline access is a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a user I don't have any strong preference either way but the presence of a shiny icon on my home screen prompts me to visit a site more often than a bookmark that is several taps away. Adding bookmarks to the home screen on the iPhone is more realistic with folders to organize them in but it's still a multi-step process to put it there in the first place. It's unfortunate tapping a piece of glass more than once is a barrier but it just seems to work out that way these days for me.

</comment><comment><USER8> You can do both, even using the same code base. Check out this site/app for example: <http://jsway.se>

<comment><AUTHOR> Are there likely to be the same lowest-common-denominator problems as you get with cross-platform development of console games, or those seen with Java apps like OpenOffice.org?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do $5 VPS offerings still have the same specs as 10 years ago? - <AUTHOR> 2012: Digital Ocean (or equivalent) offered VPS's with 1gb RAM and 20gb disk for $5
2020: $5 still gets you at most 1 vCPU, 1gb RAM, and 20-50gb SSD.
Why is there no price innovation happening? Cloud offerings seem to be static, despite cost reductions and other progress. <comment><USER2> They do not have the same specs. They have slightly reduced specs.

You can no longer get a $5 VPS with 50GB SSD, 2GB RAM, and two vCPUs.

<comment><AUTHOR> So it's even worse. What's up with the trend going in the wrong direction?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The $5 droplet used to be 512MB of RAM not 1GB AFAIK</comment>


Art Lebedev's Segmentus implemented in javascript - <AUTHOR> http://spitleaf.com/30days/day4.html

<comment><USER2> If you like this one, check out the QlockTwo clock as well:

# <http://www.qlocktwo.com> \- the original, 900 euros a piece

# <http://zachchadwick.com/klok> \- the Javascript version

# [http://www.flickr.com/photos/19203306@N00/sets/7215762299881...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/19203306@N00/sets/72157622998814956) \- the Arduino remake

</comment><comment><USER3> This is neat, I've been thinking about building a mechanical version of this since I was child (I used to stare at digital clocks for long periods of time, just to watch the numbers change).

</comment><comment><USER4> does the bottom right "hinge" of each digit have two "fingers" for aesthetics (so that there is always one hidden)?

<comment><AUTHOR> it wouldn't be consistent with the other 'hinges' if it had just one finger, I guess. I could remove it, but I'm trying to be faithful to the original. Nice catch though :) If you notice, no hand goes into the NW and SE position either.

<comment><USER4> i hadn't thought at look at the orignal - your fingers move differently! i prefer your movement, although i think the original has a slightly more balanced look (fatter fingers). you seem to be using a regular pattern of movement - have you considered choosing which finger to move at random, so that the movement varies more?

[edit obviously i don't mean that the fingers move at random, but since you have two fingers on a hinge you have a choice when it comes to changing how they are arranged]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> JS animations took me back to 1999 again.</comment>


mlpack 3 released: a fast, flexible machine learning library - <AUTHOR> http://www.mlpack.org/blog/mlpack-3-released.html <comment><USER2> Super glad to see this project continue to undergo development! The Python bindings look pretty sweet</comment>


ComScore Total Universe Report  - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/04/comscore-total-universe-report.html

<comment><USER2> ComScore Total Universe Report: 1 (as far as we know)</comment>


The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They're Leaving - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/the-real-high-tech-immigrant-problem-theyre-leaving/ <comment><USER2> I am working from India for the past 3 months instead of my San Francisco office. Nearly every large IT company in India offers benefits at par with Google. Yes I mean multiple food vendors. Food being served 6 times a day.

The salary of an IT professional in India easily puts him among the highest wage earners in India (something similar to how Wall Street traders were a couple of years ago). Chauffeur driven cars, cooks and daily house cleaning services are all easily affordable.

The biggest question I have to ask myself is should I return to my studio in SF.

<comment><USER3> _Food being served 6 times a day._

Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dinner and Supper?

I suppose this confirms the theory that IT workers are all hobbits.

<comment><USER4> Says the dude named yummyfajitas -- that's a great username.

But seriously, that was my favorite bit of that movie:

Pippin: But what about breakfast?

Aragorn: You've already had it.

Pippin: We've had one, yes. But what about second breakfast?

[Aragorn stares at him, then walks off.]

Merry: Don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.

Pippin: What about elevensies? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he?

Merry: I wouldn't count on it.

<comment><USER5> _But seriously, that was my favorite bit of that movie:_

Please read the books, they're far superior to the movies.

Edit: Downvotes, hmmm. Allow me to explain...

The LotR movie trilogy, while being excellent movies in and of themselves, do not do the books justice. PJ's interpretation (and subsequent plot hacking) left me wanting more, and not in a good way.

Admittedly, that may have more to do with the medium in which the storyline was delivered. Cinema, while more visually appealing than the written word, simply cannot offer the same depth that a book can.

I think it's safe to say that in most cases where books are translated to movies, the book remains the better of the two.

Anyways, sorry for the offtopic thread.

<comment><USER6> I'd love to hear your opinion on immigration and the intra-national tech community, but LotR is way off topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article is about the problems that happen when foreign nationals with engineering backgrounds no longer want to live in the US. But it could just as easily be about what happens when the US is no longer able to fill these positions from its own population. And I suspect that there is a correlation between the huge numbers of visas issued and the slow decline of interest among Americans in these fields.

I know, it isn't entirely a zero sum game. But when I graduated with an MS in Engineering from Berkeley, we definitely weren't pulling in the starting salaries that the law and business students were earning - even the PhD students weren't at that level, not even close. And guess what? The MBA and Law programs had no problem attracting Americans, whereas Engineering had very few.

This article does highlight a danger, but it doesn't really suggest one good solution - encourage Americans into these fields, and this time, don't undermine their careers.

<comment><USER8> I think you are missing an important part. There is low barriers for your job to be shipped abroad.

A doctor's job is hard to ship, especially the emergency ones (you still hear about people going abroad for cosmetical work), and lawyers have barriers (you have to pass the Bar, laws changing constantly by state etc.), therefore they can command higher salaries.

But for software engineers, the barrier of job shipping is really low. My company has a team in Argentina, doing decent work. If I was twice as expensive as I was now, the company probably would have just hired all the engineering there, and maybe one or two "architect" types in the US.

Eventually american engineers with less experience would have to lower their salaries, to get into a level where the efficiencies that are gained by having somebody with the same culture/understanding on site is worth the extra cost that the average american programmer commands.

1\. Remember, you are competing in a global pool of talent. Doctors/lawyers have an huge local advantage that engineers simply don't have.

2\. H-1B is an recent trend (late 90s trend). I doesn't explain the lack of interest in engineering/math for american graduates. (see number 1. Even if your salary was so high to spark interest, your job it would be outsourced soon, or your company will go bust as so many did in 2001-2003).

3\. In the late 90s salaries were really high. It motivated the wrong kind of people to get into school. I remember, a lot of "I am in CS for the money, not b/c the passion" types in late 90s (when I started school, and the dot com was all the rage. Within the year a lot of them were in a different major, b/c they couldn't handle it. Information technology, or business being the fallback majors of choice.

4\. Even until lately, salaries for engineers have been really good. CS is one of the few majors where you can command 50-70k right after college, and where by 25 you can easily be pulling 6 figs. (I was by 25).

While I agree, that H-1B should be used to bring really skilled people in (and not used a simply a cost control school), eliminating it, is a sure path to Detroit-ing Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER9> >While I agree, that H-1B should be used to bring really >skilled people in It is becoming impossible to do academic collaborations with the US - you can't send postdocs/professors to work on US telescopes, particle accelerators etc because they can't get H1B visas. Initially this is great, other coutries part fund the projects but only americans can work on them. the trouble is that the next round of instruments won't be in the US, Cern was built in Switzerland for this reason, ITER is in France.

<comment><USER7> That's terrible. Those researchers should be able to get visas easily.

However, I disagree with the notion that we should solve this problem by just awarding more visas. Doesn't it strike you as strange (and genuinely horrible) that universities can't get visas while outsourcing companies are gobbling up these visas by the tens of thousands? Doesn't it strike you as strange that Microsoft claims it can't bring in super high paid developers because we've hit the visa cap, yet some of these visas have been going to firms that pay the "critical worker that couldn't be found in the US" $12/hr? (sorry, no cite on that, I heard it in an interview with Ron Hira, a professor of public policy... I'll try to dig it up).

The H1B lobby loves the example you gave, because they get to claim that the H1B detractors are "opposed to letting researchers into the US for innovative collaborations." Uh, no. We've taken hundreds of thousands, maybe even over a _million_ H1B workers into the US (the dept of labor doesn't keep exact numbers). Maybe one of these visas could have gone to the researcher, rather than some average dude who read the Oracle manual?

This program is in desperate need of a fix, no question about that. But to me, fixing it by just removing the cap, or setting an extremely high cap, is unacceptable. I don't need a fire hose to blow out my birthday candles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I left USA after being an H1B for 5 years with delay after delay in my GC application. HARD decision. Hated leaving...

Went to my home country, created a software company with successful products. Now a few dozen jobs are here instead of there and some million $$$ are flowing into my country.

Still, I would move to the US and open an office if I'd have a legal, fast way to get a residency there. Not likely though.

<comment><USER11> Are there any valid reasons as to why you would still want to move to the US?

<comment><USER10> Don't laugh, but it's a kind of patriotism.

I love the country. It's beautiful. I like its philosophy. American values resonate close to my values. In the years I lived there I grew to think of it as my home much more than the country I was born in. I could see calling myself American.

When I went there I was received well. I was helped. I made friends. Now I think I can help in return. I would like to contribute, especially in a downturn. I would buy a house, I would create jobs.

Now, I travel a lot (including in US) so I live all over the world. And financially I'd have little to gain in States (no extra income, higher living costs, higher taxation, higher business costs). So it'd be mostly an idealistic gesture, a way for me to participate in building something larger than myself and what I've already built. Something I truly believe in.

But I am not getting myself again in the Kafka's nightmare that US immigration is. Waiting years for some bureaucrat to decide if your life will go on or will be completely changed "just because". No thanks. I'd only consider another country if I'd have a clear, legal and quick path to residency. Otherwise... I'll only be a tourist.

<comment><USER12> Did you look into the following two categories of GreenCard Visa's ? (EB4/EB5)It seems you get a Visa in 9 months.

1\. Entreprenurs .... You start a business and hire 4-5 FT US employees 2\. Investment .... Invest 500K in some Federal designated area.

<comment><USER13> Just out of interest with #1 - what's to stop an immigrant from simply "buying" themselves a visa by hiring 4 people at minimum wage for 9 months? Even if you didn't make a cent of revenue, you could do still that for ~60K right? Doesn't seem like a lot to obtain US citizenship.

<comment><USER14> 60k is a lot of money, especially for the people who have the most to gain from a US citizenship (i.e. people from the 3rd world who are not independently wealthy).

A Swede will not pay 60k because the US is, for the most part, not that much (if at all) better than Sweden, and most Indians don't have that kind of money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hum... It is not that they (we) are leaving, it is more like they (we) are not even going.

I'm a Spaniard, I have worked in five different countries in Europe and Latin America. I'm currently settled in the U.K. I have worked as a consultant, as a developer in a "one-product" company and now I´m working as an in-house developer in a non-tech company.

It simply does not make sense to relocate to USA for me. I have had a couple of offers to work in Boston or New York in the last few years and I turned them down. Weak dollar versus euro means that I won´t be able to pay my euro denominated mortgage while living in the U.S. I am free to work anywhere within the European Union, and I have always been very welcomed in Spanish speaking American countries while I would need some paperwork to work in the U.S.

The political climate doesn't help either. I have never been in the U.S. and I realize that T.V. is not necessarily correlated to real life, but every other day you get news about some guy who was traveling to the U.S. for some perfectly legitimate reason, with all their legal documents in good shape and gets detained at the border for 30 hours, their families are not notified and they are not allowed to drink, eat or sleep.

On the other hand, I personally know some people (about 15 persons) who travel frequently from Europe to the U.S.,for both professional and personal reasons. They have never had problems in the border. There is clearly a dissonance between my "real-life" experience and my "media-induced" experience. Nonetheless, if I had to travel there, I would be a bit scared... my mother would definitely be very scared.

I really hope that things change. My wife is eager to spend a few years living in the U.S. We won't be going for now... may be during Obama's second term (if it happens) it would be economically feasible (strong dollar) and professionally interesting for me. As anyone with a passion for our craft, I have read countless histories about Silicon Valley, and I think the odds would be better for my own (future) start-up in there rather than in Europe, where bureaucracy and lack of funding make things more difficult.

<comment><USER16> > every other day you get news about some guy who

> On the other hand, I personally know some people (about 15 persons)

Not to defend the US Immigration service, but those samples aren't comparable - one is orders of magnitude larger and less reliable.

<comment><USER17> _"Not to defend the US Immigration service, but those samples aren't comparable - one is orders of magnitude larger and less reliable."_

Not to defend the climate of fear generated by media scare stories, but it's more complex than that - the problem isn't that every once in a while someone screws up; the problem is that it can happen at all and they're not screw-ups, it's policy.

Everyone knows someone with a story about some horrible entry into the US. The fact that it happens at all, the idea that all "foreigners" are untrustworthy terrorists-in-disguise to be treated with suspicion and contempt, slowly sinks in. This is a very powerful antidote to the "land of the free" rhetoric, which starts to seem like a myth in itself - one media illusion demolishing another, if you will.

And it's just this, I don't know, malicious arrogance to the whole thing. From the very beginning, to be treated in that way, and for such treatment to be institutionalised and officially accepted, even encouraged, as the price to pay for the privilege of being allowed to enter the country? After a while anyone with any pride at all is forced to consider whether America is such a shining utopia to be worth rolling the dice every time you dare to try and get into the place. And as countries like India and China grow in wealth and stature, the pride of their citizens rises too.

But it's not just the risk of drawing the short straw on the "your name reminds us of something" list, every single visitor faces invasive biometric ID procedures to be kept for god knows how long, shared with god knows who, and used for god knows what purpose.

I am an Australian citizen from birth (a country which is a longtime ally of the USA and actually the only country who has fought alongside her in every war for a century), non religious, educated and of sufficient means. If I want to enter the US I face being photographed and my fingerprints taken like a common criminal. Jokes about convict ancestry aside - do you have any idea what kind of message that sends?

Whatever the intention is, I understand it as meaning that foreigners are not wanted in the USA, and I'm happy to oblige. You might think that sounds ridiculous and childish, taking such an impersonal message personally and all that, but think about it. Would you choose to visit a country that treats you like that, all other things being equal, which they pretty much are?

<comment><USER16> > Everyone knows someone with a story about some horrible entry into the US.

Everyone knows someone who has a friend who knew the guy who tried to dry his poodle in the microwave.

I'm not saying that Immigration and/or Homeland Security is great, but the rumor-mongering is unjustified.

> the problem is that it can happen at all and they're not screw-ups, it's > policy.

And you know this because....

> I am an Australian citizen from birth

Ah, Australia. I know a Stanford CS PhD student who was put through hell by the Australian equivalent of US Immigration/Homeland Security because she wanted to visit a guy who she met while he was in the US. They were concerned that she might want to stay, contaminate the gene pool, or somesuch. (She's pretty and white, so they weren't applying any sort of appearance standard.)

Really. I actually know her. And, you should have paid her to emmigrate because she is seriously talented. And yes, she was seriously pissed.

Nevertheless, I don't get hysterical about it. I'm looking forward to diving the Great Barrier Reef in a couple of years.

> If I want to enter the US I face being photographed and my fingerprints > taken like a common criminal.

I don't know how things are in Australia, but we can't identify criminals and the like without actually checking. (For some reason, they don't mention that in their visa application.)

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't try?

<comment><USER17> _"Everyone knows someone who has a friend who knew the guy who tried to dry his poodle in the microwave."_

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not talking about some urban legend that gets passed through 10 generations of "friends of friends", I'm saying that many people have had bad experiences with US Immigration, and word gets around. I personally know someone who now enters the US by land via Canada because of his repeated horrendous experiences at the air border.

 _"I'm not saying that Immigration and/or Homeland Security is great, but the rumor-mongering is unjustified."_

Rumours? It goes a bit beyond rumours, don't you think? It's large-scale and well-documented. Personal anecdotes alone do not make something true, but that's not the case here. The personal anecdotes just add a more of a "this could happen to me" dimension to otherwise abstract reports of it happening to someone else.

 _"And you know this because...."_

Because .. it's self evident and obviously true? What are you trying to say - that the hostile suspicion of foreigners at the US Border is _not_ policy?

 _"I know a Stanford CS PhD student who was put through hell by the Australian equivalent of US Immigration/Homeland Security"_

I'm not trying to say we're much better, although at least we don't fingerprint. I have many (in some cases personally witnessed/experienced) grievances against the Australian system.

No need to turn this into a "my country is better than yours" pissing match, I have a real fondness for America and wouldn't even bother having a strong opinion if I didn't care ; )

 _"Nevertheless, I don't get hysterical about it."_

Sigh. I hope I didn't come across as hysterical. I put a bit of emotion into my writing in an attempt to get the point across that it's important to me, not as a sign that I have taken leave of my senses.

 _"I don't know how things are in Australia, but we can't identify criminals and the like without actually checking."_

Huh? We're talking about the US Border, specifically about foreigners trying to visit, many who have never been there before. Are you suggesting that there is a huge list of outstanding arrest warrants for foreign criminals whose faces and fingerprints are on record, and this system is an attempt to catch them? Or that US Border agents are cooperating with overseas police forces to catch escaping criminals or something?

Of course not. I actually don't know why they do it. The whole thing is post-9/11 so I suppose it's part of the "war on terror", but surely the number of "terrorists" who are on the run but whose fingerprints have somehow been recorded is vanishingly small.

Anyway, I hope that with the new administration in charge and the memory of 9/11 receding, this horrible system will be turned off.

<comment><USER16> >> "And you know this because...."

> Because .. it's self evident and obviously true? What are you trying to say > - that the hostile suspicion of foreigners at the US Border is not policy?

As I suspected, you're guessing - it's sort of like fundamental attribution error.

> Huh? We're talking about the US Border, specifically about foreigners trying > to visit, many who have never been there before.

How does immigration/homeland security know that someone has never been to the US before? (Hint: their passport isn't reliable information.)

And, if the US isn't trading fingerprint info with everyone it can, it isn't doing its job.

BTW - The US does collect fingerprints overseas in certain countries. However, thanks to discrimination laws, it can't just check fingerprints of folks who look like they might be from those places.

If you argued that we're practicing "security theater", not security, you wouldn't get an argument from me.

> Anyway, I hope that with the new administration in charge and the memory of > 9/11 receding, this horrible system will be turned off.

Be ready to be disappointed.

<comment><USER17> _"As I suspected, you're guessing - it's sort of like fundamental attribution error."_

I don't think so. It's merely the most likely explanation. I note you haven't advanced any competing theories. However, not like I have any hard evidence, so consider the point retracted if it bothers you.

 _(various points about fingerprint collection)_

Well, everything you say is true, as far as it goes. My point is not that fingerprint collection is utterly useless and no case whatsoever can be made for its enactment. What I am trying to say is that it is an extreme tactic with high costs, not least of which that it turns people off visiting the US at all, and its benefits are nebulous and require a lot of unlikely "what-if" scenarios to pay off at all. Meanwhile, the data collected is, IMO, very dangerous.

Ah, I see you've heard of the term "security theatre". Yes, that's exactly what it is, and a very damaging and costly act it is too.

 _"Be ready to be disappointed."_

I am, but I don't think it's impossible that the draconian entry procedures will be dropped. They're really a product of paranoia and irrational fear; this dissipates in time.

When the drumbeat of terrorism scaremongering has died down a bit, and the post-crisis economic reality has dawned on everyone, it might well occur to the leaders of the country that perhaps they can't afford to throw away tourist and business dollars on misguided security theatre any more. It might take a while, but economic pragmatism wins out every time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a US citizen in the SF bay area, bootstrapping a web company by myself, and I'm heading out to Beijing this summer. PG talks a lot about reaching 'ramen profitability' and there's no easier place to hit that than China. It's going to cost me about $400 a month to live (frugally), and if I needed to, I could teach English for about $60 / hr. Worst case scenario, a native English speaker could dedicate one or two days a month to paying the bills.

There is no lack of tech talent in Beijing - from personal work experience, Tsinghua's tech alums are just as bright as MIT's or Stanford's. And you can hire a fresh graduate for about $20k / year.

If you can speak Chinese and you don't want to take external investment, screw Silicon Valley, Beijing is a bootstrapper's paradise.

<comment><USER19> Same here, but back in Argentina after many years in Europe.

      * ZERO visa problems, we welcome immigrants from hunger or financial disasters,
      since 1890 :)
      * Pretty women who like foreigners (never underestimate this!)
      * Great nightlife (or this.)
      * Projected economic growth (recession instead of depression.)
      * After '01 default, the country works on zero credit already (no surprises.)
      * But infrastructure and culture is significantly closer to US/Europe.
      * The constitution is modeled after French and US.
      * Hardworking culture.
      * Affordable reasonably good health-care.
      * Ubiquitous free Wi-Fi (cafés, bars, neighbors.)
      * Hacker culture, many knowledgeable people around.

Granted: * It is more expensive than China or India, but definitely within the ramen-profitable range. * Some places are not as safe as it used to be, but most of the country is _very_ safe. For example where I am people leave cares with the keys on ignition when going to the shops. * Banks aren't reliable but you can keep the bulk of money in US or use safety deposit boxes.

YMMV, of course... :)

<comment><USER20> How easy it is to live there without knowing Spanish? What are the safer parts of the country? Also can you please estimate the monthly expenses?

<comment><USER19> About Language. Part of the population speaks basic English so getting around at first is not that hard. This is more so in business and of course tourism. We are a country of immigrants, so people are very friendly and welcoming to foreigners. Your basic Spanish can ramp up in a couple of months if you take basic lessons. If you are really on a shoestring you can always place an ad offering "my English for your Castellano, conversation" ad on some hostel or hotel or just go to a pub! (this is trivial, everybody would like freebie conversation, this is a classic way for hooking up, too :) (BTW: the language is called Castellano, like the language you speak isn't called British but English; but it's the same thing.)

There are no safe parts of the country as a whole, it depends on the citi or town you pick. The largest city, Buenos Aires, 13 million, is mostly OK if you follow some basic rules (e.g. don't carry expensive watches or too much money, and stay in nice parts of the city.) If you have a big budget, you can live in isolation within the very expensive neighborhoods. But beware, it can get as fancy as you can imagine and your expenses get to Manhattan-life level. There are many areas in this city.

About security outside Buenos Aires, security is mostly very good. There are a few exceptions and again, in large cities you are OK as long as you stay within OK areas.

And even in the not that common case of mugging, say you leave a house party at a friend's place, it goes like this: "give me your money", "here you go", you give them your wallet with $200 and the guy leaves. You lost u$d 57, big deal, yawn. Just always carry something over 50 so they take it and leave.

Argentina is the 8th largest country in the world with an extremely varied geography. Have a look in Wikipedia. There is mountain, sea, jungle, prairie, desert, you name it. :) My advice is don't plan settling before checking out the options. ADSL 3Mbit is available on most big cities for $40-$70. The quality of the connection varies significantly.

Budget varies a lot. Touristy prices are crazy high, don't fall into that. Temporary rent is also 50% more expensive. In BA an OK-good flat with 1 bedroom will go for u$d 350-500/mo and u$d 70-100 more for bills. In other towns you can get a beautiful house for that money. It all depends. Transport is cheap, just try to have always coins with you (trust me on this one.) Groceries depend on how fancy you live, for my spartan lifestyle is about u$d 55-80/week. Clothes and shoes are somewhat expensive, bring them. Same for skiing equipment and stuff like that. Computer hardware is mostly cheap, fancy things are a bit more expensive, like laptops.

Something important: Don't use your foreign credit card. If you plan to stay, get a basic account with debit card (also, payments with local debit card get 4%+ refund from taxes.)

And don't get too literal on statistics, in particular of the CIA "Factbook." For example, they say it is an "intermediate" chance of getting disease here. This is only applicable for people who come _already_ in extreme poverty.

For more info drop me an email.

<comment><USER19> Forgot to say, there is already a boom of Westerners coming here to visit or settle in the last few years. There are hostels everywhere for u$d 12/day and most have free wifi, speak English, and have double rooms around u$d 40/day (usually with private bathroom and shower.)

HI network: <http://www.hostels.org.ar/?l=en>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have now heard of 3 cases of friends who are engineers (with graduate degrees from the U.S.) working at well known US software companies, being held back in India because the US consulate is taking months to do a "background check" after they went to get their H1-B renewals, which have already been approved, stamped on the passport. This used to be an "in and out" procedure since the US government already does background checks on H-1B applicants when they apply for the first time, get their visas stamped for the first time and then apply for a renewal while still in the U.S.

At least one of these guys is considering resigning his position in the U.S. and starting something in India rather than sitting at home doing nothing.

Maybe this is just random chance. If not, kicking skilled immigrants with jobs out of the country is not a wise move.

</comment><comment><USER22> From the article...

        Growing demand for their skills and shining career opportunities back home were cited by 87 percent of
        the Chinese and 79 percent of the Indians as the major professional reason for returning. Most also
        cited the lure of being close to family and friends.

No surprise here. A few years back, when I was working for a IT company in Chicago which went through a kind of "reverse takeover" by an (East) Indian firm, most of my co-workers gave similar reasons for leaving our U.S. office soon after the .com bubble popped. The stories told me by my supervisors reaffirms the article's contention that Indian programmers have a lifestyle in stark contrast of the countrymen in the rural areas of India proper.

</comment><comment><USER23> Well actually the labor government in Australia is currently reviewing the migrant intake policies mentioned in the main article ... [http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/18/business/ozjobs.2-410...](http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/18/business/ozjobs.2-410091.php) But it looks like we're going to keep up the high intake for the most part. We're certainly not losing any from what I've observed.

As an aside I have to say I haven't seen much of anti-immigration sentiment here even with the economic downturn. Sure, there's been a fair bit of talk against moving jobs overseas, but barley a whisper with regards to immigration.

<comment><USER17> I actually think we should increase the rate. Double it. Triple it, even. There will need to be a concommitent infrastructure investment but with that, no problem.

This should be a time of amazing opportunity to absorb the talent leaving other countries.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I agree with you. Given the great talent in the Asian region we're sitting on a people gold mine. Also given the already short-supply of housing it would invigorate the property sector as well.

But I don't think the media and public would respond well to it with companies like pacific brands and the mining companies laying of so many in the last few weeks. It's probably best if the government doesn't rock the boat on immigration, lest we get a public reaction against it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's interesting the dynamic that IT fields have added to the immigration issue. In a broad sense, it makes for different "kinds" of immigrants, with different skill sets, etc. And I can't help wondering if this adds an element to this country's understanding of race. That's to say: IT has changed the way we see immigration from China and India - more so, I think, than from any other country. Has it changed the way we see the people themselves? Is it a pos. or neg. influence? What does that mean for the way we see immigrants from countries like Mexico that often work in jobs that are harder to organize? And what are these magic factors that so well prepare one or two groups of immigrants for the American work force? Is it the educational systems in India and China? And maybe I'm crazy - does anyone else think IT is playing a role in our collective approach to race?

</comment><comment><USER25> There are some interesting comments in [http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/02bcrisis-100000-pros-m...](http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/02bcrisis-100000-pros- may-return-to-india-from-us.htm)

</comment><comment><USER26> If the people leaving are scientists and engineers, people aren't going to be concerned. These folks are getting laid off in droves no matter where they come from and if some ultimately leave the country no big deal.

Looking at the last 50-100 years, if there's suddenly a market demand for these fields, students will reappear. It'll take a few years, but people chase money.

<comment><USER27> It's tempting to think that the job market works that simply. However, it takes at least 10 years to train a good scientist / engineer. Waiting 10 years is a luxury.

Moreover, people who choose a career based on earning power tend not to be talented or creative. In other words, people who would be attracted to Science / Engineering if the salaries would rise a bit are exactly the kind of people that make mediocre scientists or engineers.

<comment><USER28> Link, please. I think you are painting with too broad a brush. Many people are attracted to many things, and economics is one of the factors they use to discriminate between them.

<comment><USER8> I agree with Rod. I witnessed this first hand during the dot-com boom. (i was in school then). I attracted a lot of types "I am going to retire by 25" types, which had no talent. They would soon quit within the year when they hit the wall on the mid-higher level CS classes. My school had a notorious class that you had to take either second semester, or first in Sophomore year, which was challenging, but it went deep down in CS concepts. A lot of people failed that class. They will either try again, or just switch to Business, or Information Technology (watered down CS/bussiness combination. Good for somebody doing IT work at some large corp).

Just raising salaries is not a path to get more great engineers. More mediocre ones, yes. I think there is a hard limit in the general population on how many good engineers it can produce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> At the risk of getting modded to oblivion again, I'll say it again: we need to change our immigration policies to encourage high-skill immigration from high- IQ countries, and discourage low-skill immigration from low-IQ countries. We don't need more yard-workers -- they don't contribute much to GDP, suck up a lot of social services (tax dollars), and even their grand-children have trouble graduating high school.

Build a fence across the Mexican border (it's cheap, and it worked for Israel despite the naysaying) and require high-level skills for every immigrant coming in after tomorrow.

<comment><USER21> There are High-IQ countries? Must be the water! </sarcasm>

<comment><USER29> I'm confused. Are you claiming that the populations of all countries score the same on IQ tests? Are you saying that it's all explained by culture and that all that culture goes away when someone immigrates? Do you believe in creationism? What?

While I'm sure that your conviction is sincere, I doubt it's based on any actual evidence. Instead it's an expression of how you'd like the world to be.

<comment><USER30> I think if you used words like "cultures that do not value education", you wouldn't come off as a racist/IQist as much.

<comment><USER29> Okay, sure. But then I'd have to think of an explanation for why adopted Asian-Americans do just as well (or better) academically than Asian-Americans raised by their own parents. Culture can't explain that. Maybe you could help me out?

<comment><USER6> You're looking to compare the psychology of adopted Asian-Americans and un- adopted Asian-Americans? This is definitely a place where correlation can be a million things other than causation. I'm no social scientist, but two things come to mind right away:

Consider the financial situation of a household which adopts children - adoption is a very expensive and rigorous process, so adopted children of any nationality are going to be in a family which is financially secure and meets some kind of standard psychologically and legally. Not so for many Asian immigrants - I would imagine that on average, Asian immigrants aren't as well off as foster parents. Culturally, their environment will be quite different.

Cultural identities also come into play - adopted or not, Asian children will identify themselves as "Asian", just as Jewish children identify themselves as "Jewish", Russian children will identify themselves as "Russian", and African American children identify themselves as "Black".

<comment><USER29> Okay, you have a hypothesis. It seems a little unlikely, but I agree that it could be true.

Now, let's get to the proof side of things. What evidence makes you think this is a good explanation for the range of phenomena that you see? What else does it explain? Why can we discount other explanations, etc.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure what you are referring to.

When it comes to social science, there is no one single comprehensible good explanation for the vast majority of phenomena - what I was pointing out is that there are systematic biases when comparing "adopted Asian Americans" and "Asian American immigrants". These biases - financial, psychological, etc - will have a significantly larger influence on how children perform than what you're testing for (genetic differences).

<comment><USER29> Only they don't, because when you measure it, you can predict 80% (studies differ on the exact number) of IQ from parent's IQ. The rest is mainly unshared environment (what we don't know how to fix).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is this really something of interest to Hacker News? It sounds more like political flamebait to me.

<comment><USER32> From the guidelines:

      http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or egregiously offtopic, you can flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. "</comment></comment>


Largest brain imaging study identifies drivers of brain aging - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180821112010.htm <comment><USER2> A number of articles report scientific skepticism regarding Daniel Amen and SPECT imaging, including articles published by the Washington Post and WIRED magazine. [0] [1] [2]

[0] [https://www.wired.com/2008/05/mf- neurohacks/?currentPage=all](https://www.wired.com/2008/05/mf- neurohacks/?currentPage=all)

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/daniel- ame...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/daniel-amen-is-the- most-popular-psychiatrist-in-america-to-most-researchers-and-scientists-thats- a-very-bad- thing/2012/08/07/467ed52c-c540-11e1-8c16-5080b717c13e_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6512b2f7d58e)

[2] [https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/dr-amens-love-affair- with-s...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/dr-amens-love-affair-with-spect- scans/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Uh-oh, cannabis makes your brain age faster than alcohol? Stoner apologists won't be happy about this... I predict a wave of anecdotal evidence and broscience along the lines of:

\- "but it cured my depression"

\- "nobody dies of cannabis overdose, but many people die from alcohol poisoning, checkmate!"

\- "but it makes me sleep well, and sleeping is healthy"

\- "it can cure cancer, but big pharma doesn't want you to know"

<comment><USER4> > _I predict a wave of anecdotal evidence and broscience along the lines of: - > "but it cured my depression"_

How's that laughable?

If cannabis can indeed help with depression that might mean more for the quality of life for a person despite "making their brain age faster".

Besides this "faster brain aging" could still be at an insignificant amount.

As in anything, there are tradeoffs.

Besides, as with any study, including the "largest" ones, this should be taken with a grain of salt, until results are solidified and go from mere research to active recommendations and common medical practices.

<comment><USER5> Anecdotal: It didn't cure my depression but certainly helped me manage it. It was the only thing that made the depression subside for long enough to concentrate and get real work done.

 _Major_ Caveat: My brain chemistry has changed over time, and the last 10 times I've smoked have _all_ been horrible, indescribable paranoia and anxiety I wouldn't wish upon anyone. (Fun fact: pure THC injected into a healthy adult predictably causes psychosis.)

Used to recommend highly, now highly dis-recommend until the genetic testing becomes available and widespread. For some people it's the only thing that helps. For others it might just be the worst thing a person could do to themselves.

Re: Correlation != Causation

Yes, certainly. However, observing myself and others, I see a definite _worsening_ of anxiety and paranoia after smoking. Yes, it depends on the person, what you're smoking, etc. (THC vs CBD (apparently a potent _anti_ -psychotic) is very fascinating and I look forward to more research in this area)

The take-home point is that there are people who should not be smoking at all, and this is something I really don't hear mentioned enough.

<comment><USER6> I'm looking forward to the research that will come out of Canada after the upcoming legalisation :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and ADHD usually take drugs that might influence "brain aging" — i.e. the disease itself might not be the culprit.

<comment><USER8> It would be interesting if they could tie damage down to each medicine used.

Although Schizophrenia, and ADHD seem to be tied to the brain being over active, at least that's my interpretation of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What did they mean by "abuse" in this case?

</comment><comment><USER10> Surprising that they didn't find depression to be predictive, given that it should be correlated to so many other negative things.

</comment><comment><USER11> What about this?

[https://www.nature.com/articles/npjamd201612#abstract](https://www.nature.com/articles/npjamd201612#abstract)

</comment><comment><USER12> If I'm understanding their findings correctly- [https://sci- hub.tw/https://content.iospress.com/articles/jou...](https://sci- hub.tw/https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers- disease/jad180598)

It would seem that having dementia, depression, and traumatic brain injury would result in you having a younger brain?

Doesn't seem right

</comment><comment><USER13> Amen Clinics and SPECT? Right. Google for it.

And yet Daniel Amen seems to have acquired many reasonable sounding co-authors for the paper.

</comment><comment><USER14> Article is light on details on what constitutes brain aging, but judging by 85 year old Willie Nelson's articulateness in his 2018 interviews, I hope to be aging my brain some day, as I get closer to retirement. Deep, gravelly, I don't give a fuck, voice. Zero hesitation, when he feels like expressing himself.

<comment><USER15> You may be arguing from exception here. Yes, Willie Nelson is seemingly doing fine. But we don't know for sure how much he actually smokes. We have his claims.

But even giving him his self-reported claims, he is still a sample size of one.

Your mileage will vary.

Basically what you have done here is taken a piece of information, realized you don't like the results, and have found a way to rationalize continuing doing what you were doing anyway.

If you have ever complained about someone not believing in facts, not doing research, not trusting data, not trusting science, you have just put lie to your reasons for doing so. Because you are behaving just like them. Discarding information that makes you uncomfortable. And we can't do that.

<comment><USER4> > _Your mileage will vary._

Which makes an one-size-fits-all research less relevant as an absolute rule.

> _If you have ever complained about someone not believing in facts, not doing > research, not trusting data, not trusting science_

Then you've done fine, as:

1) science is not some holy gospel given from god but a man-made endeavor (and prone to corruption, politics, error, careerism, and so on),

2) data can be manipulated or misread,

3) research can be bought, manipulated for grants, follow the wrong methodology, be unreproducible, and so on

4) facts themselves have no value unless you've seen them with your own eyes (and even then, you could be delusional or mistaken). With the term "fact" we denote something collected and reported by somebody that might be mistaken, told BS (e.g. how people self-report lies in studies and polls), distorted the actual bare facts for political reasons or private interests, and so on.

Not even peer review is some kind of holy process for the truth. All kinds of crap (even auto-generated) have passed peer review, academics prop each other up in little cliques all the time, tons of peer reviewed studies were found wrong and unreproducible, few "reviewers" take the time to reproduce or verify a study (to the point that studies quote the same old study for decades, and base their recommendations on it, and then it's found to be unsubstantiated BS), and meta-studies are more often than not very shallow.

If you trust science, you're not scientific and empirical enough.

Verify the crap out of everything you here, even if it's sold as "science".

<comment><USER15> Science is the process, not the results.

And every "point" you've brought up is the same canard flat Earthers, young Earth creationists, and other sort of pseudo-science hack pushes.

asdf has discarded out of hand the study for the first reason he could find because he does not like the result. There are better reasons elsewhere in this very thread for being skeptical. But he didn't look those up. He didn't do one bit of leg work. He decided "Willie Nelson, Checkmate." What he's done is no better than what so many anti-intellectual hacks have done when arguing against things like evolution and the Earth not being flat.

So yes, I trust science, because I trust the process.

And it wasn't presented as a "one-size-fits-all" research. And regardless, if it was found that it was an average of 4 years, you're just saying "Yeah, well, I'm going to be one of the lucky ones".

<comment><USER4> > _Science is the process, not the results._

The scientific process is an abstract idea. Unless you believe in the reality of platonic ideas, the real world offers a much messier application of the scientific process.

Besides, I've already covered that.

> _And every "point" you've brought up is the same canard flat Earthers, young > Earth creationists, and other sort of pseudo-science hack pushes._

Which is neither a scientific argument, nor a relevant one. The fact that people who have wrong opinions on another matter (e.g. whether the earth if flat) also put forward this argument regarding science, does not mean it is false. You simply committed a logical fallacy.

In fact, I'm not even sure those people put forward this argument in any case. Young Earth creationists, for example, put forward other kinds of arguments (e.g. that the Bible knows better, which is not the same as "real science is a messy human process, never trust what its practitioners say just because it's labelled as science").

> _He decided "Willie Nelson, Checkmate."_

Well, it's a good counter-example. At the very least, it proves (given what we know about Nelson is true) that the findings in the research are not an absolute truth but it can vary for each person. Heck, those researches should also study Nelson and other lucid older heavy users, and learn what they can from them as well.

Besides, asdf never professed to put up a scientific argument. He just made a casual comment in an online forum. Notice how everything he said is totally rational and empirically verifiable:

"Article is light on details on what constitutes brain aging, but judging by 85 year old Willie Nelson's articulateness in his 2018 interviews, I hope to be aging my brain some day, as I get closer to retirement. Deep, gravelly, I don't give a fuck, voice. Zero hesitation, when he feels like expressing himself."

He doesn't even say that the article is wrong "because Willie": just that Willie Nelson is very articulate despite being a heavy user, and that he hopes to be as "brain aged" as he is, when he gets close to retirement.

> _So yes, I trust science, because I trust the process._

Too bad. There's no pure process in the world. There are just people who are supposed to follow a process, and you need to not just trust the process, but also to trust the people that they will follow it properly.

(In fact even the concept of such a "process" is mumbo jumbo: there's no single well specified "scientific process", with a predetermined set of rules that every practitioner follows or is supposed to follow. It's an umbrella term referring to all kinds of practices, described in several different abstract ways by philosophers of science based on a set of high level steps). Even "peer review" is a relatively recent phenomenon, as is "publish or perish").

<comment><USER15> The point "Sometime science is incomplete" doesn't say anything to any particular study. It doesn't address anything about the study itself. Saying "the data is wrong here" or "your statistical model is wrong in these ways" or "your sample size is too small" are tangible things and things worth bringing up. Saying "yeah, but science is wrong... sometimes" says nothing.

No one said the findings were absolute truth. It's a pointless thing to argue against. They said they found on average about 4 years of accelerated aging. You get averages from highs and lows. So a counter-example of one is irrelevant. Ok, put him in with the averages. Now the average is... about 4 years. His data point doesn't move the needle.

Sure the article is light on details, because it's a summary of a study. Not the study itself. But the point remains, he latched on to the first thing he could think of to dismiss the results. That's just bad process.

And I never said it has to be a "pure" process. If the only way you have of "making a point" is to stretch others' words to the point of absurdity, then you don't have a point. You are immediately assuming the worst possible interpretation of words rather than even a neutral one. The process is overall simple: perform, observe, record, interpret. If your findings are valid, if your methods are sound, and your tests repeatable, others will be able to duplicate your results. And I'm sure you're going to interpret that in the worst possible way. Because you have already an answer you want, you just need to fit the data to it.

Being skeptical, being open, also means being wrong sometimes. The idea is to consider new information and not just toss it aside because it conflicts with your personal preferences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> At what age is brain aging considered having gone from a good thing to a bad thing?

</comment><comment><USER17> Who said weed is save? Cannabis is a drug/substance which has an effect on us and if the only effect is brain aging of a few years -> okay.

Was not able to find the paper, anyone has the link?

Not sure yet if i should care. I will drink my gin tonic, smoke something later on and still live with adhs while contemplating my life.</comment>


"Why I'm not at CCCamp 2019" - <AUTHOR> https://annejan.com/cccamp2019 <comment> vertex-four Hacking is political. Always has been. And for many, hacking is a way of putting our politics in action quite directly - among other things, ensuring our privacy because nobody will do it for us, and building new systems that don't depend on the power structures we're forced into.

I don't know what your hacking is, but hacking to me involves protecting the rights of whistleblowers and activists under dictatorships by building technology to allow them to communicate freely, it involves protecting my friends from people who want to do them harm. It's about creating networks and connections and helping people survive. Technology is a means to creating a better world, not an end in itself.

</comment><comment><USER2> > "Hackers are not, by definition, concerned with: womens rights, lgbt things, > nazies, anti-nazi, flat-earth, anti-vaxers. these things [...] should be > heard, but this does not have to be a precondition to be a hacker. [...] > unwelcome atmosphere for many non political hackers." vs. "In conclusion, > inclusivity should not be reserved for people 'just like us'."

Which one is it? You cannot critize that the ticketing is not inclusive enough and complain about talks on just that aspect at the same time. The ticketing process is at least better than the first come first serve stuff there was before, it's not like you couldn't reach out and get tickets afterwards if you had special circumstances.

And the "too much left" politics angle for every CCC event is tiring to be quite honest and was addressed at the last(?) congress. You're not forced to attend talks you're not interested in. I've not seen people being shut down for being anything short of alt/far right nutjobs at these events. The camp is a pretty open event organized by a club that has several outreach programs, I don't really get how this text came to be or how it fits together overall.

</comment><comment><USER3> Writing a lengthy article in 3 languages is pretty inclusive. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER4> > It's quite a privilege to shut everybody up with the magic sentence 'Check > your privilege!'. A privilege often overlooked.

 _yawn_

<comment><USER5> Besides breaking the site guidelines by posting unsubstantive comments, could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is also in the guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

HN is a community. Users needn't use their real name, but do need some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20community%20identity...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20community%20identity&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to be a great Junior Engineer? - <AUTHOR> I recently joined a tech company (roughly 200 employees) as a Junior Engineer.
From a Senior Engineer's (or teammates) perspective - what would be the ideal characteristics of a junior engineer joining your team?
* Asks lots of questions vs. making independent decisions on tradeoffs? * Seeks additional code review vs. pushing a project and getting started on the next? * Self picks projects from the backlog vs. asking after each project what I should work on next?
It's my first time working as a full-time software engineer. I can write the code, but have zero experience in 'this is how a junior dev should approach their role'.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> \- Do _some_ research before asking a question. At the very least you should google a few keywords and look at the first 5 pages before raising it with someone else.

\- Don't ask things you can easily find yourself. I've had junior engineers asking me "does git blah has a flag for ...?". It's disrespectful of that person's time.

\- Don't question every tiny little thing you come across. Organisations can't maintain perfection, there's gonna be ugly things and people are aware that there's always room for improvement. Sometimes there is complicated history behind things that look stupid on the surface. Some things are the way they are just because they are. Not everything has some grand reason or justification behind it. Sometimes people keep asking questions like "Why was this written this way? Why was it not written that way? Why can't we make it better? Why can't we make it faster?"

\- Remember the ugly crap you are seeing today was someone else's shiny shit some time ago and you are not an exception. The cycle will continue and the perfect little happy function you are writing today that's gonna solve everyone's problems is going to be the next person's ugly crap to rewrite and refactor and clean up after you have moved on.

<comment><USER3> Agreed and, additionally, don't escalate something you perceive to be "wrong" up the chain of command without at least checking some history and/or asking around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> After 25 years in the industry, and been in the roles of senior engineer, lead engineer, manager, business owner. Here is my advice and thoughts.

Companies, divisions and teams are inherently social and political. Communication is very important. Understanding other people's perspectives, even if you disagree. Keep your emotions in check. Take the high road. Don't assume malice when incompetence is a sufficient explanation. Go out of your way to help other people. It builds good karma that will pay you back. Get to know other people in the company. Talk to them and show interest in them.

Perception is king. The only thing that matters is other people's perception of your you and your work. That said, the best way to increase people's perception you is to be a hard worker. Manage the visibility of what you're working on and look for visible things to do. When a department is being downsized, it's the people who are perceived to be of high value that are retained. Remember that you're being watched, even when you think you aren't. Don't look at porn at work. Don't be the last to arrive at work or the first to leave.

Knowledge should be your main goal at this point. Knowledge increases your value. Learn new technologies. Absorb as much as you can. Become the expert in niche technologies used by your team/company. It is your responsibility to make sure you understand what needs to be done. Don't expect someone to explain it to you. Make an educated guess about what are the relevant for next year and learn those. Code at home. Follow your interests.

</comment><comment><USER5> Congrats!

Rule #1: Never ever stop tinkering or hacking on your own interests.

Rule #2: The passion to code will come and go, but keep your mind and body razor sharp with quality food/exercise/sleep.

Don't try to reinvent the wheel[1]. Every problem you're trying to solve has probably already been solved.

Verify all of your assumptions - ask questions, and realize the context the answer was given (i.e. the same answer may literally not apply to production vs development enviros or one language/API vs another).

Learn how to debug (this is an art), write tests, formal and informal QA procedures, write documentation, and how to get your code pushed upstream (the process) without breaking the system or anyone else's code.

Even if you've mastered the problem domain, most teams limit the ability to contribute too much the first couple of weeks because you need to earn the trust of your team (usually via a combo of defect-free code, humor, and general geek knowledge). Once trust/confidence in your ability is established, you will have plenty to do, and lots of guidance if necessary. But you may not be able to implement your idea for a new foo() in the product until you have reached that point. But watch out for NIH syndrome too.

Rely on more experienced members to help you organize your code files and assets to begin with - align with whatever the team expects. There are project standards, naming conventions, etc. and most of the time it's not written down. Or self-conflicting / clear as mud.

Don't be the dev that delivers sub-sub-standard code that's full of bugs. It's OK if it happens at first, but understand why it happened (root cause analysis?)

If you get stuck, please ask for help (or pseudo code) sooner rather than later. Like an hour or less. Some team members will be better teachers than others.

Good luck and happy coding.

[1] Consult experienced wheel builders first to make sure that it's your ONLY option.

<comment><USER6> > Learn how to debug

I recommend this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Debugging-Indispensable- Software-Hardw...](http://www.amazon.com/Debugging-Indispensable-Software- Hardware-Problems/dp/0814474578)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You already sounds like you are thinking about the right things. I would say that there is no correct answer, because it all depends on deadlines and how busy the senior developers are, but in general:

you can't ask too many questions, BUT when you do get an answer, write it down!

There is nothing that shows lack of effort when you have to spend your time as a senior developer repeating yourself because the junior developer did not write it down or could not remember it.

That is the only thing I would say to you!

And good luck and keep hacking!

</comment><comment><USER8> Before asking questions about the codebase, try to find the answer yourself by reading code and tracing its execution. Don't be afraid to fix problems anywhere you find them. This can be a good opportunity to learn how the system as a whole works.

Participating in code review is great: if they're OK with it, try reviewing senior teammates' commits as well. You can learn a lot by questioning why particular decisions were made, and you might even uncover a bug or two.

</comment><comment><USER9> As a junior engineer, you're expected to be able to handle specific tasks, that usually have been specified to some degree, or that follow existing patterns.

This is in contrast with senior engineers, which are expected to be able to handle responsibility for a large system or subsystem, and to be able to design and coordinate execution of work at a larger scope.

In consequence, junior engineers usually are not expected to have necessarily a very broad knowledge of different disciplines, methods and tools; they need to have sufficient knowledge to execute the tasks that will be assigned to them, and the ability to execute them correctly.

One particularly important skill to develop is how long one should try to find out things on their own, before asking for help. Many people fall into extremes -- either ask for specific help at every step (which hints at incompetence for that task) or waste many hours or days following a wrong path when a 5-minute chat with someone could have pointed them in the right direction (e.g. "use this library").

So my advice would be to find out which are the kind of tasks that you are expected to do at this point, which tools (including programming languages, database, web server, etc.) that you need to know, and focus on doing a good job in those specific tasks.

At the same time, slowly start increasing your scope (e.g. by doing reading and playing with different tools in your own personal time).

My main practical advice would be to make sure you understand the requirements of the tasks that are assigned to you. It's very common that senior engineers take something for granted, as obvious, but junior engineers miss those implicit requirements. E.g. "of course it needs to be highly available, fault tolerant, and with sub-millisecond latency, duh!"

</comment><comment><USER10> Stop tip toeing and acting like you're wasting people's valuable time. You're not. Be fearless, ask for info and get free lessons. Ask to pair. It's all about you.

With that mindset, you'll know the product inside and out. No one will be thinking of you as Jr after a few months.

<comment><USER11> 100000% this. If someone is hiring you as a junior developer, it's because they want to mentor/train you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't see why the junior qualifier would be relevant. A great coder is a great coder. Always try and learn new stuff, be humble, be analytical, help people around you, don't talk shit and so on. If you are worried about how to fit in in your workplace, then that is a different question.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ask the other engineers on the team these questions!

Every engineer and every team has different styles and preferences, and the only way to learn is to ask (and also work with them for a while). Alternatively, ask if there are any documents that outline established team behavior/culture.

</comment><comment><USER14> If I was a senior engineer on your team, would I be willing to get a beer with you? i.e. the most important advice I have is to make sure you ALWAYS have a good attitude.

People are always willing to praise, help out, and even promote guys with good attitudes.

<comment><USER15> Plus most of the best technical conversations take place over beer. Lots of beer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Don't be afraid of looking stupid in any capacity.</comment>


"Process Doppelgänging" Attack Works on All Windows Versions - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/-process-doppelg-nging-attack-works-on-all-windows-versions/ <comment><USER2> And Microsoft page on the underlying feature: [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa3...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa363764)</comment>


RFCs: A 50th anniversary dive (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://write.as/365-rfcs/table-of-contents <comment><USER2> I'm right in the middle of reading "Where Wizards Stay Up Late", fantastic book if anyone is interested in how the internet came about.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've yet to get to that, though a copy of John S. Quarterman's _The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide_ , a happenstance acquisition from a friend clearing out their _very_ comprehensive book collection, has proved quite illuminating. Published in 1990, it _does_ mention the Internet, Usenet, and much more. But none whatsoever of the World Wide Web (despite numerous entries for CERN).

Far more a technical reference, though it includes some mention of dynamics and interactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > 365 RFCs by Darius Kazemi

> In 2019 I read one RFC a day in chronological order starting from the very > first one.

Ooo la la!</comment>


COLOURlovers Goes Colorless for April Fools - <AUTHOR> http://www.colourlovers.com

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of a great April Fools prank to play on my fellow Mac users:

System Preferences > Universal Access > Seeing > Display: use grayscale

It's more subtle than plain inverted colours, and the kind of thing that might make someone think their monitor is dying.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately in the process of loading the pictures came up in color before the JS managed to filter them to greyscale :(.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was actually a good bit of work to pull this off, replacing the color in everything site wide... We may write it up in case it is actually useful to somebody out there.

<comment><USER4> Maybe you could reuse this code to preview how a color scheme would look through the eyes of a color-blind. Or through a color-blind filtering software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Brilliant! This is the sort of April Fool's Prank we need far more of.</comment>


"Yes, we ship to..." - Awesome UI detail at Threadless.com - <AUTHOR> https://img.skitch.com/20110912-rgg3fb5jtebrtxm25qgdjpnq9u.png

<comment><USER2> are you stuck in 1999.? no, it's not that awesome. there are a lot of sites that "personalize" based on visitor location and guessing that location is also not awesome.</comment>


Can Erick Schonfeld Keep the Techrunch Swagger Alive? - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/10/04/can-erick-schonfeld-keep-the-techcrunch-swagger-alive/

<comment><USER2> The swagger is not why people followed TechCrunch. It was actually a toxic byproduct. Hopefully the new regime can stick to reporting and minimize the grief.

<comment><USER3> I did click their links for the swagger somewhat. Soon they'll realize that's what gets pageviews and go back to their old model. Right now, without the personality, they're a dry rag and wide open to competition. They effectively lost their USP when that main guy left. What makes them special anymore?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> w/o reading the posts I welcome the change of TechCrunch with Schonfeld alone now. He got rid of chief-whiner MG Siegler by promoting him to the #1 Apple commentator (a diplomatic masterpiece) and gave Arrington some extra trouble by putting Siegler in this Mini-Crunch-Fund.

Not that Schonfeld will be the better blogger, it's about getting new life into TechCrunch.

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope Erick Schonfeld does not try to re-create the drama that was part of Arrington's forte. Instead, this is a chance for him to build a respected, journalistic property.. a sort of nytimes for the tech space. I hope he does the latter.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure that's possible with Techcrunch - I know Mashable has invested in journalists to try and deliver deeper content, but Techcrunch isn't set up to operate that way, and the fact that every writer is pretty much autonomous means that it's a nightmare to try and even correct inaccuracies...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/28/real-journalism- venturebeat...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/28/real-journalism-venturebeat- style/)

VS

[http://uncrunched.com/2011/09/28/venturebeat-needs-to-put- on...](http://uncrunched.com/2011/09/28/venturebeat-needs-to-put-on-their-big- boy-pants-if-they-want-to-fight-with-techcrunch/)

I do not think he can.

<comment><USER8> Does the editor in chief need to be the center of attention? Maybe he can just hire great talent.

I guess the real question is how much less information/scoops they will have with Mike and MG gone.

<comment><USER9> Sometimes the EIC does need to be the center of attention. It gives the publication a voice. Arrington did it online and in events, the Wired and Tech Review EICs are mostly at the center on the event side, with far less writing/reporting in print and online.

<comment><USER10> Quick, no googling! Who's the Editor in Chief of the New York Times? The Wall Street Journal?

I have no idea myself and I'd bet most readers of those papers don't.

<comment><USER9> We're not talking about the same thing. The NYT and WSJ are not tech pubs. They generally cover hard news, and in the case of the WSJ, provide a mouthpiece for the conservative political establishment in the United States. These newspapers are not about the EIC or publisher -- all editorials are deliberately unsigned and voice comes through in the reporting style and individual columnists/contributors (Krugman, Friedman, Mossberg, Pogue, etc.).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why there's no such thing as a gifted child - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jul/25/no-such-thing-as-a-gifted-child-einstein-iq <comment><USER2> This has to be paid placement for the book, shame on you Guardian.

Also it's laughable. Intelligence is basically something you're born with. Around half is inherited, the rest is, IMO, luck, but still determined very young or in the womb.

Giftedness is measurable young, possibly at the beginning of speech (gifted children almost always talk earlier than average). This raises doubt that it's something developed by training.

Some studies also, controversially, show that final IQ can't be easily manipulated by learning. That IQ is fixed at a young age and remains static through a wide variety of future up brining.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article uses three terms: "gifted", "intelligence", and "high performance", but it seem to be as doing a rather poor job at distinguishing them in the beginning. The article seems to acknowledge that intelligence is a spectrum where people are born with everything from intellectual disability to intellectual giftedness, but then focus primarily on performance. A gifted child, as define by the article, is a high performing child.

Seems similar to people who would look at a tall child and proclaim that they will be high performing baseball player, and then get disappointed when they don't end up in major league. I find it rather obvious that most of the tallest children in the world won't end up as professional baseball players, similar to how most of the highest intellectual gifted children won't end up with a Nobel prize. Instead I predict that children on any extreme end of a spectrum will face a long list of unique challenges in a society which is designed for the median, resulting in a wide range of performance results.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just recently did a hackathon for teenagers. The differences in abilities were krass.

And not just programming knowledge but also mental agility, self assurance, independence, problem solving and social as well as soft skills.

Some couldn't even speak up. Others seemed like born problem solvers - 16 yr olds you could directly employ. Some were a fountain of creativity. One kid had an ego so big, that made him unpopular with us grown ups but I have to admit, he'll have a great future at any start up. Probably his own.

Kids aren't born equal - but the role of psychology and possible neurochemical makeup is IMO under-appreciated in how we educate people.

</comment><comment><USER5> > [Einstein] failed the general part of the entry test to Zurich Polytechnic

Yeah, let's leave unsaid the fact that he was 16 at that time.

<comment><USER6> And mainly failed because - coming from Germany - he only had very little education in french (as opposed to the other Swiss kids who had several years.)

Einstein was exceptional: [http://www.einstein- website.de/z_kids/zeugniskids.html](http://www.einstein- website.de/z_kids/zeugniskids.html)

6 in Switzerland is excellent and very few kids have a 6 in their High School Diploma, not even talking about five of them! (a 6 is generally much, much harder to achieve than an A in the US for example.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's amazing how far people will bullshit for their equality narrative.

<comment><USER8> I'm all about treating all people equally, but to claim all children are intellectually equal??? That's absurd. Walk into any kindergarten and you'll be able to tell immediately who the smart kids are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The theoretical "IQ" represents just a maximum of an individual's potential intelligence. We don't always operate at that level, as many factors - such as hunger, lack of sleep, and frustration - may subtly and temporarily reduce the quality of our cognitive output.

</comment><comment><USER10> What about this kid (supposedly 8 years old) teaching Haskell and uni level math? Sadly, non-english video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLLm8JaLqq8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLLm8JaLqq8)

<comment><USER11> How did you find this video?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Even Einstein was unexceptional in his youth.

Citation needed.

<comment><USER13> That applies to most of what's being said in this thread as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> IQ is 50-80% heritable.

There is such a thing as a gifted child.

</comment><comment><USER15> "So, is there even such a thing as a gifted child? It is a highly contested area."

This seems to be at odds with your title, The Guardian.

</comment><comment><USER16> This article is bullshit, and I can tell from experience because I learned to read all by myself when I was about three years old.

My IQ is also at least good enough to get through the official Mensa pre-test (which you need to take to know if you should even consider taking the official one).</comment>


Why 3×5 is and isn't 5×3 - <AUTHOR> http://underscore.io/blog/posts/2015/11/17/why-3x5-is-and-isnt-5x3.html <comment><USER2> this is so childish from the teacher.

5x3 == 3x5

Complexity is a major aspect in computing but not in school for undergraduates.

Also the kid should get a +1 since he used a law of math to reduce the complexity of the operation. That's more insane than proving this kid wrong.

<comment><USER3> You are confusing the equivalence of the result of the operations with the equivalence of the operations. The operations are not equivalent. That is the point. The question is not testing just whether you arrive at the correct result but whether you arrive at the correct result via the correct operation. The question clearly prompted the student to apply a particular strategy, and the student did not correctly apply that strategy. It's very cut and dry.

There is also a big difference between teaching a complex subject to a student and laying the groundwork for a later class. You can see that in the array problem on the same test. That's introducing matrices without getting into full pre-calculus yet.

<comment><USER4> The student very clearly applied the repeated addition strategy to solve it. It's very cut and dry.</comment></comment></comment>


A military historian's analysis of Spartan myth - <AUTHOR> https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ <comment><USER2> For anyone interested in this, I'd highly recommend /u/Iphikrates' three-part summary of the Spartan reputational mirage on /r/AskHistorians a couple of years ago.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6rvusy/is_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6rvusy/is_the_military_worship_of_the_spartans_really/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Sparta was like North Korea of Ancient Greece.

\- Isolationist country.

\- Young are indoctrinated in rigid militant ideology (agoge).

\- Weak economy. Little to no valuable goods were produced. People not allowed to have valuable money, just worthless tokens.

\- The main job of the spartan army was to suppress helots and protect the old rulers. People serve the military and the state, not the other way around.

\- No creativity in warfare. Incompetents and arrogant leaders just attack with hoplites until they run out of food and have to retreat.

<comment><USER4> > North Korea

You cannot simply make a comparison of X democracy today (or dictatorship in this case) to a city-state of Ancient Greece. Back then it was do or die. Wars were in the daily menu. For a state that was isolated geographically (in comparison to other powerful/richer city-states like Athens or Messina, the only way to stay alive is brute force, be the ultimate killing machine. The landscape also didn't help much. Stuck between two mountains, path to the north lead nowhere, sea to the south was 30-40km away. Perfect place to make it difficult to be invaded but poor enough to not thrive.

Also.. creativity? I would need creativity to beat a MMA pro in a fight. On his side, he would just throw a punch. Creativity is for the weak! (like me)

<comment><USER5> Except Sparta doesn't seem to have _actually_ been particularly successful militarily, instead relying more on a reputation for military success, according to this analysis.

<comment><USER6> ...so, more like North Korea? :)

"Get out of my way! I'm a crazy madman who may start war at the slightest provocation, and I don't care that it will also kill me!" has been NK's signature shtick for decades. Other than a few nukes and a crapton of grunt soldiers, their military power is actually rather underwhelming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love it when classical history is discussed on HN! When we realize our civilization is thousands of years old, it is easier to imagine it lasting thousands more years.

I highly recommend that people make use of original source material when making an argument so that you can contribute constructively. The original sources are FUN to read -- we are lucky that the internet makes this so accessible.

I like the Perseus project, because it has almost everything. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I like an analysis that includes operations and logistics, which is how long or large campaigns are won or lost.

>It is hard to avoid the conclusion that while Spartan tactics may have been modestly better than most other Greek states, Spartan operations were dismal, placing severe limits on how effectively the Spartan army could be utilized. You may have the best soldiers – and again, Sparta does not appear to have always had the best soldiers – but they are of no use if you cannot get them to the fight, with the equipment (e.g. siege tools, ships) they need to win the fight.

<comment><USER9> >> if you cannot get them to the fight, with the equipment (e.g. siege tools, ships) they need to win the fight.

That is one area where modern warfare is very different than ancient warfare. Siege weapons were not normally 'brought'. They were created when and as needed. An ancient engineer could turn a forest into a trebuchet, something akin to a modern engineer building a fighter jet out of rocks. So too with food. Ancient armies lived off the land. They pillaged and took what they needed. The concept of moving food to feed an army on a distant shore was just not an option as recently as WWI.

<comment><USER5> While it's true that siege weapons and food were not transported via supply lines in the sense that modern militaries plan for it, that doesn't mean that logistics wasn't an important concept in Classical Greece. Even if you're living off the land, you still have to actually figure out how to transform the local produce into food, and actually procure sufficient local produce (if you're settling down for a siege, you can't exactly rely only on the nearest fields). Sparta's attempt to lay siege to Athens failed several years in a row entirely because they couldn't manage to support that level of logistical sophistication, which is a pretty indicting failure, even given the simpler problem it was 2500 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would love to see the same for Athens. An amazing place but popular culture doesn't reflect how profoundly _alien_ their culture was: more of an honor- killing kind of place rather than some paradise of erudition.

</comment><comment><USER11> Isn't the military might of Sparta an example of history written by the losers? I mean one important source for the Peloponnesian War was Thucydides, who was on the losing side of the war. And when writing his book, he might have wanted to cast himself in the best light possible, by depicting his victorious opponents as the best military in Greece?

</comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for stealing most of my day with your interesting articles.

</comment><comment><USER13> There was a submission from the same blog on the front page yesterday, which I assume is what led OP to discover this one: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21382247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21382247) (about war elephants)

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed! I knew Sparta just by reputation, like most people I expect, so this was a rather surprising and fascinating series.

It was a second surprise to come to this thread and see so many people vehemently dismissing the article, the author's knowledge or tone, to defend Sparta as they see it. Not sure what conclusion to draw from that other than, I suppose, some people really really admire Sparta as mythologized and dislike reading anything that contradicts that image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2016/12/21/it-was-all-so- unim...](https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2016/12/21/it-was-all-so-unimaginably- different/)

</comment><comment><USER15> After reading the first one, "on spartan schooling" I'm a little sad. I understand the point of casting a more clear light on the alien and brutal practices of ancient civilizations, but the distaste and condemnation that the author uses evokes British colonizers talking about their subjects, combined with a tinge of social justice history revisionism. One of the central concepts of anthropology (and I think, by extension, history) is that you don't judge other people disjoint from you in space and time with your cultural norms.

History has been awful and brutal every year since we began writing it down, and well before that, too. I think it's wrong that this means we shouldn't admire the more interesting parts of history.

<comment><USER16> Although the author is knowledgeable, I too find it incredibly frustrating to read his writing. An opposing viewpoint is fine but the sheer amount of bias, outrageism (note the number of times he mentiones how "sickened" he was during his research), and condemnation made it impossible for me to read any further than the first post.

<comment><USER5> Reading the first and last two posts, the outrageism is definitely far less present in the latter than the former. You should at least read the sixth post as well, which evaluates how deserved Sparta's military reputation was (spoiler alert: it wasn't).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> When did historians finally strip Sparta of its great image? When Roman Stoics praised Spartans, did they treat them as perfect role models or as a cruel people who had certain qualities to emulate?

</comment><comment><USER18> The only reason Sparta lasted as long as it did was because it was a valueless minor city-state not worth the effort of conquering until the point that conquering and absorbing it was so effortless that it was done almost as an afterthought.

It was a sick and broken society populated by fanatics, that was quickly (on a historical timescale) out-advanced by its neighbors.

Imagine if a casino-less (Mormon Fort-era) Las Vegas, NV was full of militiamen and religious zealots and got involved in a war with the surrounding area and it managed conquer all of Clark County, the county that surrounds it, and control it for about 30 years by implementing a cruel system that enslaved most of its population.

And then that short-lived city-state collapsed after the rest of the Nevada developed over the decades to the point that a coalition of other small counties quickly steamrolled the now-decrepit and hollow Clark County city- state.

Like, super steamrolled. Like the rest of Nevada had developed tanks and artillery and the "Vegans" still fought with Mormon Fort-era weaponry.

That's Sparta.

I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around.

<comment><USER19> Sparta is fetishized because they beat Athens in the Peloponnesian war and Plato idealized the spartans.

<comment><USER20> Sparta was considered important way before they "beat Athens". And it has nothing to do with Plato either.

<comment><USER21> Can you provide a source or an alternative point of origin for Sparta's importance? You've stated categorically that the parent is misinformed, but provided no information to back it up.

<comment><USER20> Why, are the claims controversial? They're backed by 2+ millenia of historiography.

Just off of the easiest sources available on the web:

Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (between 431 and 404 BC), from which it emerged victorious. (...) Sparta was the subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in Western culture following the revival of classical learning. (...) In ancient times "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realised in practice." Many Greek philosophers, especially Platonists, would often describe Sparta as an ideal state, strong, brave, and free from the corruptions of commerce and money. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta)

Sparta was one of the most important Greek city-states throughout the Archaic and Classical periods and was famous for its military prowess. The professional and well-trained Spartan hoplites with their distinctive red cloaks, long hair, and lambda-emblazoned shields were probably the best and most feared fighters in Greece, fighting with distinction at such key battles as Thermopylae and Plataea in the early 5th century BCE. [https://www.ancient.eu/sparta/](https://www.ancient.eu/sparta/)

During the 5th century BC Sparta was very powerful. This was due to her army, which was feared by other Greeks. Sparta focused on producing good soldiers and all Spartan male citizens were part of the army. The Spartan army played an important role in the Greek victory over the Persians, in 480-479 BC. [http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/sparta/home_set.html](http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/sparta/home_set.html)

The Athenian view of Sparta oscillated between admiration and fear, according to whether their warlike neighbors were allies or enemies. Without Spartan participation in the war against Persia at the beginning of the fifth century B.C.— especially their heroic stand at the critical Battle of Thermopylae in 480—the Persians may well have conquered Greece. [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/11-...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/11-12/sparta- military-greek-civilization/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article is laughably bad. I don't think the author put any effort into understanding the culture. No attempt is made to understand why the Spartans made certain decisions. The perspective seems to be, 'they didn't make decisions like us modern smart people would, so they were dumb and mean.' Lines like "because Sparta produced so little of value" do well to reveal this. So little of value to who?

"...essentially amounts to a strategic objective to be able to continue mistreating the helots and the periokoi. In practice – given Sparta's desperate shortness of manpower (and economic resources!) and continued unwillingness to revisit the nature of its oppressive class system..."

So much for Hegel.</comment>