Obama Administration Announces Massive Piracy Crackdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18815

<comment><USER2> Aside from attributing all this to the RIAA and the MPAA, I can see a line of thought that might move policy makers in this direction. As time goes on, an increasingly large slice of the U.S. (and world) economy is coming from non- physical goods like software, movies, writing, speaking, etc. Politicians who acknowledge this would want to promote an economic environment that will let these growing industries thrive. I would imagine this is the thinking behind ACTA - we want the world to respect copyright since we expect to rely heavily on it. While people like to (rightly) point out that a downloaded song or movie is not equal to a lost sale, the potential for easy, private transfer of data WILL eat into sales significantly over time if not "controlled."

What the politicians don't seem to acknowledge is that the products of this process are not scarce (although the inputs to the process are). Enforcing the illusion of scarcity (particularly with all the great privacy/crypto we have) must be extremely heavy-handed. We'll have to choose between severe restrictions in our communication (which should bother everyone) and less production of the software and movies that we desire (which would be unfortunate).

<comment><USER3> What they also fail to see is that the outputs of this process are also the inputs of this process. Imposing artificial scarcity on the output restricts the input, which diminishes the output, which further affects the input, etc.

Every piece of intellectual output takes as input many, many pieces that have come before.

<comment><USER2> That's a great point. The truly great works motivate derivative works and copyright doesn't play well with this. No work exists in a vacuum so locking up lots of our culture behind copyright will limit the space of ideas pursued. I've read that book publishers won't even allow quoting from other books without permission from the publisher (they don't trust fair-use).

Still, many of the other inputs: the time of lots of people (many of them very talented) and the money of investors are definitely scarce. I think it's a tricky balancing act. However, I'm not sure the status quo is so terrible. By getting permission or paying, many copyrighted works can be used in new works. In cases where they can't some works may not be created. Along the way, creators can be compensated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very uncool, Obama. Very uncool.

He obviously never read this quote from the world's richest man (talking about piracy in China):

 _"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."_

Source: [http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi- micropir...](http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi- micropiracy9/2)

If the Obama started listening to smart people in the tech and music industry, not to mention the _young people_ who voted him into power, then he would make far more informed decisions.

</comment><comment><USER5> > which allows the government to charge people who they think might be about > to infringe with a civil offense (for example if you searched "torrent daft > punk").

I find this difficult to believe.

<comment><USER6> Not as difficult as this: _The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client development a criminal offense if the distributed software was used for infringement._ UDP is peer-to-peer technology, in every sense of the term (there's no implementation-level difference between the client and server). Is everyone who produces an implementation of UDP going to be in potential violation of this measure?

Either this thing's being massively exaggerated, the people who wrote the law have absolutely no understanding of communications technology, or (more likely) something in between.

<comment><USER7> Even worse:

      > The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client
      > development a criminal offense if the distributed
      > software was used for infringement.

So if someone uses Skype voice or chat to coordinate the downloading and/or distribution of copyrighted material, could Skype have been 'used for infringement' (it's already a p2p app)? What about people peering Android and/or iOS devices together and sharing files?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How is music piracy different than the following scenario:

(1) I quit my day job and decide to launch a web-based startup.

(2) I base my business plan on a monthly subscription model.

(3) I achieve product/market fit and revenue starts coming in.

(4) A technology emerges that magically makes it easy to copy my SaaS app and use it in its entirety without paying the monthly subscription.

(5) My revenue plummets and I have to completely revamp my business model or go out of business.

This is not a rhetorical question. I honestly want to know what is the difference. Thanks!

<comment><USER9> Assuming your technology #4 really could be created, I don't this _is_ much different from musical piracy. And I'd be just as ok with this as I am with things like peer-to-peer networks existing. Such a technology would be _awesome_ \- as you said, it would appear to be magic. And it would be _my_ problem to come up with a new business model, not to outlaw a piece of new technology.

<comment><USER2> Copying things has existed for a while (although it was never as easy as it is now). We chose to develop copyright despite this because we wanted to promote creation of works like books and music.

I don't necessarily disagree with your larger point, but It's worth noting that copyright was created for exactly this purpose (limit distribution of something that would be easy for copiers to distribute, but hard for them to originate).

I suspect copyright is one of the driving forces in the existence of lots of the information and entertainment I enjoy consuming on a day-to-day basis, so I'm skeptical of tossing it out completely.

<comment><USER7> Copyrights, trademarks, and patents also weren't as complex and over-bearing when they were first created as they are today. If anything, the content industries only have themselves to blame with their egregious extensions to copyright terms amongst other things.

I don't think there would necessarily be the same 'tear it all down' mentality around (for example) copyright if it wasn't: 1) overly abused and 2) a ridiculous length of time. It also doesn't help that a lot of people feel _entitled_ to copyright, when in reality it is a monopoly granted by the people, not some sort of 'God-given' right.

<comment><USER10> I feel entitled to copyright on what I make. Don't you?

I make something, I determine the price and distribution. You have the right not to buy it.

<comment><USER7> Copyright is not a basic human right. You may like that you have copyright on what you make, but to claim ownership over ideas is like trying to grab a handful of water.

Also, please don't try to frame this argument as, "If you are against copyright then you must be a pirate!" Please let McCarthy-ism stay dead.

Since you've consistently posted in favour of copyright recently:

      * Do you feel the *need* to have copyright 90 years
        after you are dead? Is that your only incentive to
        create?
      * What about retroactive copyright extensions? Are you
        planning on 'un-creating' things that you created in
        the past because you weren't retroactively granted a
        copyright extension so you now have no incentive to
        create something that you already created?

If copyright terms were 14 years long (IIRC like they were originally), I think people wouldn't have such an issue. The fact that black & white films like Steamboat Willie are sill under copyright _long_ after anyone can make any significant amount of money off of them is a travesty. This is _especially_ true because a lot of things that are under copyright have become part of our culture (the 'Happy Birthday song' anyone?).

<comment><USER10> I'm not claiming ownership on my ideas. I'm claiming the right to prevent copying of my software and writing!

> Also, please don't try to frame this argument as, "If you are against > copyright then you must be a pirate!"

I'm not - the article isn't about copyright reform, it's about stopping piracy. This post is filled with n-2 people who apparently don't want piracy stopped, and 2 people who've actually had experience with having their works ripped off and oddly enough aren't so keen. If you made something, then someone distributed the source code for that against your wishes, you'd join us.

> While we're at it, do you feel the need to have copyright 90 years after you > are dead? Is that your only incentive to create? What about retroactive > copyright extensions? Are you planning on 'un-creating' things that you > created in the past because you weren't retroactively granted a copyright > extension so you now have no incentive to create something that you already > created?

1\. I'm quite fine with my work going PD after I die. I support copyright reform too - people that support piracy at the same time harm the cause. Saying 'hooray, taking things without permission is awesome' isn't the best way to have a debate about copyright length and PD.

2\. No, my incentive to create is that I enjoy it. Money is what I exchange for goods and services in return for my work. Do you make something and get paid for it?

3\. Er, no. I just don't like people stealing my work. Do you work on an app? Would you like it if someone ripped off the source code and uploaded it to TPB?

<comment><USER11> > I'm not claiming ownership on my ideas. I'm claiming the right to prevent > copying of my software and writing!

How are you going to do that, though? It just so happens that the natural world does not provide you with an obvious way to do that. If you physically occupy a house, someone has to violently eject you to take it. But if you voluntarily put your software out into the public sphere, someone can copy it entirely in the privacy of their own home, using 100% materials they own! Now it's _you_ who'd have to engage in the violence to stop them: you, or a state acting on your behalf, would have to intrude into their private house, and tell them they can't use the materials they physically own in the way they're doing. That, to me, seems a much worse intrusion on _actual_ property rights than any "intellectual property" defense could justify.

<comment><USER10> > How are you going to do that, though?

This bill is a good start.

> That, to me, seems a much worse intrusion on actual property rights than any > "intellectual property" defense could justify.

We already raid houses in relation to fraud, embezzlement, and other crimes based around intellectual values.

Would I support raiding a house for piracy? I don't think anyone's proposing raiding houses for casual downloaders. If they were an organized piracy network ALA TPB, who have inflicted massive amounts of damage on authors, artists, game makers, and app developers, big and small, then as a writer, a software maker, and an ethical human being I'd certainly support that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Piracy is not theft.

<comment><USER13> More to the point, illicit downloading is not piracy. Equating downloading with armed robbery(or worse) at sea is silly.

<comment><USER14> It's the kind non-nuanced thinking I've come to expect from Biden.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, Palin would've offered much more nuanced commentary.

<comment><USER16> Just because Palin would be worse doesn't mean that we can't acknowledge the fact that Biden could be much better than he is now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I doubt that Obama (with his intellect) genuinely believes that this policy will help the economy at all.

Disappointing on so many levels.

<comment><USER18> Why do you think smart people can't make stupid decisions now and again?

I doubt he's getting full and accurate data and I doubt he's really had time to spend on the issue that this needs given the other major issues that need to be dealt with.

<comment><USER19> You know, there's the off chance that: 1\. He _is_ smart. 2\. As the President of the United States, he _is_ getting all the data he needs. 3\. You're the one who's wrong.

I'm not saying it's necessarily true, but it sounds a little funny to say "yeah he's either stupid or ignorant" about someone who is very likely neither. It's possible he just disagrees with you, despite being smart and knowledgeable.

<comment><USER20> It doesn't have to be one of:

a) Stupid b) Ignorant c) Wrong

It is most likely that Obama has different motivations then we do so his "right" is different than ours.

<comment><USER19> Yep, that definitely seems more likely than him being stupid or ignorant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I find it hard to argue that piracy is beneficial. I am of the mind that intellectual property rights are currently inadequate from my own experiences in patent law.

My main beef is that the RIAA and MPAA have a defunct business model and they are wielding the U.S. legal system as a tool to punish non-violent criminals severely.

</comment><comment><USER22> I really don't understand how anyone expects to stop people from downloading things for free. It's even possible to get songs directly off youtube and tv shows directly off hulu, just as it is possible to record songs directly off the radio. Nobody seems to notice though.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good to hear. Anyone on HN that makes something - whether it's been ripped off before or not - needs to be able to know they can do something about it should it happen.

</comment><comment><USER23> Just another symptom of living in an idiocracy. This situation will work well for the for-profit prisons in the United States, who, like the for-profit health insurance companies, make a profit off of people's misery, and will ensure that America remains #1 in persons incarcerated:

[http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the- high-...](http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-high- budgetary-cost-of-incarceration/)

Thankfully, the article does point out the discrepancies in Biden's claims:

      Interestingly, the statements seem to fly in the face of a
      recent Government Accountability Office study released to
      U.S. Congress earlier this year, which concluded that there
      is virtually no evidence for the claimed million dollar
      losses by the entertainment industry. That study suggested
      that piracy could even benefit the economy.

Nevermind facts, we don't care if the evidence suggests that piracy helps the economy, or whether Biden's metaphor is a metaphor and not a substitute for reality, or whether that drug you're taking is not only safe, but healthy, we're still going to toss your ass in jail, or give you a fine you'll spend the rest of your life dealing with.

Ars Technica did a great job thoroughly debunking the claims of the RIAA and MPAA:

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy- digits...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy-digits- behind-the-war-on-piracy.ars)

And here's their take on the referenced government study:

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us- governmen...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-government- finally-admits-most-piracy-estimates-are-bogus.ars)

But in this country, facts don't really have much weight when it comes to policy making.

The irony of all of this is that like the War on Drugs, instead of keeping people safe and happy, this coming War on Piracy will only serve as a drain on America's economy and morale, and yes, could even result in the creation of a dangerous black market. Tax dollars flushed down the toilet for the purpose of spreading misery and soothing the irrational fears of an aging and nervous minority of rich people.

<comment><USER10> Piracy doesn't just hurt the RIAA and MPAA. It hurts:

* indie game developers

* Unsigned bands

* authors and book publishers

* OSS companies that sell their compiled binaries training material while giving away their source.

People who create things deserve to be compensated if they wish to. Taking something that doesn't belong to you is stealing.

<comment><USER3> Nice sense of entitlement you got there.

I'd like to rephrase your statement to:

 _People who create things should be compensated if we can figure out a system to do so that's not too costly to the general public. "Intellectual property" is a contradictory concept. Claiming that ideas, thoughts, and other non- physical entities "belong" to someone is contradicting the very nature of the universe._

Note: I am an independent content creator (though I don't live from my content at the moment).

<comment><USER10> > Nice sense of entitlement you got there.

Sorry, what's wrong with being entitled to the benefit of my own work? What right does anyone else have over something I made, with my work, taking hundreds of hours of my time?

I can't believe such a shitty personal attack on someone for daring to say they're entitled to what they create is sitting on HN with +3.

How would you feel if someone uploaded all the source for Woobius to TPB?

<comment><USER11> I don't think anyone has any particular right to profit from their work. You're arguing for some sort of positive freedom to profit from labor, which unsurprisingly no libertarian-leaning person would really endorse. Not only that, you're arguing that state power should be used to create artificial scarcity that would allow you to profit in that manner!

<comment><USER10> > I don't think anyone has any particular right to profit from their work

Then how will you make money from Woobius? How will any of us on HN make money from our work? Not everything can be ad-supported.

> You're arguing for some sort of positive freedom to profit from labor, which > unsurprisingly no libertarian-leaning person would really endorse.

What? Freedom to profit from their own labor is very much something Libertarians hold dear.

> Not only that, you're arguing that state power should be used to create > artificial scarcity

Libertarians want the government to stop interfering in markets. Piracy isn't a market, it's a crime - piracy hurts markets.

<comment><USER24> _Freedom to profit from their own labor is very much something Libertarians hold dear._

 _Libertarians want the government to stop interfering in markets._

Yes, but profiting from your labour is typically handled by an exchange of goods, and once the exchange is done, each party has no say over the goods they traded.

Not so with copyright, it limits what people can do with goods after they have been exchanged, and it does so through a state-enforced artificial monopoly. It is definitely government interference in the market. If it was completely free, you would lose control over your creations the second you sell them.

 _Piracy isn't a market, it's a crime - piracy hurts markets._

It is a market, and it works exactly like any other market. Piracy appears when a large amount of consumers disagree on the pricing of artificially scarce goods, and instead acquire the goods illicitly, by circumventing the artificial scarcity.

The easiest way to combat piracy is through the market, simply provide a better product than the pirated product, and provide it at a price most consumers are willing to pay. Most people pirate not because they want everything for free, but because there is a huge discrepancy between the price of something and what they percieve it to be worth.

There is a reason that, for example, the Apple Music Store is so incredibly successful even though anyone can pirate music easily. They provide a better product (legal DRM-free files conveniently and quickly delivered is better than illegal DRM-free files that are inconvenient to get) at a better price (1$ per song instead of ~15$ for a bundle you didn't want just to get the song you actually wanted).

It is perfectly possible to compete with the pirate market, and doing so can be more profitable than trying the heavy-handed approach and strengthening the monopoly.

<comment><USER10> > Not so with copyright, it limits what people can do with goods after they > have been exchanged

Fair use is awesome. Copyrights shouldn't last forever. Unfortunately, a lot of people have been conned by places like TPB - which punish everyone, including those who make OSS, and people who give away some of their works for free but charge for others - into thinking copyright reform requires advocating piracy.

There are many people who believe authors deserve to be paid, but fair use has a place. In fact, I think most human being fit into that category. Advocating for fair use while advocating stealing alienates everyone from the cause.

<comment><USER24> I'm not advocating piracy, and neither is anyone else here. However, I think you should be more realistic towards it and realize that it's not such a big deal. Casual non-commercial private copying of stuff _probably_ doesn't hurt anyone. You shouldn't do it, but if someone does, it doesn't equal a lost sale for the creator.

And, to return to the original article, I'm convinced that dealing with it in this heavy-handed way, by adding more legislation, more law enforcement, isn't the right way. And I don't think it helps you or me as creators.

(I also wish people would stop downvoting you just because they disagree, that's really not the HN way. :-/ )

<comment><USER10> > I think you should be more realistic towards it and realize that it's not > such a big deal.

It really is if you've had your work stolen. There are 3 people, last time I checked, in this thread who have. They're all pretty strongly against piracy.

> (I also wish people would stop downvoting you just because they disagree, > that's really not the HN way. :-/ )

Hehe, thanks. It's been quite odd to watch - +2, -1, +1 etc as different groups for and against moderate reddit style.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Simulating blobs of fluid - <AUTHOR> https://peeke.nl/simulating-blobs-of-fluid <comment><USER2> This was really satisfying to demo on the bus. I held my phone up as still as I could and when the bus lurched forward or made an abrupt stop the fluid responded accordingly. Something about it was just beautiful. Tech imitating nature. The illusion held pretty well too. Good job Google/Apple for making good sensor data and this algorithm uses it well. Great job!

</comment><comment><USER3> Aside, but as peeke's here: your articles are great. Any chance you could add an RSS feed so I can follow easily?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll have a look over the weekend!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Meta point but I really like the design, typography, and color of the whole post. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER5> Fantastic read! Not to diminish the original contribution here, but I got curious and started looking for similar projects on the native (in my case iOS / Metal) side that aren't part of the usual suspects like game engines.

These two are kind of fun to play with: [https://github.com/andreipitis/FluidDynamicsMetal](https://github.com/andreipitis/FluidDynamicsMetal) [https://github.com/hagmas/MobileFluidSimulation](https://github.com/hagmas/MobileFluidSimulation)

Both based on this approach, detailed here by Nvidia: [http://developer.download.nvidia.com/books/HTML/gpugems/gpug...](http://developer.download.nvidia.com/books/HTML/gpugems/gpugems_ch38.html)

The technique this is based on doesn't create those satisfying tension effects but is more similar to paint flowing on a surface of water, so from a tangibility perspective I'd still love to find something closer to this post's work that runs natively.

<comment><AUTHOR> You might find this post by Jamie Wong interesting: [http://jamie- wong.com/2016/08/05/webgl-fluid-simulation/](http://jamie- wong.com/2016/08/05/webgl-fluid-simulation/)

Doesn't seem to work on mobile though

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Super interesting article -- it broke down the steps of the simulation algorithm very clearly and the code samples supplemented the theoretical explanation well. I've been learning D3.js recently (working with force- directed graph simulations) and this reinforces a lot of the concepts I've encountered in learning graph simulations with D3.

</comment><comment><USER7> Did I miss a demo? I would have got more from this explanation if it also showed what it was talking about.

<comment><USER8> Yep, you missed it. It's at the top of the page / header.

<comment><USER7> Ah, thank you. It doesn't display in my browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The scroll response is backward, but otherwise very cool! When I scroll down, the ball goes up the screen, but the liquid goes up as well, whereas in real life it would be compressed towards the bottom of the ball.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very nice demo but it seems that the gyroscope data from my phone is interpreted wrong. When I hold my phone with a left tilt the fluid flows to the right. Using iPhone XS with iOS 12.1.3

</comment><comment><USER11> I was pleasantly surprised that scrolling made the fluid react to the motion. Very nice work both in writing and demonstration.

</comment><comment><USER12> very clear read; wish I had this when I was learning molecular dynamics. However, I suggest using bouncing term on the walls rather than sticking.

<comment><USER13> > wish I had this when I was learning molecular dynamics

Keep in mind, though, that the article only outlines a way to make fluid drops _look_ realistic, and doesn't actually guarantee anything about whether the behavior _is_ realistic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Jep, lot of shortcuts to make it run at 60 fps. It's most likely not very scientifically accurate.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon's plan to disrupt the prescription drug market - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/cvs-pillpack-lawsuit-reveals-amazon-plans-to-sell-employers-prescriptions-2019-6 <comment><USER2> About time!! Americans have been swindled by the drug makers for decades. Amazon has the cash to start a generic drug producer and make a good quality product and sell it for a fraction of what people pay for generics now AND still make a bundle. Many generic drugs are now sold for well over 100 times the cost of production. This has to stop.</comment>


Mapping NYC Transit. All of It - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@anthonydenaro/mapping-nyc-transit-all-of-it-e16e76a95a0e <comment><USER2> Is it me, or did the author forget to put the actual map anywhere?</comment>


The melting pot of JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://increment.com/development/the-melting-pot-of-javascript/ <comment><AUTHOR> Presentation on this topic at Zeit event:

[https://youtu.be/G39lKaONAlA](https://youtu.be/G39lKaONAlA)</comment>


FreeBSD 11.2 Release Notes - <AUTHOR> https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.2R/relnotes.html <comment><USER2> Still no TLS sendfile unfortunately. Apparently TLS sendfile is being used at Netflix to push over 150Gb/s on a single box. I can't wait until it's open sourced.

<comment><USER3> I am wondering, if a Netflix flavoured FreeBSD, a BSD that is Network, File Server oriented would help the adoption of FreeBSD. Something like NodeBSD.

<comment><USER4> Why do people think that there should be a separate distribution for different classes of user? I never really understood that. The community is thin, fragmentation is bad, setting up a server for workload X should consist of installing ports A, B, C, not installing FrankenBSD!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Note that 11.2-RELEASE isn't technically out yet.

The "official" announcement is scheduled for tomorrow and, until it hits, the ISO images, etc., are still subject to change.

<comment><USER4> Seems to be frozen now. D'oh, I was too late to get my first FreeBSD feature (woohoo!) added to the 11.2 release notes. So I'll just randomly post it here in case anyone cares:

The procctl(2) syscall has been updated to support PROC_PDEATHSIG_CTL, similar to Linux® PR_SET_PDEATHSIG. [r333162]

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> See [https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.2R/relnotes.html](https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.2R/relnotes.html) for release notes

<comment><USER6> Thanks, we've gone with this instead of [http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO- IMAGES/11.2/](http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/11.2/).</comment></comment>


Monitorama 2016 Live Stream - <AUTHOR> http://monitorama.com/#watch <comment><USER2> One of the best conferences on pure technology and building distributed systems out there. Jason Dixon is my personal hero for putting so much effort into this conf. It really shows.</comment>


How Habitat for Humanity Went to Brooklyn and Poor Families Lost Their Homes - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/habitat-for-humanity-brooklyn-bedford-stuyvesant-poor-lose-homes <comment><USER2> The central HFH model is sound and successful even if some affiliates are straying from it and getting into trouble.

A common misconception is that HFH hands out houses to poor people. HUD does that and it doesn't really work. You end up with "the projects", a swath of bad hood, buildings stripped of copper before they're completed, and a bigger disaster.

Instead, HFH involves the community, especially and centrally the prospective home owners, who are screened for having steady jobs, existing contributions to their community, and other indicators. Nobody could buy a house on one minimum wage income or even two, no matter their character, and that's the niche filled. The owners participate in the chapter via "sweat equity", where they might help with others' houses in addition to their own, alongside volunteers from the community. They buy the house from HFH with a low-interest mortgage; it's not a gift. Owners are also monitored and advised afterwards, and they often continue to hang around chapters helping the next batch. The result is pride in their home, bonds with the chapter, and an improved neighborhood.

I have no clue what the NYC chapter was thinking but it doesn't meet the core values, but we should concede inner city chapters have different challenges than suburban or rural ones.

Source: former chapter board member

<comment><USER3> Seems like the model doesn't scale well. Hard to do this is very large cities where there isn't much white space to build. The city is so crowded that everything existing is already lived in, and zoning, politics and regulation make it very cost-prohibitive to build cheap housing.

<comment><USER4> White space?

<comment><USER5> It means 'empty areas', presumably

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is no sham bigger than affordable housing. While ordinary folks have certain notions about what is a "housing" and what is "affordable" in government world these are terms that a defined in ways we cant comprehend.

Town admin demolished homeless shelter in Sunnyvale to build affordable housing. So many homeless people then had to find shelter in the parks. My friends who make north of 100K a year are in affordable housing units across the city. Staying in $700 p.m. for 2 bedroom apartments with utilities paid. The trick was to show "evidence of being" poor.

In short more needy people on street while the better off people live even better.

<comment><USER7> Elsewhere in the bay area, affordable housing has income caps for a household. It appears either that Sunnyvale is an aberration for have few restrictions or these caps are routinely circumvented. Thanks for the information.

<comment><USER8> The income limit in Sunnyvale for a single person is just a hair under $60k.

[http://sunnyvale.ca.gov/Portals/0/Sunnyvale/CDD/Housing/BMR%...](http://sunnyvale.ca.gov/Portals/0/Sunnyvale/CDD/Housing/BMR%20Income%20Limits.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Affordable housing is a misnomer. Definitionally: afford: 'To have the financial means for'.

Affordable housing in London, UK.

Does it cost 3.5x the minimum/living wage, affordable to a single person? ;-) Does it cost 6x the minimum/living wage, affordable to a couple? Not there yet.

Instead it costs some percentage of market rate.

Which generally ends up being 20x min wage or similar. Yes - as a person you'd need to become three, four, five times more useful before you can get this starter home.

As far as I can tell it's just trolling. It genuinely feels like those with wealth laughing at the lower classes, there's no other explanation for such a ridiculous use of language.

A Bentley does not become 'affordable' if I offer it to you for 50% off.

Even minimum wage would be a high bar to set because it doesn't feel affordable to everyone. But at the moment we're saying 'the top 10% can afford it so that's fine'.

<comment><USER10> I see mostly colleagues who rack up big bar bills complaining about how unaffordable apartments are instead of saving their money.

<comment> guard-of-terra Saving all your money to buy a home instead of spending is losers' game.

It deprives service economy of cash, bumps home prices even more and makes everybody unhappy. So no, it's not a sound societal advice.

This is problem of supply versus demand, which can be solved by either more supply or redirected demand. And maybe by removing bad money from the economy.

<comment><USER11> Yeah! Get out there and drink more instead of saving and living within your means.

<comment> guard-of-terra I did not say that. You did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I understood the article, Habitat for Humanity contacted some building owners and developers about acquiring several charming but rundown brownstones in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood, with the goal of renovating them and selling them to low income deserving families. The buildings were supposed to be unoccupied, but in fact seven families were evicted or paid to leave, and they ended up homeless or living in shelters. A developer was able to flip at least one building to HFH for 100% profit.

While it does sound as if a few tenants were taken advantage of, and the charity probably over paid for the properties, the whole situation doesn't seem that out of line with what has been happening for 100 years in congested New York neighborhoods. In this case, it was a "charity", but in many other cases it was for-profit ventures attempting to capitalize on the very high demand for housing.

At least the brownstones are earmarked for lower income owners who will stabilize the neighborhood and presumably not push up housing costs. That's probably a good outcome, if that's what comes to pass. Maybe HFH can help out those families somehow, perhaps offer them low cost rentals in one of the renovated properties.

Unfortunately, this rosy outcome is not necessarily what will happen. The minute a neighborhood is perceived by developers and intrepid urban warriors as the next up and coming place that's affordable, edgy, and trendy, these powerful players will descend on the place like locusts. Current owners will receive high offers to sell out, and gentrification will set in.

In my opinion, the only real solution to this kind of churning of property and displacement of low income families is to build more housing. New York can't really expand outward, but it can expand upward, and so they need to build some high rise apartments and condominiums. I'm not really sure why they're not meeting demand; perhaps New Yorkers just don't want any more congestion, and regulatory and tax structures make it prohibitive for all but the richest developers, who then are incentivized to sell or rent to the richest families, cutting the poor and moderate families out of the equation.

<comment><USER13> Your assertion that NYC is not building up is quite wrong. Just because every brownstone isn't being converted into a skyscraper doesn't mean there isn't a ton of new housing coming into the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> tldr; In a neighborhood with no open space for new housing, existing housing must be torn down in order to build new housing.

<comment><USER15> more like: dr; that is not at all what the article is about.

<comment><USER16> TLDR; H4H, in an effort to grow their public profile, took a federal grant to develop affordable housing in an ill-suited neighborhood with low vacancy rates which in turn forced them to acquire properties from a shady landlord who may have illegally pressured tenants to vacate. Pressure to meet the grant requirements led to disregard of objections raised by concerned parties within the group.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ideas to ease the installation of an EC2 hosted webapp - <AUTHOR>

Recently i open sourced a DIY dropbox powered blogging engine ( http://www.nkrode.com/article/autopilot ). Many of the users interested are people who do not have a programming background, but would still like the idea of a dropbox powered blog. However, i think my current setup instructions are beyond most people. It requires them to :
1. Setup a dedicated server or fire an EC2 instance 2. Fork a github repository 3. Install some python packages etc. (i guess i can do a pip install) 4. Configure web servers 5. Configure the blog etc. etc.
I was wondering how can I can packages this all together so that it's a sort of 1-click install. One option I was thinking was :
1. User signs up for an Amazon account or azure or google. (non geeks will still find it hard to deal with downtimes, server issues etc.) 2. Fires a pre-configured image. 3. Done.
Are there any other tools, services, options which can easy this whole process? <comment><USER2> Yes -- look into Amazon CloudFormation (<http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/>) and/or Amazon's Marketplace (<https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/>).

You might also look into Heroku (<https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/python/>) and/or services like it specifically for Python ([http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Heroku-equivalent- for-Djang...](http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Heroku-equivalent-for-Django- applications))

<comment><AUTHOR> nice! thanks for sharing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Transitioning out of Data Science - <AUTHOR> I've been working as a Data Scientist for about four years now after finishing a PhD in physics. At the beginning there was a good mix of both engineering and statistics, but over time it feels like a lot of the work of "building things" has been shifted to software engineering roles. What's left over is most "Business Intelligence" work, at a larger scale.<p>Because of this, I'm considering leaving Data Science. I was curious where other people have ended up after leaving and what other paths are open? <comment><USER2> My prediction is basically once Excel can handle larger data sizes and do basic ML algorithms (like boosting / random forest / etc), and data manipulation becomes more the work of a BA (say, via Alteryx), and they start teaching what basic algorithms do (like Random Forest, Boosting, etc.) in a business analytics course (which right now is basic hypothesis testing / linear modeling) then we will see the death of a lot of data science roles and people will transition into more specialized technical roles. I could see this moving into that direction in say 2-5 years.

<comment><USER3> I've worked with a lot of Business Analysts and they usually end up fighting over p-values and R-squares, even when the linear models they are creating are total garbage due to overfitting and multicollinearity.

I agree with you that easier to use and ubiquitous data prep+ML will eliminate a certain type of data science role. However, most good data scientists I know work on taking a business problem from no/bad/inappropriate data to the right data to address the use case. It's not just about data manipulation and ML.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm in a similar position myself. 5+ years in Data Science roles, and I've realized I'm less interested in the "generating insights" part of data science and more in building systems and architecture that support this type analytical work. This is what I've found in thinking about moving into a different type of role. Some of the following is based on what I've seen colleagues do.

If you're interested in staying technical: Machine Learning Engineer, Software Engineer, consulting, and certain types of Pre and PostSales. A lot of people who work in "Data Science Engineering" aren't coding ML algorithms or doing linear algebra. What they are doing is building the systems that support data science processes and workflows. These are the systems that help to create repeatable insights for broader use, and not just one off scripts. Having a data science background + development skills goes well together for this.

If you're interested in staying in Data Science and/or Engineering, but not having your technical work as a deliverable: Product Manager, Data Science Manager, Engineering Manager

If you're interested in getting deep into modeling: Statistician, Operations Research, and some AI roles.

If you're interested mostly in talking about Data Science and being focused on the business side of things: Sales, Sales oriented Chief Data Scientist, Business Development

If you're interested in talking about data science and doing some technical work: Data Science Instructor, Data Science Product Evangelist, PreSales (depends on role).

High Level Technical Support is an option as well. Not many people can diagnose a bug where some error in a algorithm is resulting in a faulty design matrix, or find a condition that results in a divide by zero error in a complex mathematical function, etc. You have to understand the theory behind a lot of the algorithms for this.

Also, something I've learned. When I interview for roles now I'm VERY honest that I want a significant portion of my job to be coding and serious technical work (I enjoy building a nice Tableau/Spotfire Dashboard, but I don't consider that to be very technical). I don't have a software engineering background so it makes it harder for me to find a job, but I'm also more likely to end up in a job where I'm a fit. I've found these types of blended jobs are out there, but you have to hunt for them and be patient.

</comment><comment><USER4> I went through this same thought process a few years ago. I basically gave myself a crash course in CS and engineering and "reinvented" / positioned myself as a software engineer.

I left my data science job and spent a couple of years as a "pure" software engineer and now am a "research engineer" which is basically a software engineer who understands machine learning and deep learning.

By and large I'm very happy with the move (other than that the company I quit as a data scientist got acquired and I would have made more $$$ if I'd stayed).

<comment><USER3> When I read your username I was a little taken aback. I have your python data science book and just assumed you were always a ML Software Engineer. I didn't realize you were a data scientist who transitioned into a more engineering focused role by teaching yourself CS.

I'm trying to do this myself, but it's mostly the road of failures with success somewhere out there. Seeing you did it gives me hope that I'll get there one day. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I went from a data engineering role (jack of all trades data piping) into web analytics implementation/marketing analytics (ROI stuff) and now am a product manager. At this stage I don't think I'll go back into Data Science as the barrier to exciting companies with great processes is quite high and I think the field is still a bit too immature to work anywhere else.

Marketing and product teams are quite fun to work in from my experience.

</comment><comment><USER6> Get a job building ML systems, not one where you are writing queries (though they may be complex) for a business person.</comment>


SimpleGeo Launches - <AUTHOR> http://simplegeo.com/

<comment><USER2> Hi, I'm the CTO and cofounder of SimpleGeo. Many of your points about sparse documentation, website, etc. are fair. We're about 3 hours old so give us a little time to fill everything in. Lots of work to do here, which is why we hired Andrew Mager to be a developer advocate.

1\. You can think of us as S3 for location data. Before S3 scaling file storage was a messy, complex, and costly proposition. After S3 it was as simple as posting files to an endpoint. We do this for geometric/location data. We store and index your data and allow you to easily do geospatial queries against your location data.

2\. We give away 1m calls a month, which is the same that Twitter gives away for free, and _more_ than Google Maps does. The pricing plans are based on what it'd cost to manage your own infrastructure. We'll be adding lots more features, options, data, etc. in the coming weeks/months.

3\. To the people saying they can just install GeoDjango and PostGIS, I have a few questions. How much time are you spending building and maintaining your own location API? How much does it cost to rent/buy that hardware? Is your location infrastructure multi-homed in three data centers? Does your location infrastructure come with premium content like global weather data and 16m+ business listings? Can it keep up with the real-time geohose from Twitter? Does it do URL callbacks and S3 backups automatically? We handle all of that for you.

4\. The location marketplace will allow developers to tap into billions of points of interest and previously unattainable features for low monthly costs. For instance, Metacarta and Quova solutions are very much enterprise solutions that cost real money, but they'll be available on demand for small per- drink/per-month costs. We've indexed over half a terabyte of location data (when you're talking about point data that's a lot) that's instantly available to developers.

5\. We have robust SDKs for the iPhone, including an augmented reality view. The AR view allows you to show a sophisticated AR view of your data, in our API, in about ~10 lines of code.

You all are absolutely right that we need to do better at messaging and whatnot. We're working on that. All I ask is you give us a chance and don't dismiss what we're doing as "just GeoDjango."

<comment><USER3> As someone who's built his own infrastructure, I'll respond.

1\. 30m requests/month is about 11.5 requests/second. My service can do 300 search requests/second sustained off of one machine. That's with a pretty minimal setup. Data is backed up to S3. Multi-homing isn't a big priority for me, but I could easily do it for not much effort/cost.

2\. If you're whitelisted, Twitter actually gives out 14.4 million calls a month for free. If not, it's 111,600 calls per month. So, I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers here.

3\. I've spent a lot of time building my service and API, but AFAICT you're not providing an API I could vend directly to client applications I don't own myself. Ditto on the premium content, which I can almost guarantee you don't have the rights to give re-vending access for. (As in, I can't build a weather API service on it and charge money. Same for business info.)

4\. How many of those POIs are license-free? Also, half a terabyte of point data would be a lot, if you were actually indexing that much. I'd wager $1 you're counting non-point data in that number, such as addresses and the like. That said, this is probably your strongest point,

5\. That's cool. It took me awhile to write my mapping engine, and I haven't started on my AR view yet.

Honestly, your biggest problem seems to be that you don't describe your service very well. If I were you, I'd be pitching this as a good way to build up a service without the knowledge required to build a geo API in house, negotiating with geodata vendors directly (who can be extremely standoffish and unreasonable), and monitoring/scaling/etc the geodata side of things.

Also, the things I'd like to see, so that I don't have to build them myself, would be:

1\. Worldwide address geocoding with no usage restrictions. AFAICT, this service does not exist.

2\. Worldwide address canonicalization. If I'm missing a postal code, province, etc, or if a phone number is in a weird format, I'd love a service that would clean that up for me.

3\. Address unification among services. I'd love to be able to tie together the primary ids of a given address among the various services: Yelp, foursquare, Gowalla, OpenStreetMap, etc.

<comment><USER4> > Also, the things I'd like to see, so that I don't have to build them myself, > would be: 1\. Worldwide address geocoding with no usage restrictions. > AFAICT, this service does not exist. 2\. Worldwide address canonicalization. > If I'm missing a postal code, province, etc, or if a phone number is in a > weird format, I'd love a service that would clean that up for me. 3\. > Address unification among services. I'd love to be able to tie together the > primary ids of a given address among the various services: Yelp, foursquare, > Gowalla, OpenStreetMap, etc.

I think #1 and #2 here are the most interesting -- with really limited providers to solve the problems. Address geolocation is a PIA, foreign address geolocation is even worse.

A non-connected private version would also be worth something (lots of money in the Government for this kind of service, usually not on the Internet).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Their website is missing a clear and specific description of their service.

<comment><USER6> Here's what we need front and center.

"SimpleGeo, in its most basic form, indexes data by location using latitude and longitude so that you can easily search for things that are nearby. This allows developers to easily scale, manage, and query their location data. On top of this basic feature, SimpleGeo also provides rich location data, reverse geocoding, and other tools to help developers leverage the location of their users."

[http://help.simplegeo.com/faqs/company/what-would-i-use- simp...](http://help.simplegeo.com/faqs/company/what-would-i-use-simplegeo- for)

<comment><USER7> That's still a terrible description.

What makes location data "rich"? And how do developers use "rich location data" to "leverage the location of their users?"

What exactly does it do?

<comment><USER8> I did a talk with Matt Galligan when he was in Vancouver last month. You can see the video here: <http://blip.tv/file/3340542/>

I can't seem to dig up a video of Matt's talk.

Basically, Navteq and Tele Atlas own the base map data. Google, Bing, and MapQuest add intelligence on top of this data with features like Street View and driving directions. Foursquare and Gowalla add another layer of intelligence with where people and places are at right now.

Rich location data is the "what,when,why,who" is at this location.

SimpleGeo is: 1) Storage for location with metadata about what's at that location 2) A marketplace to buy and sell data about locations

So, off the top of my head. I can create a door-to-door canvassing app and ask residents if they are Democrats or Republicans. Then I could sell this data to others that would be interested in this data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, that's expensive: <http://simplegeo.com/plans/>

<comment><USER10> I just got a beta invite and was planning to spend the weekend moving my real estate listing data to the service to try it... at these prices I am happy to do it myself.

I feel like the pricing is aimed at funded startups or mature businesses, not bootstrapped startups.

The site design screams Metalab. Did they design it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> They've built a good API, but I don't know what it is either. I've been a beta user for a little while, and was originally going to use it to store bus stops in Honolulu county, to make finding nearby ones from your mobile phone quicker. In my initial testing it returned all kinds of locations near me, when all I wanted were those on my own "layer". I was getting coffee shops, and all kinds of stuff. I guess that might be the intention? It was never clear to me, and doing it locally was actually easier and faster (using geopy). Just my $0.02.

</comment><comment><USER12> Umm... So I watched most of that video, thinking, they're going to show something cool worth $2.5k/m to a start-up soon.

Like hell they did.

<comment><USER13> $2.5k / month would buy you a lot of time with a developer doing GeoDjango work.

<comment><USER12> Not only that, but I've just realised... $2.5k/m only gets you 10 times as much as a free account. Sounds like such a great deal!

And then if you want THREE times as much as the start-up account, you have to pay FOUR times as much - $10k for 30 million calls.

Maybe they should have hired a mathematician instead of geographers....

<comment><USER14> Not all services scale perfectly linearly. They are likely limited by certain costs associated with using an Amazon infrastructure or their own infrastructure, or it is simply a matter of customer hot spotting trends and perceived demand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Expensive! That's all I can say. I was imagining more like a $9.99/month plan.

<comment><USER16> Me, too. I've heard them compared to S3 and Heroku. Their pricing plans aren't like either of them.

I think we'll see them get changed big time, perhaps with grandfathering in of the current free plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> they seem to be doing something interesting, but documentation and company statement is very vague. Even the demo code does not work out of the box. The video on their homepage doesn't make any sense at all..

<comment><USER2> The video was location data we aggregated during SXSW for our vicarious.ly visualization. We have lots of work to do on messaging and documentation.

What bugs did you find? We use the Python client internally and the iPhone SDK is being used in production. Maybe post on <http://help.simplegeo.com>?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> They have niceish REST Apis, but only support OAuth for authentication. Have you ever tried out an OAuth protected API from the browser? It's bloody hard! (Google has their OAuth playground, but if there is something similar for other sites I haven't seen it)

</comment><comment><USER19> I started using SimpleGeo when it was in Beta and I was pretty amazed to see the plans... way too expensive for a startup. I'll go back to GeoApi in a few. Sad..

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks really cool. I'll be checking back when more of the site is up to get some more detailed information on the capabilities and the offering.</comment>


Creative Computing Magazine - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing&tab=collection <comment><USER2> Like Creative Computing, I remember the pleasure I got from Algorithm Magazine, which included pseudocode for fractals, neural nets, cellular automata, and all those things that attracted me to computers. Algorithm Magazine was put out by noted computer scientist and author Alexander Dewdney ([http://www.csd.uwo.ca/faculty/akd/akd.html](http://www.csd.uwo.ca/faculty/akd/akd.html)).

I would gladly scan the few hardcopies I still have (not a complete set though) if someone else would host them.

<comment><USER3> Put them on github or dropbox?

<comment><USER4> Putting them on github would be really cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is what got me into computers at age 9. There were comics, and I didn't understand them. So I started reading the articles.

The articles didn't have anything to do with the comics, but I was fascinated, and ended up buying a ZX-81, then a Commodore 64, and...well, I'm still doing it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's the instructions if you want to do a batch download to your favorite offline e-whatever.

[https://blog.archive.org/2012/04/26/downloading-in-bulk- usin...](https://blog.archive.org/2012/04/26/downloading-in-bulk-using-wget/)

<comment><USER7> Our new command-line tool makes that even easier:

[https://github.com/jjjake/internetarchive](https://github.com/jjjake/internetarchive)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I loved that magazine. The first years of it had a charming quality to them I've never seen anywhere else. The early issues are treasures.

The later ones got more conventional.

<comment><USER9> Very well put. The issues in that first year made those of us who weren't programmers feel like we could be. It was thanks to them and COMPUTE! that I actually did become one, and eventually a consumer of Walter Bright products!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice blast from the past. My intro to programming was as a 9 or 10 year old manually typing most of the samples from Creative Computing's _BASIC Computer Games_ [1] into a Commodore 64 and actually getting them to work. The best one was this one [2], 2.5 pages of densely packed no-whitespace all-caps BASIC. No OCR!

1: [http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/index.php](http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/index.php)

2: [http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=15...](http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=157)

</comment><comment><USER11> Oh Wow!

They have Byte, too... [https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine- rescans](https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-rescans)

<comment><AUTHOR> Jason Scott has been really busy in recent times. Just saw on twitter of him announcing Joe Decuir's Engineering Notebook during his Atari days from 1977.

[https://archive.org/details/JoeDecuirEngineeringNotebook1977](https://archive.org/details/JoeDecuirEngineeringNotebook1977)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just found about 50 issues of Creative Computing in my Dad's old stuff. Any thoughts on who might want them?

</comment><comment><USER13> Text version of the magazine: [http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/index/](http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/index/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, but there is nothing like seeing it in "print" to bring back the memories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Takes me back seeing adverts for s100 cromenco and USCD Pascal - I once had to stay late to call Microsofts help desk with a tricky USCD Pascal query (that was when they where in new mexico I think)

</comment><comment><USER15> I found an copy of The Best of Creative Computing Vol 2 [http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/](http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/) at a thrift store years ago and was immediately hooked. It reminded me of all the neat hobby projects that would come across fidonet when I was a kid. Now everything is an acqui-hire or flip, the ratio of exploration and art in coding projects has definitely dropped.

<comment><USER16> I love the cover by Gilbert Shelton, with Fat Freddy's Cat fleeing in front of the the pick-up truck!

[http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=cover](http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=cover)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oy, I wish I'd kept a listing of the Algol W snowflake curve program I wrote up for Creative Computing and that they published in the Nov-Dec 1978 issue. The printout combined with the scan makes it hard to read. Ah, well; I did it to myself.

<comment><USER18> It looks reasonably readable to me if zoomed in. It should be possible to retype from the scan, if someone wanted to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is fantastic. I wonder what the contemporary equivalent is.

<comment><USER20> I would like to know what the modern equivalent of this is too. Obviously blogs are there. But it is not for me but my kid. Something that can pique his interest.

<comment><USER21> I too would like to know of a modern equivalent.

Magazines are able to deliver something that blogs often can't - like pieces of work that have been refined, and then refined again by an editor. Or diverse topics that still fall within a certain discipline.

This is an itch that blogs can't seem to scratch for me.

<comment><USER22> Tried the PICO8 fanzine?

[http://pico8fanzine.bigcartel.com](http://pico8fanzine.bigcartel.com)

Its tailored for PICO8, which is a 'fantasy console' in the same light as 80's 8-bit machines, but still .. its one of those 'zines that really takes you back once you get through an issue or two ..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Haha! "Several years ago it was all the rage to forecast when each computer maker was going to graduate from an 8-bit cpu to a 16-bit cpu. However, it turned out that consumers didn't need 16-bits and computer makers were really quite content to stay with 8-bit machines".

[https://ia601604.us.archive.org/3/items/creativecomputing-19...](https://ia601604.us.archive.org/3/items/creativecomputing-1982-04-a/Creative_Computing_v08_n04_1982_April.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER24> This is great!

One problem with Creative Computing is that most libraries seemed to think it was ephemeral and they got rid of their holdings in the early 1990s, so it has been really hard to find. Even my mom thought it was ephemeral and she threw out most of my collection.

<comment><USER25> That's the thing I don't really get about libraries. They are incredibly deletionist.

My pet theory: the librarians feel they have power that way, by "curating" the collection that will presented to the peasants.

<comment><USER26> I don't like deletion very much either in general, although I've seen librarians defend themselves with 1. that they totally don't have room for stuff 2. for kids' stuff, at least, if it's science, our knowledge has grown so much that it's a disservice for them to read the old book without context. Or if it's fiction, it can be full of social norms and beliefs that we've grown beyond, where...we'd also want them to have context if they were going to read it.

But it sucks when you hear how they often don't have a good sense of the value (intellectual or otherwise) of what they cull. And it sucks if everyone makes the same judgment and all throw away our ephemera that we wish to look back, evoke memories, reveal something of our time.

<comment><USER25> Most libraries (in Europe, at least) tend to have an incredibly low density of books. I think the image of a good-looking library is more important to them than to actually have more books on the shelves.

E.g. something like this (the main public library in Linköping, Sweden):

[https://cdn3.cdnme.se/cdn/7-2/1081760/images/2012/dsc_0337_1...](https://cdn3.cdnme.se/cdn/7-2/1081760/images/2012/dsc_0337_189053713.jpg)

rather than something like

[http://f.tqn.com/y/seattle/1/W/V/F/-/-/IMG_8459.JPG](http://f.tqn.com/y/seattle/1/W/V/F/-/-/IMG_8459.JPG)

<comment><USER8> Kenmore's public library has a low density of books as well - wide aisles, low shelves. I suspect it is partly due to wanting to be accessible to people in wheelchairs. But few books kinda defeats the purpose of having a library.

Half-Price Books in Bellevue is more my speed. It's completely packed with books. I could putter away hours in there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Awesome!

This was my goto magazine :)

Much more code per issue than Byte, and easily modifiable games, which were great for learning.

Thanks to the Archive for scanning! If there are any issues missing, I may have them and be able to help contribute.

</comment><comment><USER28> I used to love all these old magazines. Learned so much from Creative Computing, RUN, Compute (and compute's gazzette), Dr Dobbs (when it was a real magazine), etc.

</comment><comment><USER29> Ah, this is one I missed back in the day! It looks interesting, but viewing the PDFs in Foxit, the pages are all black text on dark gray background. Is anyone else getting that? Any known fix? For reference, Byte scans from archive.org display correctly on my system.

<comment><USER30> Works for me in MuPDF.

Get an alternate PDF reader here: [https://pdfreaders.org/](https://pdfreaders.org/)

<comment><USER29> Ah, tried MuPDF just now and it's still coming out dark gray, but at least now I know it's not a problem with Foxit. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


7 is the largest prime followed by a cubic number - <AUTHOR> https://jott.live/texdown/cubic_prime <comment><USER2> Math is funny. There's an infinite amount of primes, and even though we know a lot of them there's still more left (read:infinite). But at the same time, with high-school level algebra we can prove that the largest prime followed by a cubic number is 7.

The proof is really simple, but the fact is quite unintuitive (at least for me).

<comment><USER3> That is number theory. Number theory is at the same time extremely profound and very very blunt.

Every prime is double of an integer + 1, except for 2. This follows because primes are integers, integers are either 2 times n or 2 times n+1 and numbers representable as 2 times n have 2 as a prime factor, if n > 1\. Hence, except for 2.

Overall, number theory is one example to me how very, very simple concepts are actually hard - because you're not trained to look for them. The proof is just ... obvious once pointed out. But why would you look for it with such simple manners?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Huh, I never realized this was this simple. Fleshing out the general case the post mentions.

Suppose p=x^n-1 is prime.

Note that:

      x^n - 1  = (x^n + x^(n-1) +... + x^2 + x)
                -(      x^(n-1) +... + x^2 + x +1)

      =>x^n-1  = (x^(n-1) + x^(n-2) + ... + x + 1)(x-1)

So if p=x^n-1 is prime, one of the factors must be equal to 1. If the first factor is 1, this implies x=0 and so the second factor is -1. Therefore the second factor must be 1, and x=2.

Therefore if x^n-1 is prime, x must be 2. Damn that's cool. At first I thought any number 2^n-1 would be prime, but then I realized that obviously the left hand factor can have subfactors. Which is to say I remembered 15 exists.

<comment><USER5> What about for n=4? I think the issue is that you're supposing that 2^n-1 is already prime.

Primes of this form are called Mersenne primes if you want more information on them.

<comment><USER4> See update, I realized my facepalm at roughly the same time as you:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The proof states: "For n to be prime either x² + x + 1 = 1 or x - 1 = 1"

Could somebody tell me why each of the factor components must be equal to one?

<comment><USER7> I believe there is a typo, and it should say "for p to be prime".

Since p = (x^2 + x + 1)(x - 1), and both of those factors are integers, if both factors were not 1, then we would have demonstrated a factoring of p; therefore p would be composite.

If you wanted to be super formal, you would have to deal with the possibility that the factors were -1, but that is more of an uninteresting technicality.

<comment><AUTHOR> ah good catch on the typo, just fixed it

<comment><USER8> There's another minor error. The proof states:

> For $ p $ to be prime either $ x^2 + x + 1 = 1 $ or $ x - 1 = 1 $.

That's not quite true. In general, if p is prime and p=a·b for integers a and b, then at least one of a and b is 1 _or -1_. The rest of the proof still works since, as you say, x != 0, so x + 1 != -1.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll leave that omitted to keep things concise. I think it is quite common to assume a domain of natural numbers when talking about primes.

> then at least one of a and b is 1 or -1

I think you mean exactly one of a and b is 1 or -1

<comment><USER8> You can't just assume a range of natural numbers in this context. You have a prime p that is equal to f(x) for some polynomial f with integer coefficients and some integer x. You observe that f(x)=a(x)b(x) where a and b are also polynomials with integer coefficients. It does not follow that a and b are non-negative. As an example, let f(x)=x^3-2x^2-3x+6. Then a(x)=x-2 and b(x)=x^2-3. Now you could try to argue that, if f(x) is prime, then one of a(x) and b(x) is 1, so x is 2 or 3, but f(2)=0 and f(3)=6, so f(x) can't be prime for integer x. But you would be wrong, and, indeed, f(1)=2, which is prime.

You really do have to consider negative factors.

<comment><AUTHOR> that's a great counter example! updated the post

<comment><USER9> You linked to the reply URL, which works only for logged-in users. Please consider using this instead:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17904921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17904921)

<comment><AUTHOR> done

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's the deal with all these $ symbols?

<comment><AUTHOR> Assuming you have JavaScript disabled, that is latex notation.

<comment><USER11> I'm too seeing raw $ markup. Nothing's blocked, no console errors, but there's a "425 No Reason Phrase" response for [https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/2.7.5/MathJax...](https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/2.7.5/MathJax.js?config=TeX- MML-AM_CHTML), not sure if it's relevant. That's in recent Firefox.

More specifically, when I open the page by clicking on the HN link or copy- pasting the URL into the bar and pressing Enter, the page renders OK. If I am to reload the page with Ctrl-R after that, it shows up in raw $ markup and no amount of refreshing helps. Furthermore, full reload (via Ctrl-Refresh) yields that 425 response.

Just FYI.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the heads up. The site is self-hosting mathjax now</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The poor state of freelance writing - <AUTHOR> http://dendory.net/blog.php?id=4e7bf489

<comment><USER2> freelance writing will be more relevant and a lucrative livelihood once there are platforms that have a built in network effect, and based on individuals interests..</comment>


YC Startups Unite to Drive Nail into Coffin of IE6 - <AUTHOR> http://deals.venturebeat.com/2009/08/04/startups-unite-to-drive-nail-into-the-coffin-of-internet-explorer-6/

<comment><USER2> Awesome! Every bit of pressure helps the world leave behind IE6. Hopefully this effort will increase pressure for corporate installations to upgrade too.</comment>


JavaScript's Two Zeros - <AUTHOR> http://css.dzone.com/articles/javascripts-two-zeros

<comment><USER2> Why not just have one more negative number than positive number?

</comment><comment><USER3> Javascript uses ieee 754 for all numbers. News at eleven.</comment>


Crawl Bank Accounts with the Ghost of Wesabe - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/02/crawl-your-bank-account-with-w.php

<comment><USER2> screen scraping should only really be needed for banks that don't support direct OFX access (or i suppose if your bank charges extra for direct access and you don't want to pay it).

OFX is an XML'ish protocol that all of the big banks and major banking software (MS Money, Quicken, Quickbooks, iBank, etc.) use to communicate when downloading transactions, posting checks, doing transfers, etc. it's what i'm using for downloading bank transactions in corduroy (<http://corduroysite.com/>) and i have hundreds of banks listed in there.

if you know a bank's OFX URL, you can just send it an OFX query and download transactions. it works the same for every bank and credit card company, and it's much quicker than the screen-scraping dance of establishing a session, logging in, clicking around, and then updating your scripts every time the website updates its interface.

here are some common OFX servers: [http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Setting...](http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settings)

<comment><USER3> Does it work for bill paying? Cable, water, gas and electric, mortgage companies? I think it would be awesome for have a way to pay all my bills from one interface.

<comment><USER4> Most banks and credit unions have a (free) electronic bill pay integrated into their online banking that allow you to pay bills to the kinds of companies that you listed. The bank typically figures out whether to send them a physical check, or handle it electronically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Man, just a simple twitter bot that hit me when a transaction was over a certain amount, or perhaps over a certain distance away from home, would be awesome.

<comment><USER4> This kind of feature is common in most banks that I have seen. Although instead of Twitter, its email and SMS.

<comment><USER5> Sure, my bank does it too. Finer-grained alerting could be useful, or possibly aggregate tracking ("You've spent more than $50 at Starbucks this month!"). Location awareness would be the most useful fraud prevention tool.

<comment><USER6> Keep in mind you're only liable for the first $50 in fraud on a credit card. In practice most US institutions will cover 100% of credit or electronic banking losses.

On the flip side, any SAAS that monitored your bank transactions would likely be more interested in developing and selling a profile of you than protecting you.

<comment><USER5> My idea was that the private,non-SAAS tool could track your total purchases on a particular category (food, gas, restaurants), or even a specific store, and inform you when you are blowing your budget. ("Hey, that latte put you over for the month. Better cut back").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome. I'm at a startup now that could totally leverage this tech. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone know if something like this is available for Australian banks?

I'd love to automate telegraphic transfer payments ("wiring" the money). Just need to poll for when the money arrives, and send out the receipt. Currently, you have to check manually.

That said, telegraphic transfer payments often to involve a fair bit of rigmarole, including negotiating prices, and even contractual terms in some cases. So maybe automating that bit wouldn't make much difference. Still, it would be great.

<comment><USER9> mint.com equivalent in Australia: <http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1154397>

<comment><USER8> thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Half of me says awesome, while the other half is slightly-creeped-out that scammers no longer need to stop at "nah, writing scraping scripts for bank websites would be way too much work!".

</comment><comment><USER11> Any support for UK banks? Specifically, LLoydsTSB, whose online interface is truly horrible... (and broken to boot)

<comment><USER12> According to this link, LLoydsTSB is in QIF format:

[http://www.accountz.com/accountz/online-bank-statement- downl...](http://www.accountz.com/accountz/online-bank-statement-download)

A number of other UK banks there too.

<comment><USER11> Yeah. Their export functionality requires logging out and in between reports (apparently a "known bug" to be fixed in the "next release" which doesn't have a set date to it). I was hoping there's a way to just point something at Lloyds and have it suck out all the data for browsing outside of the "LloydsTSB experience"...

<comment><USER12> Well you can try your hand at screen scraping your account using the Wesabe script. Better than nothing. I've got a Bank of Ireland account and their online banking is crap also. They don't even _have_ an export function, let alone a buggy one!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Awesome, was just getting ready to send in the yodlee NDA

<comment><USER14> you'll still need to send it. depending on the users you're supporting, and how, yodlee supports the long tail (some better, some worse), which would be difficult to support in a model like this.</comment></comment>


Square close to closing $200m round at $3.25 billion valuation - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/square-is-said-to-be-seeking-a-3-25-billion-valuation/

<comment><USER2> Square is a very exciting product without a doubt. And it's also the type of product that might bring harm to the economy or society.

The very common practice of paying "cash in hand" to certain professionals such as plumber, house cleaner and many others, can take up a whole new level. Resulting in very costly loss - quite possibly - of billions of dollars (depending on the country) in tax evasion. Of course not all freelance and self employed professionals dodge their taxes but would be silly to say a lot of them don't.

Also, if it fall into the wrong hands, it can be used by pickpockets and other crooks, to skim the victim's card minutes after the card was stolen. One might argue that credit card transactions are not settle in minutes, but rather in days and sometimes only after 30 days that the payment was made, the merchant/crook would be credited with the monies. But some transactions do credit the merchants within few hours or a day or two - and for those type of transactions crooks could setup their biz and start transferring monies to several accounts making the funds very hard to trace and of course, getting a new device every so often because it wont take long until Square's fraud prevention realise that one particular device is the root of too many complains/fraud alerts</comment>


Fighting patent trolls with the LOT Network - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1936-fighting-patent-trolls-with-the-lot-network

<comment><USER2> Forgive me for asking a stupid question but why would someone from the LOT network sell a patent to a troll and why wouldn't companies that make money from selling to a troll join the LOT network?

<comment><USER3> Patent Trolls are often buying "unused" patents from various companies. Usually what happens is a startup or something goes downhill, and assets get sold, or a slowly dying company decides to change it's view on IP assertion or "maximizing shareholder value through licensing". Even normal companies often sell patents not at the core of their business to make money on the side, (where non-core would be like IBM's patents on bathroom reservations, [http://www.google.com/patents/US6329919?dq=system+and+method...](http://www.google.com/patents/US6329919?dq=system+and+method+for+providing+reservations+for+restroom+use)).

As for "why wouldn't companies that make money from selling to a troll join the LOT network?", because it would mean the trolls would not derive value from the patents, since all participants in LOT would get a license when that sale happened.

If LOT contains everyone the troll wants to sue, then the patent is not worth anything to the troll.

<comment><USER4> Couldn't a LOT member still sell to a troll using the Change of Control provisions?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Under the LOT Agreement, every company that participates grants a portfolio- wide license to the other participants, but the license becomes effective ONLY when the participant transfers one or more patents __to an entity other than another LOT Network participant __, and ONLY for the patent(s) actually transferred. "

Doesn't this mean that if every company were to join the network that we would just end up back at square one with tons of money being pumped into this organization?

</comment><comment><USER6> Ultimately useless because Trolls are now writing their own trivial patents. In addition to this, tons of solo practitioner attorneys are out there writing patents on their own hoping to sell some broad bullshit patent to a troll.

Still, this is a good effort in that it gets people thinking about the problem. That's the first step before real reform.

<comment><USER7> Got data?</comment></comment>


Volvo's Polestar 1 is the car Tesla should be really worried about - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/article/volvo-polestar-1 <comment><USER2> Stopped reading at "hybrid gasoline car."

Wake me up when these other "reputable car makers" can actually deliver a great all-electric competitor to Tesla.

Until then, all of these cars are just the "iphone-killers" of the EV world that will never live up to even half of their hype.

<comment><USER3> If you had of continued reading, you would have been informed about the fully electric Polestar 2, scheduled to arrive in 2019. An SUV Polestar 3 is a little further in the future.

The thrust of the story is that established car manufacturers are a little late with their electric offerings, but Tesla is not that far ahead and is experiencing manufacturing issues. These established car makers already have the manufacturing experience and can be expected to catch Tesla quite quickly.</comment></comment>


Apple Falls Behind Microsoft, Samsung, Sony In New Consumer Experience Survey - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/21/forrester-consumer-experience-survey-2014/?utm_source=osx&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=front

<comment><USER2> For me ios 7 has lowered the bar when it comes to expectations from Apple. My Ipad Air crashes multiple times daily when browsing websites, somehow the flash free world seems just as craptastic as the flash filled one.

<comment><USER3> From what I've seen online, people with the new 64 bit chips have seen more crashes. I'm not sure what's to be expected when such a transition occurs, but it's safe to say the amount of crashes should reduce with each update.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the graph it appears that the change in ranking is more or less a result of Apple's competitors improving their customer relationships while Apple barely changes.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, they noted Apple actually improved from last year but everyone else improved even more. Meanwhile we the consumers benefit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sigh what a squishy article. What is the methodology? What is the sampling error? What does "OK" mean relative to "Good" ? This reminds me of the anecdotes in "Proofiness"[1] which talk about how the news industry figured out they could manufacture news by taking a poll.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Proofiness-Youre-Being-Fooled- Numbers/...](http://www.amazon.com/Proofiness-Youre-Being-Fooled- Numbers/dp/0143120077)

<comment><USER4> MetaSigh. Why is it only now that there is a contradiction to the accepted narrative of technological merit that squishyness has become problematic?

<comment><USER6> Well for me squisyness is _always_ problematic. When people's reasoning depends on subjective self reporting feedback I don't consider it nearly as persuasive as something done methodically. My sigh was that I can't see how the article even gets to the 'ranking' order they get to.

They lead with _" The survey measures customer experience, which involves difficult-to-define criteria based on how a customer feels about his or her interaction with a company. Forrester queried 7,500 consumers about their retail and customer support experiences and used the responses to assign each company a customer-experience index score. "_

So 7,500 respondents, how were they picked? What was their demographic? Were they previous device owners or new device owners? etc etc. And this:

 _" Sony came in second with a rating of 83, while Microsoft and Samsung followed one point behind at 82. Apple scored an 81. All three brands rated below Apple in the 2013 survey. "_

What moves someone 1 pt up or down in the survey? What is the margin of error? In 2013 Apple shipped 150M iPhones, if they surveyed just iPhone customers _who bought a phone last year_ , 7,500 would be .005% Except the slides mention at least five vendors Amazon, Samsung, Apple, Sony, and Microsoft.

So that is why I felt it as non-news. There isn't enough data to say anything about the market, consumer sentiment, or usefulness.

So what was your take on the story?

<comment><USER4> My take is that the story is that the story is the story. It's contrary to the standard narrative - a narrative which has used Forrester and similarly squishy measurements of perceptions as evidence of Apple's unquestioned superiority for many years.

E.g. [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Adaringfireball.net+Forreste...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Adaringfireball.net+Forrester)

As for the sample size, 7500 is plenty if properly selected. If the selection process is poor in ways that are not accounted for in the analysis, then a larger bad data set won't make the analysis any more accurate.

<comment><USER6> I agree, but what made me sigh was that in order to make that story 'stick' for me, is to be really crisp about the selection process. By going through and detailing the ways you tried to disprove your result (which is counter to the narrative) you legitimize the conclusion. But without that, the critical thinker is left without any way to evaluate whether or not they reached a valid conclusion.

<comment><USER4> If the structure of the report was out of character for Forrester in particular or the industry in general, I'd be with you. But in the end, it comes down to trusting the pollster, be it Forrester or the New York Times/CBS or Harris or Nielson's overnights.

Polling - even rigorously constructed and conducted polling - isn't presented in the press with an abundance of meaningful detail. Probably because it's all in the sampling, and sampling and statistics are so counter intuitive [e.g. The Thursday Child] that explaining why something is meaningful won't convince a typical audience member.

Ignoring statistics, it seems to me that Microsoft has been rapidly improving their image in the consumer space. It has also been my experience that Amazon has really good customer service. My gut tells me that Apple has not revamped its customer relations model recently.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Another curious soul experiments with Rejection Therapy - <AUTHOR> http://rejection.posterous.com/

<comment><USER2> I could see this as being useful for the horribly timid, but it would be annoying if it was employed by the general population. There is the underlying idea that if you aren't being rejected, then you aren't asking for enough.

I know plenty of self-centered people who ask for too much and people oblige them. Do we really need to celebrate this? Every person doing this is putting at least 30 people into the somewhat awkward situation of having to reject someone. I know I don't particularly like having to tell people "no, you can't do/have that".

How about a therapy where instead of asking for our every whim to be satisfied until someone says no, we spend 30 days thinking about what the people around us would want? Perhaps we can call it Empathy Therapy and start a blog movement!

<comment><USER3> This does pretty heartily violate Kant's categorical imperative.

<comment><USER4> That depends on how you look at it. In my philosophy, it is close to axiomatic that free exchanges leave both parties better off. Therefore, any commitment strategy which increases the number of exchanges is a win. If everybody simultaneously implemented it, it would just be a _bigger_ win. The most obvious way to disagree would be to say that the psychic transactional cost involved in rejecting an exchange swamps the value of increased trade, which is almost exactly the pathology the therapy seeks to go after.

The world is an eighth grade dance writ large, where he's too shy and she's too afraid of being forward, and both parties are a wee bit worse off for having been alone in the corner when they could have been dancing.

<comment><USER5> _In my philosophy, it is close to axiomatic that free exchanges leave both parties better off._

In externally quantifiable terms, that's something I think, too. However, there are so many personal examples where it's not really true that I'm beginning to wonder about it. For example, when a pretty girl comes up to me (as in the linked blog) and asks me for something I would be reluctant to provide her with, the very act of asking me has already made me worse off. At this point, it's true, I can make myself better off than I now am by doing whichever I would really prefer, but I would be better off still had she not asked.

<comment><USER6> In what way has the very act of asking made you worse off?

<comment><USER5> Because the outcomes available to me have reduced from the three: "continue as before", "disappoint [person] in front me", or "feel upset about giving someone X when I would have preferred not to", to only the last two. The first option, which could well have been the best outcome in my opinion, has been removed by the act of asking.

Edit: changed the other individual to "person" to be clearer.

<comment><USER6> What about politely refuse and still feel good (or, feel as before) and let person take care of their own disappointment or not?

<comment><USER5> Because I do not want to become a person who doesn't care about his effect on others.

<comment><USER6> If you think your refusal _makes them_ sad, do you think you have a kind of telepathy? Isn't believing you control the outside world with your mind an indication of schizophrenia?

<comment><USER5> Is this really the path you want to go down?

<comment><USER6> It's an illustration by absurdity that your thoughts are limiting you and making you unhappy, and that there are other ways to think which are still compatible with being a good person and a moral person.

For as long as you hold in your head the belief that your refusal is what hurts people then you are going to be unhappy about being asked questions.

If instead you held the belief that their expectations and demands in their head is what hurts them, then you would be free to accept or refuse politely and in good conscience, and still be able to be a person who "considers how he affects others".

The fact that you cannot consider saying no is what makes a joke out of your comment "I don't want to be a person who doesn't care about his effect on others". At the moment you are forced to accept regardless of whether you care or not. Caring doesn't come into it, they ask and you force yourself to accept, you don't get to choose or consider.

If you didn't force yourself to accept because you were no longer afraid that it was _you_ hurting them, then you would be free to consider their request unpressured and respond however you felt like at the time, but still respond based on your morals and so on.

At the moment you say you are someone who cares, but you act in a way that you ignore your consideration and decisions and marginalise your caring making it subservient to a fixed instruction. You say you don't want to be someone who doesn't care, but changing that part of you would free you up to be someone who can care and isn't forced to act one way or the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-priori It bugs me when I read these Rejection Therapy stories and I see them using it as an excuse to be a jerk, like lying to a taxi driver and asking for a free fare.

In one of the other stories, they said that it's about making a human connection with people you otherwise wouldn't have. I think that's a beautiful idea, and makes me want to try it. But this "I'm going to try to exploit your goodwill and see if I can get away with it" thing? No thanks.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's hard not to notice that 1) she's a young, attractive, and seemingly friendly female, 2) she only tells of approaching guys, and 3) she doesn't seem to be asking for anything outlandish or threatening. Small wonder she's had a hard time getting rejected.

<comment><USER8> Yes, and now she has a lunch date with a young, wealthy and attractive male who probably has few opportunities to meet an appropriate partner and yet who is perfectly staged to find a mate.

So seems that things are working precisely as they should.

<comment><USER9> Max Levchin's married (and, judging by his Quora questions of late, also has a kid.) The lunch is purely professional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I started the 30 day challenge yesterday and I was surprised a) how hard it was to get out of my comfort zone and b) how hard it was to actually get rejected.

It wasn't until the end of the day when I finally got a headshake of disapproval and got my rejection.

I imagine it'd be even tougher for a cute and innocent looking girl to get rejected. Good luck to her!

<comment><USER11> sometimes it is just easier to grant a small favor to a jerk than to spend any mental energy rejecting/arguing with him.

The most important safety rule on the road - "yield to the moron".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The cab thing is basically taking advantage of being a girl.

<comment><USER13> Maybe we need a 'Say No Therapy' too.

EDIT: I also think it's unfair to say the OP is taking advantage of being a girl. If the OP is being honest in her account, she legitimately believed the cabbie would say No. It's naive to think just because you think being a girl means she can get her way means the OP believes the same.

<comment><USER12> Yes I see your point. What occurred to me is that what she has learned in that specific case, of getting a free cab fare worth $30 or $60, is something that many attractive young women learn about men. Knowing how to work it and being able to can be a ego booster as long as one is young and attractive. It is not however necessarily something that benefits the world, nor is it necessarily good for the person in the long run as their beauty fades and they find men are not as accommodating. The lessons learned in this specific situation, while important, are not the same as the general lessons of "rejection therapy" where one learns to take more risks as a life hack. Once the learning branches into getting free stuff because one is a pretty girl, then it's really a different issue. My observation is that free cab fare just for asking is something that is not available to men. To make sure, I even tried it out last night and was told "GFY" by the cabbie. I'll keep trying on occasion, but I am pretty sure I am right that this one has a strong gender age and looks component to how it works.

Also, want to make clear the cab was the only one I felt this was the driving factor since it was a pretty expensive free gift for a businessman to just hand over to anyone. The forklift lessons were a pretty good and reasonable one since it's not a common request, you learn a useful skill, and the driver often will enjoy it as well so that all parties benefit. In my opinion, the sorts of deals one wants to work with their confidence and curiosity are ones that benefit all parties, and not only one sided.

<comment><USER13> Again, if we trust the OP in their account the only reason she asked for the ride was because she expected the cabbie to say no. I hope she doesn't see this as an indication that she deserves free cab rides.

Btw, not sure where you live but it must be McRichVille if a 20 minute walk is a $30 - $60 cab ride.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> An interesting experiment done more than 30 years ago and the impact in their lives: [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05E4DF1130F...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05E4DF1130F937A2575AC0A9629C8B63&pagewanted=all)

<comment><USER12> That is extremely interesting, the experiment finding out that the effect on the person asking the favor was the most striking dynamic of all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I still don't understand this whole thing - I get rejected multiple times a day all the time! For god's sake, what's a hacker good for if not for being socially inept?

<comment><USER16> Many shy people tend to avoid situations where they think they may get rejected. I think the point of the experiment is to show them that they could be happier / better off if they didn't take rejections so personally / weren't afraid of getting rejected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This seems like a situation where the one would have to be very careful to adhere to the spirit rather than the letter of the challenge. The possible positive outcomes are really great though. I've often been pleasantly surprised (even overwhelmed) at how far people are willing to go to help me, often at great trouble to themselves.

<comment><USER11> because people think that you really need what you're asking for. By asking without need, you're exploiting the human species community safety net. Only a jerk would reject a request for help, and only a jerk would exploit that situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I suppose rejection therapy using internet personals every day would be way too easy!

<comment><USER19> Are you free for lunch on Thursday? Your treat,

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Has anyone tried Feynman's not so subtle approach: "Will you sleep with me tonight?"

</comment><comment><USER21> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility> explains social rejections</comment>


Married men work harder, smarter and make more money - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/04/02/dont-be-a-bachelor-why-married-men-work-harder-and-smarter-and-make-more-money/

<comment><USER2> I call 'conflict of interest'.

"W. Bradford Wilcox directs the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and serves as a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies."

Maybe it's all above board, correct to 6 nines, and truly illustrative of the world as it is... but color me suspicious. It reads to me that it's a bit like a press packet about the benefits of XYZ from a company who's purpose is to promote XYZ.

I would love to hear more about the exceptions to the flashy headline. Does the effect drop off at higher wages? What about people working in foreign countries? What about gay people?

</comment><comment><USER3> And according to Philip Greenspun they lose most of it in divorce.

</comment><comment><USER4> Married men are pressured to make more money. "motivation" or bondage ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Why can it not be both?!

<comment><USER5> Definitely both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I currently make enough to support both the wife and I. We are both child-free and keeping it that way.

Making double what I would be currently if I was not married.

<comment><USER6> Why's that?

<comment><AUTHOR> If I did not get married I would have stayed in the military. Being a civilian doing the same exact job I'm making twice as much now.</comment></comment></comment>