From hacker to hospice in seven weeks - <AUTHOR> http://www.benjamincburns.com/2014/11/30/from-hacker-to-hospice-in-seven-weeks.html <comment><USER3> I would like to take this opportunity to remind our fellow hackers to be aware of changes within your own body. Being alert to physical and/or mental changes and relaying concerns to your doctor is one the best methods for overcoming several diseases and cancers.

As a personal testimony, about ten months ago user ifktaotc made a very helpful comment regarding testicular cancer and it's prevalance among young men warning that it was likely that at least some of those reading his comment will have it or already do so. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7120102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7120102)

After reading I checked myself and found what was confirmed a few days later to be a cancerous mass.

I am very fortunate to be alerted to the fact very early as aside from some initial surgery it hasn't affected the rest of my life. Even though the odds of survival overall are high, not knowing it earlier would have required much more intense and painful treatment (chemo, RPLND).

<comment> k-mcgrady Glad you're doing well saboot. I just had to say I find it pretty amazing that a comment online can have this sort of effect on someone's life!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As many HN readers don't have children, they may be inclined to see Nicola's pregnancy as a tragedy of some kind. Truly it is sad that this child will live without its father, but it's also a gift to the world -- a bit of Steven, living on. It will be a continuing gift to Steven's loved ones to have a permanent, living piece of Steven, a continuance of himself after he slips into the eons. When you get that kind of gift, as sad as everything else around it may be, it almost feels like cheating.

I just feel like this is a perspective that may not be immediately realized among groups of people that don't have their own children. I know before I had children, I would have only viewed it as tragic.

<comment><USER5> As weird as this might sound, having children has given me a significant sense of relief for similar reasons to those outlined in your comment, even though I'm far from a natural parent (but I'm working at it!)

Being a bit of a paranoid and morbid guy at the best of times, reproducing seemed inherently and intrinsically important to me in some hard to quantify way, and I feel so much mentally better for having descendants. I can't really explain it well though and have chalked it up to one of those messy, animalistic "instinct" things.

<comment><USER6> > As weird as this might sound,

Not necessarily weird - you sound just as self-obsessed as the rest of us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know I'll get downwoted for this, nevertheless ..

I don't know how about Steven and Nicola, however I myself would mind having certain intimate moments shared with general public (e.g. overheard phone conversations, etc ..)

Having sad that, I feel for Steve's and Nicola family. It's always tough.

<comment><AUTHOR> No need for the preface - it's a fair thing to say.

I hemmed and hawed about whether to post this article at all for this exact reason. In the end I decided that if I was going to post it I should be both respectful and truthful.

I probably could've worded it better. I probably could've added some disclaimer that this is true as far as I remember, but my memory is fallible.

[Edit, as I hit post too soon]: Either way, I tried to be polite about it. This tragedy struck during a crunch time when a lot of us were feeling the need to rally together in order to make the big win. Any married person who chooses to work late on occasion experiences such a phone call.

To be clear, I didn't hear her end of any conversations. There weren't more than two or three of them that I overheard, and I wouldn't have included anything about them if I thought they were terribly personal.

The struggle between work and home life is something I experience myself. It's just another parallel I can't help but think about when trying to make sense of this situation. Not including it felt like I was leaving something important out of the story.

<comment><USER8> I think you made the right decision. This is a very touching and saddening story, and as you said, it's very hard not to put yourself in his shoes. I think about my family any time I read a story of a loss.

You have made a tribute to what sounds to be a wonderful person and a great friend. You have also helped to raise money for his family, which I'm sure will help---if not just a little bit---to put him at ease knowing that they have support. And you have brought further attention to cancer.

I hate having my personal affairs public, but in a case like this, I'd be happy to have my story known.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am so sorry to hear this and also so glad you posted it here, Ben. Thank you. We all get so busy in our daily details, it's nice to be reminded what's really important.

Just some quick, well intentioned feedback from someone who has lost almost every important loved one...

Please don't be angry. That may seem like a natural response, but it is wasted output, serving as input into no productive process. Life is not a problem to be solved; it is a gift to be savored, one day at a time.

Have fun doing what you love to do, but don't forget to knock off when it still makes sense today. Then go hug your love one(s). Today will be gone tomorrow and there is no algorithm to bring it back.

<comment><USER10> Death is a bad thing. Anger is appropriate. We can probably fix it. If not in time to save ourselves, we might be able to save our children. We need to start now and spend a fortune. People need to stop pretending that it's ok.

<comment><USER11> I don't want my children to grow up in a world where you have to work at McDonald's for 100 years to afford buying a small house on the outskirts of a city. All because old wealthy people just keep accruing more wealth and never returning it to the cycle of the economy.

When I look at the power structures of the modern world and the control that corporations have over our governments, I don't extrapolate positive changes should the powerful also start living forever.

Death is part of life. People need to stop pretending it's bad. If you feel it is such a bad thing, will you also cure death for every spider, every frog, every crow, every ant, every tree? What do you think will happen then? Or is life only important when it's a human?

<comment><USER12> _I don 't want my children to grow up in a world where you have to work at McDonald's for 100 years to afford buying a small house on the outskirts of a city. All because old wealthy people just keep accruing more wealth and never returning it to the cycle of the economy._

The economy doesn't work that way. You and your children are not poorer because Warren Buffett is rich.

 _Death is part of life._

So are Alzheimer's, cancer, polio, and people with bad vision being eaten by bears. Which of those should we not address?

<comment><USER11> While the economy isn't zero-sum, resources like land are. Warren Buffett isn't taking money away from people, but I still believe income & other inequality would rise if people lived forever.

I think all of those problems are worth addressing, but I don't think we should be in a mad rush to cure death itself. It is a vital part of returning resources to the cycle of life to be used anew. I think our world would be worse off if humans lived forever, it would be stale and stagnant. Finally, I think we should fix some other problems that our overpopulation and thirst for growth are causing before we try to cement that growth with eternal life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This post really hits home for me. My dad is in a similar situation as Steven after a sudden diagnosis with a very aggressive form of lung cancer. Despite a growing brain tumor, he was still tweaking database reports and writing SQL queries from home up until a few weeks ago. He made sure his coworkers were watering his plants even as he started chemo and went through full-brain radiation. He's not some startup guy and was never a workaholic, but I think working -- and the idea of returning to work -- was something he really needed. I regret not reaching out to his coworkers sooner, though. He's too sick to have any visitors now and for a guy with a reputation as a curmudgeon it seems he had a lot of people who cared about him.

</comment><comment><USER14> I had very similar situation at work, one day we found out one of the teammates passed away in his sleep (a young, heavy, although sporty person), but I would _never_ make a blog post like the one I'm commenting on. Being Nicole I would be really angry about you invading my privacy, making her tragedy all about yourself and your fear of mortality... Just saying.

<comment> k-mcgrady Everyone regards their privacy in this kind of situation differently. Some want to keep everything to themselves and others want to share. Considering the OP probably knows the family he's much better placed than any of us to make that call. It also seems like it's generated a nice response so who's to say it won't comfort the family? I guess it would be best to ask permission first but I'm sure the family has more important things to think about at this time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm so sorry to hear that. A very sad and sobering read.

I'm sure a lot of your coworkers and team are contributing, like you said, but it'd be nice to think (if they haven't already) that your actual company would make a reasonable contribution to Nicola and their future child, since it sounds like Steven gave so much to the company (albeit under compensation). I know I would for one of my key and valued employee's, if I were in a position to do so.

<comment><USER16> Yeah. My company pays for a pretty good life insurance policy and long-term disability policy for each employee (beneficiary designated by employee, of course). It really doesn't cost that much and can make all the difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't have a brain tumour, but I have had, and am still having, an experience which has made me think seriously about my mortality.

I'm 31. About three years ago I started having three/four day long bouts of total delirium, roasting fever, extreme nausea, can't even keep sips of water down when it happens - by day three or four, I'm usually too weak to move, totally dehydrated.

Two years on, my GP is still going "clearly your hygiene is terrible and you're giving yourself food poisoning", and it had got to the point where I'd be lying there, lapsing in and out of consciousness, feeling my heart stop. And start. Then stop. Then I'd turn blue. Then it'd start again. Then I'd turn back to a nice healthy jaundiced yellow.

Took myself to the far side of the planet, got diagnosed with gallstones. Not just good old fashioned gallstones, but gallstones that make an imaging tech go pale and run out of the room to bring in several other people to hemm and haww before looking at me and going "Sir, you're extremely ill.". Turns out my gall bladder ruptured years ago, due to a large collection of stones, and occasionally oozes bile and bowel contents into my innards. It has eroded my vagus nerve (hence the cardiac symptoms), damaged my liver, and I'm having surgery at some point hopefully soon to have the damned thing (gall bladder) outright removed. I can't drink any more, and my other half gives me no end of shit for smoking weed in my spare time, as it's the one thing that makes the f'ing thing stop hurting - or at least makes me not care that it hurts. I've tried various legal pharmaceuticals, but they all either make me more nauseous, or make me incredibly tired - or I can't take them because they're liver metabolised. I digress.

Anyway.

The long and the short is that knowing what's wrong with me has helped, as when I didn't know it was utterly terrifying, and while it's now still terrifying, it's a known terror, rather than my darkest fears made manifest.

I could drop dead with only a few days notice from this, and my next attack might be my last. Every time I've had a major attack, I haven't just felt like I've been dying - I _have_ been dying - and have been fortuitous enough not to. For now.

This led to the realisation that _I could drop dead at any point, regardless of this_. I mean, we're all ultimately aware of our own mortality, but until you're reminded of it every day, by perhaps an awkward "I have a stick wedged under my ribs and looking at things makes me feel sick" sensation, you never really _appreciate_ it.

Mortality is the ticking timer that keeps you alive.

If the mortality of others can remind us of the importance of living well, then even if just in that way alone, they persist in doing good for we the living even once they're gone.

<comment><USER18> The ineptitude of doctors never ceases to amaze me. One particularly idiotic fellow proudly announced to me and the entire office that he'd discovered I have diabetes. Even if that has been true, the manner in which he announced his pleasure at the epiphany made me want to punch him in the balls. hard. After a confused and sad ride home it only took a short talk with my extremely unqualified wife to convince me that he is mentally challenged and had no idea what he was talking about. Of course she was right.

In a fun twist, a month later I contacted a different Dr's office in the same plaza to get a new doctor. I wanted to verify it wasn't the same location, so I specifically asked if he worked there. The attendant said "No, but why do you ask?" I told her the story and she said that he had applied to be a part of their practice and, after my call, ther was an extremely slim chance of that happening. Made my day.

<comment><USER19> Hey, look at the bright side, at least yours didn't turn out to be stage IIIc cancer, after three months and two doctors assuring me "You're young! It's probably nothing." Even with a family history and scans showing an enlarged lymph node.

This is the most common story you'll hear from a cancer patient.

The most upsetting part is how critical early diagnosis is: the difference between stage II and IIIc can be the difference between 80% vs 20% five-year survival.

Good doctors are few and far between, and good diagnosticians... I dunno, me and my family have been in and out of the medical system for a while now, and I'm yet to meet one.

When you go in, do your own research, get a copy of your results, and tell them exactly what to do.

<comment><USER20> > Good doctors are few and far between, and good diagnosticians...

This has been my experience, repeatedly. The GPs I have had aren't motivated to get to the bottom of any problem that can't be solved in one 15 minute visit, and refers anything out to specialists. The specialists have all diagnosed me with whatever issues fit their specialty. No one in the US medical field seems interested in actually finding out the real problems, just what's easy for them to diagnose or fix.

After writing this I realize how cynical it reads, but it's the truth! I'm sure there are good doctors out there -- maybe in a teaching hospital?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How long until a daily brain scan and body scan is a part of everyone's routine, the same way brushing your teeth is?

Problems like these are untreatable if left for too long, but if caught early, there's sometimes hope. The solution seems to be to develop as many types of passive scanners as possible.

The problem is false positives. But wasting a month needlessly visiting the doctor doesn't seem that bad.

<comment><USER22> False positives aren't inherently a problem. If you have accurate understanding of the sensitivity and specificity of a test, then you can take action to maximise the utility of the expected outcome.

This means, for example, not necessarily performing a biopsy just because something is there (but it's probably benign). The cost of invasive procedures such as biopsies, and risk-increasing tests such as CT scans has to be balanced against their benefits.

Of course, there is no risk with a full-body MRI scan. The machine itself is expensive, but otherwise it nominally only costs electricity, maintenance and operation. If full-body scans were, as you say, routine, the cost of the machine would be amortised and an economy of scale should prevail.

The problem is legal; if a doctor sees _something_ on a scan and doesn't take action, they can be sued. This is the case even if there is negative expected utility from performing the test due to the low probability of an actual malignant condition. Due to this, it is not uncommon to hear doctors say that full-body scans do more harm than good.

Until the legal system starts to account for rational choices based on _statistical_ information, this problem is going to persist.

<comment><USER23> > Until the legal system starts to account for rational choices based on > statistical information, this problem is going to persist.

The legal system does account for this. To succeed in a malpractice action, a plaintiff must prove a defendant failed to meet the required standard of care, which means the defendant failed to exercise that degree of skill and learning ordinarily exercised under the same or similar circumstances by members of the defendant's profession.

If these "rational choices based on statistical information" you refer to are within the accepted standard of care, a doctor is not going to be successfully sued for doing so.

<comment><USER24> But at what cost? It's like saying that broad patents aren't a problem because they can 'just' be invalidated if they become a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We need to fix this, and we need to start yesterday.

"Yes, we did it, we killed the dragon today. But damn, why did we start so late?

[http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html](http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html)

If you are in a position to fund things, consider the SENS Research Foundation, instead of the next Yo app.

[http://www.sens.org](http://www.sens.org)

<comment><USER26> How effective is the institution? We throw a lot of money at problems. Are there more effective institutions or methods? Perhaps a series of X-Prizes for medicine would help? The tricolor prize, for example: [http://tricorder.xprize.org/about/overview](http://tricorder.xprize.org/about/overview)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I worked with Steven. When he was an intern I was responsible for reviewing his code. He was not as experienced as me, but he was smarter than me. I feel lucky to have worked with him, I learned a lot from him and I like to believe he learned a lot from me. Writing code, hacking wasn't just a hobby for him, it was part of his identity. The same as it is for me.

I'm not sure what to make of this. I learned of it a few days ago.

</comment><comment><USER28> If anything, this article points out one thing to me: spend your time doing what you love. If that's work, great. If you love your family or life outside of work more, do whatever you can to spend more time with them. Sacrifice by finding a stable, well-paying yet not "exciting" job that enables you to avoid 12 hour workdays that are normal.

If your significant other says you are spending too much time at work, that means you should make the choice over what is more important. You always have a choice.

</comment><comment><USER29> I have absolutely no words. My heart goes out to Steve's wife, family and friends. I think many of us can relate to the long hours part of the story, the strain that it puts on relationships is real. We have all been there at one stage or another, the inevitable you are always working late and I never get to see you call/in person conversation. Not to mention the effects of sleep deprivation can be serious, there have been quite a few studies that have linked sleep deprivation to a lot of things including serious disease, reduced cognitive ability and even kill brain cells.

If there is one thing we can take from this it is: you don't know how long you have got in this life. Family is always more important than work, I think we should all remind ourselves every once in a while we have a husband or wife at home, possibly kids, who love seeing us and need your time just as much as your employer does. Jobs come and go, family is for life.

</comment><comment><USER30> > Aside from the anger, there's another feeling I just can't shake. I'm not > sure it has a name... It's impossible for me to be a witness to this > situation and not think "what if it were me?"

Um, you're not the first person to contemplate your own mortality. The usual term for it is _memento mori_ , and has been a major component of culture and art for thousands of years: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori)

<comment><USER6> Right now, it's more of a relieving thought really. In the sense that - <USER2> matter how much I screw up, none of it will matter when I'm dead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> In 2000 my mother was diagnosed with malignant brain tumors after experiencing similar symptoms (nausea, vomiting, fatigue, "vertigo" like dizziness). She had surgery within days and began radiation treatment within a few weeks... but lost the battle no more than 6 weeks after first discovering the tumors. I was 10 at the time with brothers age 14 and 18.

Very sorry to hear about your friend. Brain cancer is a terrible, tragic condition that can steal your loved ones when you least expect it.

</comment><comment><USER32> fwiw, I think it's good to contemplate death and sad stories like this one remind us of it. If we all took 5 minutes each day to think about our own death, and that it can happen to us at virtually any moment, the world would be different. Better, I assume.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is terrifying story, my question is what we can do , so less people suffer from it. Here are few of my suggestions. I am curious about your opinion:

1\. Obviously take care about your health.

2\. Send as much money as you comfortable can to somewhere, where you think it might make the biggest difference.

3\. Support indirectly companies which focuses on these problems. As consumer you can give them feedback on their apps. You can promote them amongst the friends(although make sure you aren't promoting some pseudoscience nonsense). You can choose to buy products from companies which helps the good cause.

4\. Work on problem your self directly in work or in free time, by working on open source project, helping some organization.

5\. Inform others about science. Many people don't trust the science, doesn't understand basic of scientific research, which can obviously hurt the research (by less funding, cancellation of research), helps ineffective pseudo- scientific treatment.

6\. Give info to others about different treatments, and scientific breakthroughs. Many people have information about last treatments only through news, who can care more about great headline than boring truth.

7\. Use your pc/mobiles by joining programs like Folding@home.

Any other tips?

</comment><comment><USER34> So I'm somewhat confused by the responses to this post. It seemed to me that his long hours at work contributed to his developing the disease. But ppl seem to be responding as if he had a natural inclination to developing it, and that we should accept it.

So there's absolutely nothing to learn here aside from "visit the doctor often"?

<comment><USER35> >> It seemed to me that his long hours at work contributed to his developing the disease.

What on earth makes you say that? Is there a documented link between working long hours and getting cancer? Citation please.

<comment><USER36> [http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/stress](http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/stress)

"Evidence from experimental studies does suggest that psychological stress can affect a tumor's ability to grow and spread. For example, some studies have shown that when mice bearing human tumors were kept confined or isolated from other mice—conditions that increase stress—their tumors were more likely to grow and spread (metastasize). "

<comment><USER35> From that very same link:

"Although stress can cause a number of physical health problems, the evidence that it can cause cancer is weak."

But they do make some statements that seem to support the idea as well.

<comment><USER36> I think it's more along the lines of "stress isn't proven to cause cancer, but if you have cancer then it may cause it to regress".

Also, given that stress significant suppresses the immune system, and that the immune system is important for protecting against cancer growth, I think it is highly unlikely that stress _wouldn 't_ affect cancer.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> A cousin of mine recently lost her life in a very short battle with cancer. She was only 41 years old -- both of her parents still living. In the past few years there have been a lot of deaths among my family and friends. Some of them were very old, some very young, and some in-between.

I would like to encourage readers here to consider this. Your life here is temporary. Even if you are very healthy your whole life, one day you will take your last breath, and it will be over.

It is easy to get wrapped up in everyday life. Pursuing your goals and dreams, or perhaps just barely getting by, living day to day. I think most people tend to push off thinking about their own mortality.

And as it is, most of us have no idea how much longer we have. We could be here 50 or 60 more years, or we could die tomorrow in some sort of accident.

So the question I would like to pose is this:

Are you prepared for your own death?

Do you have any idea what will happen to you when you die? It is going to happen. Isn't it worth considering what the possibilities are, and spending at least some time exploring the question?

I believe I have shared this before here (at least to some extent). I am a Christian, and I believe the Bible is direct revelation from God. I believe there is life after death, and that the only hope for a peaceful existence after death is found by believing in Jesus Christ in this life. I would like to encourage anyone here to read for themselves about Jesus' life on Earth, and make their own decision as to whether they should believe in Him. I think the best place for you to start reading about Him is in the Bible, in the gospel of John ( [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NKJV&search=Jo...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NKJV&search=John%201) ). That book will give you enough information, IMHO, to make an informed decision about Him.

<comment><USER38> Why become a Christian out of multitude of religions?

And if one is to become Christian then which one (Catholic, Lutheran, etc etc)?

I've read some Christian apologestics (Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, GK Chesteron, CS Lewis et al) and they spin a good yarn but obviously you can not reason your way into/out of religion.

So why should one believe Jesus was the Real Thing and Brian was not ?

One way I can see religion working if there is a way to reconcile most of world's religions (that is they are all working to the same end just from different directions). This is what a Lutheran pastor was proposing to me that all Abrahamic religions were working towards the same goal, but that leaves the problem of Jesus.

Second way would be the second coming. This would be even more effective. Why settle for some miracles 1970 years ago, when you could do real miracle stuff every once in a while to remind people that God is indeed something they should consider. Otherwise we get some questionable miracles like the gold plates from Mormons etc.

Until I can figure this out I am doomed to remain in "conscious meat" category.

<comment><USER39> _One way I can see religion working if there is a way to reconcile most of world 's religions (that is they are all working to the same end just from different directions)._

 _Second way would be the second coming. This would be even more effective. Why settle for some miracles 1970 years ago, when you could do real miracle stuff every once in a while to remind people that God is indeed something they should consider. Otherwise we get some questionable miracles like the gold plates from Mormons etc._

So if you believed that Christianity _is_ the only religion you would be a Christian and if you believed it's the Egyptian mythology then you would believe in Seth and Osiris?

This doesn't really look like you feel any genuine need to believe in any religion; it looks like you expect "others" to provide you with verified, certified-correct worldview.

That's unfortunately a typical symptom of overdose on media and schooling.

You may read religious texts and if something sounds "right" stick to it. You may act on the world, observe it and discover its rules. You may strive to recognize others' influence on you and filter it critically. In any case, you have to work.

Only lemmings get free lunch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I've had a couple friends taken out by cancer over the last 2-3 years. Each time was pretty sudden; one I found out a month after he died, the other I had maybe a day of warning. Both of these people were great engineers that I looked up to, and it's still hard to believe they are gone.

Harlan Ellison has a rant, written when he was my current age, about how many of his friends were dying and that it _sucked_. (I wish I could find what he wrote but my books are all boxed up at the moment). He had eloquent and angry and, well, Harlan-esque words for the experience.

I remember my friends when I can, and write about them from time to time so that others can share my memories of how cool and great and human they were. That's the best I can do.

</comment><comment><USER41> If people donate nothing towards ameliorating diseases of ageing[0], then what's to be expected?

People die. People get sick. Everyone you, and I, know is probably going to suffer and perish.

The poor soul in the blog post sounds like he got struck down in his prime; but rest assured, your time is coming in a matter of decades.

Accept death/disease or do something about it; but don't be shocked when it happens! Statistically, it's going to happen in increasing rates as you, your family, your friends, and everyone you know gets older.

Being blindsided by death is odd. A cognitive bias?: 'It won't happen to me'. But, quite frankly, it most probably will!

[0] [http://www.sens.org/](http://www.sens.org/)

<comment><USER42> As someone that is overly conscious about my own mortality, and fear of it. I can see it being much more preferable "in the moment" to be oblivious to such things awaiting us. And at times I really don't understand why people aren't afraid/concerned about their inevitable mortality.

However, I wouldn't personally choose such obliviousness. I'd rather know, and perhaps plan for it, and do my best to mitigate it as far as I can.

<comment><USER41> You should check out longecity.org, if the subject interests you, zo1.

Edit: In particular, the forum! [http://www.longecity.org/forum/](http://www.longecity.org/forum/)

<comment><USER42> Thanks for the link, I'll definitely check it out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I am in no way trying to downplay the severity of this post, but I had a very different reaction when I read this. My reaction was, "Why did the head of the division tell the group about his condition in detail?" Maybe it is because I live in America, and maybe it is because I know someone who had cancer and was reprimanded by HR for discussing his cancer -- and survival from it -- on an internal work forum.

My preference would be to work in a place where people can talk openly about their conditions, if they so choose. It seems like in the litigious country where I live, this isn't possible.

Has anyone had similar experiences?

<comment><USER44> If the employee discusses the illness on their own, there are no laws in the US to say they can't. Where you get sticky is if you discuss it without their consent. That's a big-time no-no.

I think you are either mixed up in the details, or have an overly aggressive HR rep.

<comment><USER43> I know the guy personally. The company has Socialcast and someone posted a fundraiser for a charity that helps people who are fighting cancer. My friend posted saying basically, "I had cancer and this organization helped out my family... try and help if you can." Someone from HR removed the comment and told him he cannot talk about his medical details on the forum.

Agree though... one company, one comment, one HR dept; your milage will vary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> That's a rough read mate.

</comment><comment><USER46> I didnt directly experience a death until my 40s. When I've talked about I've run into even older people that have not directly experienced a death. We live in age-stratified communities where death happens infrequently to young adults. And we have a modern health system which has made death rare among younger people. I had to be a care-giver for a few months. I learned a lot about peole and medicine and dont regret it a bit.

</comment><comment><USER47> Extremely sad news, with a kid on the way myself I can't even imagine what Nicola's going through. Thanks for sharing such a tough post.

</comment><comment><USER48> "If you're uncomfortable donating directly to an individual, please consider making a donation to Cancer Society of New Zealand in Steven's name."

They will need way more money than this. If uncomfortable giving to an individual, you shouldn't feel this way because this is about giving money to a family in need. This money needs to cover a lot of personal expenses and a soon to be born child.

</comment><comment><USER49> Such instances always make me wonder if it's worth putting so much effort in chasing dreams, when there are chances of I dying anyday, just like that. Nothing else will matter.

<comment><USER50> These instances are exactly why it _is_ worth chasing your dreams. We are all going to die, the issue is only _when_.

Don't you want to have spent your time doing something meaningful to you?

<comment><USER51> This is of course under the assumption that what you will do (in this case work) has the capability of bringing meaning to yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'm having issues donating through the givealittle.co.nz service... My VISA gets rejected. Does anybody know if it's possible to donate via PayPal?

<comment><AUTHOR> Even if it doesn't go through - thanks so much for the sentiment.

That said, Givealittle is located in New Zealand, and they're charging New Zealand Dollars. It's likely your bank is blocking the foreign transaction, or that they don't offer foreign currency conversion services.

If you're keen to donate I'd send a note to Givealittle's customer service. I'm sure they'll get you sorted.

Thanks once again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Such a moving post. Really sad. I had to hold back the tears in the middle of the office reading it! Always seems to happen to the best people.

</comment><comment><USER54> Site is down. Anyone have a cached version?

<comment><USER55> Seems to be back up (at least it worked for me).

However, google has a cached version if you still need it:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8-vKw53...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8-vKw53irssJ:www.benjamincburns.com/2014/11/30/from- hacker-to-hospice-in-seven-weeks.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> one advice that has stuck with me:

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

Abraham Lincoln

<comment><USER57> There's no evidence that Lincoln actually said this, although it remains good advice.

[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/14/life-years- count/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/14/life-years-count/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Kia kaha out to his family and friends.

</comment><comment><USER59> This is absolutely heartbreaking.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'm sad for Steven and for all the other software engineers who tell similar stories.

I don't have math or numbers on this- does anyone?- but I can tell from personal experience that just about every time some software engineer my age becomes mortally ill, it's brain cancer. There is something unstudied about what we do that causes problems.

Personally, I had my biggest scare a couple years ago while I was working on a deeply nested, recursive algorithm. Trying to keep the whole thing in my head caused me to stay awake at night. Eventually, I had a fainting spell at a sushi bar, an ambulance was called, and ultimately the doctor thought I'd had a a massive heart attack.

This didn't turn out to be true, thank God, and they never found the biological cause. But I swear to this day that it was the algorithm gnawing on my brain. I don't know that I've been the same engineer since.

There's a terrible risk in our business and no one is researching it. I almost feel like we software engineers are like 3 pack a day smokers before enough science and research was done to prove to the public that smoking causes cancer.

Software engineering can cause brain cancer.

<comment><USER60> Downvoted to -3 for suggesting that software engineering can cause brain cancer?

<comment><USER61> Software engineering is a new field, but mathematics isn't, and both require intense bouts of thinking. Is there _any_ study that suggests that mathematicians have a higher cancer rate? or for that matter, anyone that thinks all day?</comment></comment></comment>


Do Schools Kill Creativity? - <AUTHOR> http://www.learnboost.com/do-schools-kill-creativity/

<comment><USER2> This quote should be printed out and put on the wall:

 _"They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way. We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities."_

I think this is one of the reasons why start-ups and small companies are often more flexible than larger companies. In a small group you know that even if a person makes a mistake, that person can be great.

When you add more layers of people between an employee and the person who controls your career and salary, the employee is more likely to be measured using statistics. A failure will stand out and could impact the salary.

<comment><USER3> Mistakes are essential for learning, growth, and becoming great.

Corollary: While great people don't make the easy mistakes any longer, they'll focus on making great mistakes because that's where they're learning _at_.

<comment><USER4> Mistakes might be great for learning, but that does not mean that they should be praised, or that there should not be disincentives for making mistakes.

Mistakes have consequences, great mistakes have great consequences. I do not therefore think that great people make great mistakes. Otherwise, we probably would not know of their existence.

<comment><USER3> They _should_ be praised. Fear mistakes, fear disincentives, avoid any consequences, and you fear life!

By definition of what a mistake is, you certainly don't want to make mistakes as soon as you've learned how to do (what you want to do) without making them. By merely making mistakes, any mistakes, you won't grow.

But you know that you're growing in life when you gain new problems to replace the old problems. And when you're working on something new, you'll always be making mistakes. New mistakes. It's those you don't want to fear, disincentivize, or avoid.

If you don't make mistakes, you're either too shy to not challenge yourself on anything you might not know well enough already, or you're the perfection itself and you know everything already.

<comment><USER4> Depending on the context not challenging yourself or being too shy might be a mistake in itself.

I do think many of us do not like mistakes, do not purposely aim for them, do try not to make mistakes, etcetera, but we still do make mistakes. Just because we dislike something does not mean that something does not occur.

I agree with you, we grow by making mistakes, where I disagree is that children should be free to do whatever they wish, yeah shoot that man, yeh boy go in front of the car, yes child do not do your homework, yes give the wrong answer to 2+2.

So I think my point is that mistakes are not a great thing, are not something to be romanticised, idolised, whatever. They have a use of course, but the consequences of mistakes can be painful.

Also, we have been taught all our life to be conformist, yet many of us do not always conform, we have been taught all our life to not make mistakes, yet many of us do not live in absolute fear of making mistakes, are not completely stagnant and do nothing but lay in our bed all day for otherwise we might make a mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not much more than any other source of growing up. From "Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art" by Stephen Nachmanovitch:

"Schools can nurture creativity in children, but they can also destroy it, and all too often do. Ideally, schools exist to preserve and regenerate learning and the arts, to give children the tools with which they may create the future. At worst, they produce uniform, media-minded grown-ups to feed the marketplace with workers, with managers, and with consumers."

....

"But we have not yet gotten down to the marrow of the matter. We have been talking as though there were something called "society" that defends itself against creativity by all the means we've mentioned above: education, specialization, fear of the new, fear of raw creative power. There is no such thing as society, there is no such thing as institutions, schools, the media, and the rest of it. There are only people doing their imperfect best at doing their imperfect jobs. The marrow of the matter is that however we might restructure society, however many resources an enlightened regime might bestow on the fostering of creativity and the arts and sciences and freewheeling education dedicated to the deep exploration of mind, spirit, and heart, we would still be in the same soup. There is something called growing up, which happens to us no matter what our circumstances. We all have learned what it feels like to be betrayed for the first time, the second time, the third time, when our innocence gets stripped away, and we jump from innocence to experience. There is a point, or rather a long series of points, at which our innocence and free play of imagination and desire collides with reality, with the limits of is and is not, with the limits of what can and cannot be.

"Everything we have said so far should not be construed merely as an indictment of the big bad schools, or the media or other societal factors. We could redesign many aspects of society in a more wholesome way--and we ought to--but even then art would not be easy. The fact is that we cannot avoid childhood's end; the free play of imagination creates illusions, and illusions bump into reality and get disillusioned. Getting disillusioned, presumably, is a fine thing, the essence of learning; but it hurts. If you think that you could have avoided the disenchantment of childhood's end by having had some advantage--a more enlightened education, more money or other material benefits, a great teacher--talk to someone who has had those advantages, and you will find that they bump into just as much disillusionment because the fundamental blockages are not external but part of us, part of life. In any case, the child's delightful pictures of trees mentioned at the beginning of this chapter would probably not be art if they came from the hands of an adult. The difference between the child's drawings and the childlike drawing of a Picasso resides not only in Picasso's impeccable mastery of craft, but in the fact that Picasso had actually grown up, undergone hard experience, and transcended it."

</comment><comment><USER6> This exactly what Seymore Papert talks about in Mindstorms. he uses debugging as a method to teach children to not fear making mistakes. In fact mistakes are the norm. Written in the eighties. That's how education should be done.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes.

<http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/>

<http://groups.google.com/group/taking-children-seriously/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes, schools exist to teach social conformity and to prepare you for a lifetime of working for corporations.

There is no question that part of this involves absolutely smothering creativity. Whether it is a primary goal or a side effect, I'm not sure.

</comment><comment><USER9> I watched this video a few times over the past couple years. Of course, schools kill creativity, but the real sad part is that schools were always designed to kill creativity and the nature of mass education will never change.

Excelling in school is training to be a worker/consumer. I won't knock this lifestyle, but I wouldn't expect the most innovative artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and leaders to be people who fit in really well in the mass education system.

School is simply a detention center for the masses, and we all know this, even if we're not willing to accept the facts and the consequences.

</comment><comment><USER10> Stop the trend of athletics over art and that might help creativity.

Remove the federal government from schools to stop the standardization of the school system and that might help.

Try to change the way smart kids are thought of in school and make it where they are the cool kids.

Stop giving medals and trophies to every kid and only to those who win. If students realize that they are going to have to work to be #1 then they might get more creative.

Just some thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER11> Grade school nurtured my creativity. The only way I could get through the boredom of it was through sketching and daydreaming.

<comment><USER12> I've thought that about my years in parochial schools. They're like training grounds or boot camp. Kids tend to either get molded into docile worker bees, or develop a skewed sense of humor and the mental wherewithal to get over without getting kicked out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mindless consuming kills creativity; whether at school or at home. Got to stop that and engage people to _do something_ of their own.

</comment><comment><USER14> School only kills creativity if you let it. Unfortunately, in general, to really succeed at school (and I say 'at school' to mean school as a system), you _cannot_ take risks. It's a simple transaction: You give us your _time_ (and that is really what you are giving up) and we give you a good grade. Points off for deviating from or questioning the standard model.

I just graduated high school. My English teacher, who's class I found interesting most of the time, said for a final grade: memorize 25 lines of Shakespeare and recite for an A.

Fuck that, I'll go learn C or something. (To his credit, he didn't count the grade when I flat out refused to do the assignment)

School, for the most part, is about memorizing and convincing teachers to give you a good grade. That's all it is. _It's a game_ where the goal is to get the highest GPA regardless of what it's supposed to represent. Every one once in a while, I would get a teacher who understood that the purpose of school is education, that students are there to learn. Definitely those were my favorite classes.

And while we're talking about schools I'd like to rant about AP Computer Science: I find it offensive that they actually have the balls to call it 'Computer Science'. I took the AP test, got a 5. It should be called "Can You Recall Some Peculiarities of Java Off Hand?". Thousands of kids have taken this class, they've memorized a few facts about Java, and now they think that's what Computer Science is all about.

<comment><USER15> Frankly, there are a lot of worse ways to spend your time than memorizing some lines of Shakespeare. Of course, one would prefer to have one's choice and not get stuck with a real dog of a passage.

<comment><USER16> I wish I could upvote you higher. The ability to commit complex information to memory is an immensely valuable building block for creativity. It's sad when education is _only_ memorization and it's equally sad when education _neglects_ memorization.

<comment><USER14> I fail to see how lines from Shakespeare are 'complex [pieces of] information'. They're just words arranged in a particular order.

When memorization happens out of convenience that's a great thing. I have no problem asking students to memorize the derivatives of transcendental functions after they have derived them. It's good to memorize things that appear frequently in the line of work.

For what purpose does memorizing Shakespeare serve?

<comment><USER17> _For what purpose does memorizing Shakespeare serve?_

Shakespeare is clever, bawdy, and often amusing, and you have to be even more clever to understand it. A lot his wordplay is based on idioms no longer in active use.

Take, for example, Act 1, Scene 1 ([http://www.shakespeare- literature.com/Romeo_and_Juliet/2.htm...](http://www.shakespeare- literature.com/Romeo_and_Juliet/2.html))

SAMPSON

      'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I
      have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the
      maids, and cut off their heads.

GREGORY

      The heads of the maids?

SAMPSON

      Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;
      take it in what sense thou wilt.

'Maidenheads' as a colloquial term for a woman's virginity (or more crudely, her hymen).

Or Act 1, Scene 3

NURSE

      And since that time it is eleven years;
      For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,
      She could have run and waddled all about;
      For even the day before, she broke her brow:
      And then my husband--God be with his soul!
      A' was a merry man--took up the child:
      'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
      Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
      Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,
      The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'
      To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
      I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
      I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;
      And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'

The nurse is speaking of her husband and Juliet. As a small child, she 'waddled all about', fell on her face and 'broke her bow'. The husband asks, amused -- when you have more wit, will you not fall on your back? The young Juliet clearly innocently replies 'Ay', likely sending everyone tittering -- to fall on her back when she has more wit is an oblique reference to her having sex (on her back) when she's older (has more wit).

It's crude, inappropriate, and -- at least to me -- pretty damn funny, in the story's context. It also has a hell of a lot to do with "words arranged in a particular order", and the nuances of the meanings of words. Memorizing it forces you to study the text more deeply than you likely have before.

I've never made use of Shakespeare as a programmer, but I still remember reading his works in school -- and the significant appreciation I had for the art and cleverness of it. I even memorized the entire Queen Mab Speech for extra credit (I'm glad I didn't refuse!). It did help that I went to a private school where the teacher was intelligent enough to explain the word-play to us, and didn't avoid the less appropriate aspects of it.

<comment><USER14> I've found that process of deciphering Shakespeare is as exhilarating as attempting to comprehend a new topic in mathematics. It feels like I'm using the same parts of my brain. I do really enjoy reading and understanding Shakespeare.

Memorizing Shakespeare, though, has nothing to do with this process. Of course one needs a working memory of the text to put it all in context, but rote memorization of a passage is orthogonal to understanding it.

<comment><USER18> Asking students to memorize Shakespeare is a proxy for asking them to understand it. By asking them to memorize it, anyone with an intellect and an interest will take the opportunity to study it, while still leaving incapable students with a way to make the grade.

If you don't think that incapable high school students ought to have a way to make the grade, you have a problem with a lot more than this teacher's assignment.

That said, I think there are much worse things a teenager could do with his time than simply memorizing passages of literature. The art that lives in my mind has given me great comfort and inspiration already in my short life.

<comment><USER14> That's an interesting perspective. I think you may be right. The problem is that, when I've understood a passage from Shakespeare -- really understood it -- I still cannot recite it verbatim. I can tell you what it means, I could write a paper on it if you wanted me to, but memorizing it and being able to repeat it back to you word for word has nothing to do with my understanding of it. So, in my experience, it's a really poor proxy to assess one's understanding of the text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _We don't need no education

We dont need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teachers leave them kids alone

Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!

All in all it's just another brick in the wall.

All in all you're just another brick in the wall._</comment>


Ask HN: How to make Compete track our website? - <AUTHOR>

Currently our website http://jackpotbuddy.com is tracked by Alexa but not Compete. Just wondering what do I have to do for them to pickup our site? <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://jackpotbuddy.com></comment>


Group Wants Mattel to Recall a Newborn Bouncy Chair With Built-in iPad Holder - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20131210/group-wants-mattel-to-recall-a-newborn-bouncy-chair-with-built-in-ipad-holder/

<comment><AUTHOR> world is moving to fast ..</comment>


Can Computer Code Be Greener? Facebook Thinks So - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1702079/what-is-the-greenest-computer-language

<comment><USER3> Ehh, pretty silly article. It's essentially just taking an old story (release of HipHop) and modifying the context to (barely) fit with current Facebook press.

<comment><USER4> I think they did a pretty good job of explaining how things work, though. They didn't make outrageous claims and they kept a sense of perspective - <USER2> emphasized the application-specific nature of things.

I especially liked the sentence "But since C++ is rawer, in a sense--closer to those ones and zeroes that computers ultimately run on--it means there is less digestion, so to speak, involved."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/terminal_colours/></comment>


Why not Io? - <AUTHOR> http://olabini.com/blog/2008/10/why-not-io/

<comment><USER2> I played around a bit with Io not too long ago, after someone recommended it to me over python (in general) for doing async network i/o. It seemed like a pretty solid language and had a decent library, too.

I don't have much to say about Ioke other than the fact that, personally, I doubt I would have chosen to re-write the language for some arguably minor changes. Of course, I'm sure the article doesn't get into all the differences.

</comment><comment><USER3> afaik Io has major performance issues

<comment><USER4> It seems to be pretty much close to the speed of similar languages (python, ruby, etc). It loses a lot in the languages shootout[0], but that was back in January and its a very young language. It does seem to beat python in vector ops[1], so who knows what else it wins at.

Anyways, speed isn't the reason he is rewriting Io for the JVM - he wants the advantage of all the libraries already available, as well as being able to fix some small things he doesn't like.

[0]: <http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/io.php> [1]: <http://iolanguage.com/about/speed/vector/x86/>

<comment><USER5> I've been hanging around on the mailing list for a while, and it's clear to me that there has been _very_ little work going on in Io in past months. (E.g.: There are obvious bugs in the Range addon that they've known about for as long as I've been using Io.) I'd be very doubtful that we've seen any performance increases, even small ones.

The vector benchmarks show off the sort of code you wouldn't really write with Io anyway, are three years old, against Python three versions ago.

You're right that Bini doesn't seem to care about performance here, and that's fine. But it's certainly a huge problem for Io, obvious even in small scripts, that would be reason enough to fork it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ignoring morals/ethics but not legality what would you build for profit? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> A barge in international waters where I would harvest organs from willing donors in third-world countries paid for in cash and sell them to rich alcoholics and whoever else wanted them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I liked the idea of taking care of the pets of Christians who go to heaven after rapture. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/6106462/Atheists- of...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/6106462/Atheists-offer-to- care-for-Christians-pets-after-the-Rapture.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> A wishing fountain based on made-up medieval story that throwing coins in it leads to a better life. Plus a mechanism that collects those coins for me.

</comment><comment><USER4> define legal? Uber legal or just mj legal?</comment>


Ask PG: Do you every track down successful YC rejects to improve selection? - <AUTHOR>

Over the past few years, YC has rejected thousands of teams. Statistically most will end up failing or having mediocre success, but a few may end up being successful. When you learn of a successful YC reject do you go back and review their application to learn if there is a way to improve the selection process?<p>Conversely, do you re-review the applications of those team you did accept but turn out to be disappointing to learn to pick up on warning signs that were in the application, but you guys didn't notice the first time around? <comment><USER3> Yes. Whenever we discover that we missed a good startup, we go back and try to figure out why. We've changed the selection process several times because of such mistakes.

We're not so systematic about looking at the applications of groups we fund that don't do well. Partly because when we mistakenly accept a startup, the mistake is at the interview stage, and partly because we don't worry nearly as much about mistakes in that direction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Are there any lessons you learned upon going back that are particularly memorable?

<comment><USER3> Don't panic if we're funding a lot of groups on the first day of interviews; have someone take a second look at the applications Rtm gives Cs to; pay more attention to the founders than the idea.

<comment><USER4> "have someone take a second look at the applications Rtm gives Cs"

lol I am sure that can become quite a chore

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would be interesting to see what success YC would have if more emphasis was placed on the idea and less so on the founders...as an experiment. I agree that founders are important. But has there been an instance where the idea sounded great but YC was really not comfortable with the founders - <USER2> in a missed opportunity. History has shown us that you can go from a non- entrepreneur/tech to a great CEO suggesting that the idea is a not a real factor. Yet, YC admits to choosing 'lemons'. Thus, the criteria for emphasizing on the founders is certainly not without its faults and, thus, could use a revamp.

<comment><USER6> It makes sense to focus on founders over ideas because the idea frequently changes as MVP's a launched and lessons are learned. The people stay the same. YC is not stuck with the business plans that are pitched, they are stuck with the founders they accept.

Plans can change, people rarely do.

<comment><USER5> I agree with your points. But what if the idea is sound on paper? The fact that people change is a variable in itself and that is my argument. No one can truly predict that this person or that will turn out to be a good entrepreneur. The 'lemons' that are picked may well be correlated not to the idea but the founders. A weighted balance on both parts (idea and entrepreneur) is required. Or is that too rare or difficult to achieve?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> pg answered a question similar to this a couple weeks ago during Startup School. In general, his answer was that there have been some applicants that have slipped through over the years. He went on to say that since there's now a number of similar organizations like YC, a lot of the good ones that YC passes on end up getting picked up by other funds. YC is able to use that as a metric to measure their own processes and modify them over time.</comment>


Hotel booking sites to end 'misleading' sales - <AUTHOR> https://bbc.com/news/business-47141538 <comment><USER2> I learned my lesson about these sites the hard way. Hidden fees, reservations impossible to cancel or reschedule, services that were billed as "free" that actually weren't, etc. When I've asked individual hotels about this, they've told me the booking sites pay them so little money they have to nickel and dime customers for everything just to break even.

Now I only use the booking sites to find out which hotels are near where I want to go and possibly available, and I make the reservation by going to the hotel's website or calling them directly. It always works out better this way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Booking.com is just awful. You feel like you're participating in a non-stop A/B/C/D/E/F UI test.

Links open in new tabs. It shows sold-out properties by default. Filter menu changes all the time. Obsessed about offering apartments/aparthotels. Filters labelled e.g. "Hotels + more", whatever that means. Each filter click triggers a main content reload. Changing the location resets the filters...I could go on.

<comment><USER4> I'm surprised Mozilla would choose to do a promotion with them.</comment></comment>


If No One Sees It, Is It an Invention? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/business/26proto.html

<comment><USER2> What a cool/smart guy. The key insight:

"Mr. Lee encourages innovators to ask themselves, "Would providing 80 percent of the capability at 1 percent of the cost be valuable to someone?" If the answer is yes, he says, pay attention. Trading relatively little performance for substantial cost savings can generate what Mr. Lee calls "surprising and often powerful results both scientifically and socially.""

It's relatively common (and good) advice but it's super convincing in the context of the article...

</comment><comment><USER3> "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." -- Einstein

<comment><USER4> As I always say (without attribution), "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always think it's a bit of a shame when a smart innovator doesn't have a business head on his shoulders.

Apparently Mr. Lee says he doesn't have one: but I dont buy that :D posting his ideas to Youtube was a very smart move...

(I loved that video when it first appeared!)

</comment><comment><USER6> Just as an idea is worthless without it actually being implemented, a new innovation is worthless unless someone actually feels they need it.

Good for him!

</comment><comment><USER7> this ties in beautifully with yegge's recent post about marketing</comment>


Why Are America's Three Biggest Metros Shrinking? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/americas-three-biggest-metros-shrinking/597544/ <comment><USER2> Cause major metros are expensive as hell, they usually soft-ban children and parenting, they are openly hostile to quick/reliable transportation, and generally depend on lots of labour from other slightly-poorer non-local people to remain viable.

If you carefully curate your life in such a way as to have very few responsibilities or needs, city living can be a lot of fun. I get why people like it, I liked it too. And if you are wealthy, you can buy your way out of a most of these problems.

But for regular, average people, making regular average wages, city living is mostly just a long list of painful drawbacks, and most regular people couldn't afford it even if they were willing to put up with all of that.

<comment><USER3> > soft-ban children and parenting

Could you elaborate on that? My experience thus far as a parent of small children in one of the 3 metros listed in TFA has only strengthened my resolve to not move to a small city. They're just so far ahead of the smaller cities I've looked into on so many things - activities, parks and playgrounds, free public pre school, ease of locomotion for kids who aren't old and wealthy enough to drive a car. . .

I'm pretty sure the only thing other places have on us is the square footage of the house. Which, with so much cool stuff to do out in the world, we don't really end up making too much use of the square footage we have, anyway.

We go visit the grandparents in a metro of only half a million people, and by the end of the visit the kids are half crazy from lack of opportunities to get out of the house.

<comment><USER4> apartments big enough for a family can easily cost the entire sallary of a middle class person and more, and thats for a 2 bedroom shithole.

You could pay less somewhere else and get a really nice house on mortgage instead, and actually have something to show for the 40k a year you are throwing into a black hole

<comment><USER5> Yea, and now you have to have two cars (car payments, insurance, gas, car tax = $$$), and you have to worry about your kids getting hit by a car when they're outside of the house, even in their front yard.

Housing in other parts of the country is absurdly expensive too, unless you go to "low-CoL" locales, but then you run into the problem that there's no jobs there, or the jobs pay peanuts, so unless you banked a bunch of money while you were living in the high-CoL area, you're not going to be able to afford one of those nice houses anyway.

<comment><USER6> >car payments, insurance, gas, car tax = $$$

This is only as expensive as you make it (gas notwithstanding).

>and you have to worry about your kids getting hit by a car

There's a really simple solution to this. Don't worry. There's plenty of things to irrationally worry about in a city too if you want to do that.

>Housing in other parts of the country is absurdly expensive too,

Outside of places where rich people congregate they're really not.

>locales, but then you run into the problem that there's no jobs there, or the jobs pay peanuts,

So commute somewhere you can find a good job. When you're not stuck in bumper to bumper gridlock it sucks a lot less.

>so unless you banked a bunch of money while you were living in the high-CoL area, you're not going to be able to afford one of those nice houses anyway.

This is pure BS. The people that live there afford the houses somehow. Considering that mortgage lending is fairly standardized at the high end it still shouldn't be any harder to afford a local house on a local salary, if it were nobody could get that loan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article in one sentence: Housing is too expensive and there are now nice coffeeshops, bars, and restaurants in other cities across the country.

<comment><USER8> Hahaha. This is a much easier read, and yet, almost equally informative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another factor is shrinking household size. A house that before gentrification held a bunch of children, at least one parent, and often some grandparents or members of the extended family now is occupied by DINKs, retirees, or singles. Families with children of course still exist but as a smaller percentage of city households and typically with fewer children. The 2020 Census should yield some very interesting statistics on how much the average household in cities has changed just in the past decade.

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't really speak for NYC or LA, since I have never lived in either one for any appreciable amount of time, but in Chicago, it's because of vastly unequal access to public transportation. Housing demand is skyrocketing in neighborhoods near L train stations, while the population is dwindling on the west and south sides of the city where train service is virtually non- existent. Nobody wants to commute to work via two 45-minute bus rides, and driving to the loop from those far-flung neighborhoods is cost-prohibitive for all but the wealthiest people (not to mention that it won't save you much time, even if you can afford it).

<comment><USER11> West/South sides.

There is train access there. However, most people don't go because that's where the dangerous areas are. Also, the train gets pretty agressive in those areas.

> commute to work via two 45-minute bus rides,

That's pretty much what the north side of the city is districted for. It sucks, but the CTA is having budget cuts and the areas don't have that demand, and the politicians fail to understand quality infrastructure. Build a circle line, and I can guarantee you that the city will expand a lot. (Right now businesses/white-collar jobs are primarily locked into loop+west loop)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe it's because urban environments aren't really "nice". For all I hear about the joys of urban living, as espoused by others, I haven't enjoyed it much. Public transportation is crowded and smelly. Fat people take half of my seat (not nice to say, but I'm not sure how else to put it). Things are small, which for a taller guy like me, is pretty tough. As in, _every thing_ is tiny. Living spaces, shops, streets. Streets often have trash strewn on them, and don't smell particularly good. I have to keep one hand on my wallet. Sometimes, hobos got aggressive. Not as much as an issue for me, but I'd hate to be a 4'9" lady. Keeping pets is hard. Cooking food is hard. I didn't have kids, but those I knew had a hard time with them. Things are very expensive. It's loud. There's a lot of traffic. Some times (all winter and some times in summer), it's bad weather for walking. I guess I shouldn't be complaining, since I at least didn't see much in the way of human feces.

This is not to say there aren't up-sides. I like the food, and there are interesting people. It's also much easier to find certain things; for instance, a few major cities still have serious "maker shops" with tons of electronic components. Smaller ones or sub-urban areas often can't accommodate them, as they are in low enough demand that serious density is required.

Maybe this is just NYC. I didn't live there a really long time, and I guess I might have gotten used to it? Still, I like sub-urban living and empty green space. I can hardly blame people for moving out, if it's viable.

<comment><USER5> >Maybe this is just NYC.

Yeah, NYC isn't like the rest of the country. DC isn't nearly as bad in many ways. Public transit here is newer and generally nicer, though they really should run the trains more often and expand the system (this is a huge problem with NYC's MTA: it hasn't been expanded or modernized and it's hitting a brick wall). As for stuff being tiny, yeah, I saw that in NYC too: restaurant bathrooms the size of phone booths, for instance. Not in DC, or in other international cities I've been in even. There's hobos here, but I've never seen them be too aggressive. It's not as loud: NYC is special that way, because people are constantly honking their horns, and there's way too many cars. Go across the river to NJ, and you'll _immediately_ notice that people don't honk so much, it's something that's unique to NYC. There's maker shops here too. And the streets aren't as dirty as in NYC. There's tons of people here in DC who moved from NYC, I've found.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Huge caveat: "among nonimmigrants."

The article is about white flight. LA and NYC's populations have grown over the past 2 decades, and Chicago's population is roughly the same over the last twenty years.

<comment><USER14> Where do you get that?

"Third, the black population of both New York and Los Angeles peaked in the early 2000s and has since been in steady, and perhaps accelerating, decline."

And

"Chicago went from 4 percent black in 1920 to nearly 40 percent black by 1990. But this century has seen a "Reverse Great Migration," as the metro black population is on pace to halve from its peak of 1.2 million by 2030."

<comment><USER13> I literally quoted the linked article.

The author has written a number of articles on white flight. He's just couched it in different language for this publication, because the Atlantic is left- leaning and the readership likely wouldn't appreciate that term.

Also, on a factual note: every single Google search and a review of Census data and other counts of population show that LA and NYC increased in size during the time period covered by the article, which contradicts the title and summary of the article. The growth rate for both cities has shrunk because there's not much more room for either of them to physically grow, and as the 2 largest metro areas in the US, large %-based growth is extremely difficult.

It's very easy for Bumpkin, Idaho to grow by 10% over a decade if it's only starting from 50,000 people. That would be a rounding error in terms of NYC or LA population statistics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There are probably also some age-cohort demographics at play. As millennials start to have families, the suburban (or small-urban) lifestyle becomes more appealing. It's a big generation, so they pull the demographics around. Who knows, they might even drag some of their Boomer parents who were living the fun empty-nester-downtown-lifestyle back out of the big metros with them.

</comment><comment><USER16> Because large cities smell, people urinate on the streets, the air quality is very low and to add to those cons, you have to pay more to live there. Suburb living is great, the air smells good, I can't hear my neighbors unless we have a party. I suspect those that are leaving value saving for retirement over renting an overpriced apartment in a chic neighborhood. Also there are no murders in _most_ suburbs in any given year. If you live in NYC /Chicago chances are you are within a mile of a murder at least once per year. [https://maps.nyc.gov/crime/](https://maps.nyc.gov/crime/)

<comment><USER17> If suburb living is so desirable, why does it cost more to live in the city?

<comment><USER18> More jobs I guess?

<comment><USER19> This is especially true if you're part of a couple.

If one of us finds a job in New York, Boston, or Chicago, there's probably something nearby for the other too.

GE had some interesting R&D jobs in Schenectady, but unless they hired both of us, it would be a lot tricker for the other spouse to find something relevant. US universities, which are often located in small towns, sometimes offer "spousal hires", where they either create a new position for one person, or at least give them some preference when hiring. I've never heard of a company doing that, but it would certainly pique our interest (anybody need a neuro/ML guy?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well, those three cities have in thing in common, bad governments. This Results in issues like huge homeless problems, greater taxes, and less services from the taxes.

</comment><comment><USER21> Because the first generation who was essentially denied the ability to comfortably afford housing/living are now having families are having to look elsewhere to commit and start a life.

There, I spared you a click.

<comment><USER22> It's not just millennials, really successful people are starting to move to smaller metros so they can have big houses and less negatives.

There were a series of NY chefs that moved to Minneapolis to start restaurants so they could have a yard, a dog, _and_ an interesting menu customers appreciated.

<comment><USER23> One underrated factor is that culture spreads so fast nowadays.

It used to be that New York or LA were way ahead of the curve in terms of food, fashion, art, music, design, etc. People in the major cities were just cooler. And it took a few years for the vanguard to diffuse, by which time the big city folk had moved on to the wave.

It still kind of is. But much less. We're all reading the same subreddits, blogs, and tweets. A hipster coffeeshop in Jacksonville pretty much looks, sounds, feels and tastes the same as its counterpart in Brooklyn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Let me guess - cost of living ?</comment>


How can I incorporate existing LLC company in USA online? - <AUTHOR> I would like to incorporate my LLC company currently incorporated in Egypt in USA.. I want to know what is the best way to do that online and what is the best ways to open a bank account for the company online also without a physical presence in USA? <comment><USER2> That will be difficult if not impossible since you don't have a presence here. You have to have a tax I.d / SSN to be able to set that up and open a bank account.</comment>


Meritocracy doesn't exist, and believing it does is bad for you - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exist-and-believing-it-does-is-bad-for-you <comment><USER3> While the findings on discrimination based on holding meritocracy as a value are interesting, the premise of the article--that meritocracy is wrong--is itself wrong. Or at least, it's arguing against a strawman version of meritocracy in which everyone gets _exactly_ what they deserve, but I don't know anyone who believes that.

The idea of a meritocracy is that you can improve your outcome by working hard and smart. That doesn't guarantee that you'll do better, or even as well, as everyone who works less hard or smart than you. Weight lifting is a perfect example here. Train hard; gain strength. Train smart; gain more strength with less effort. But, there's always going to be someone who gets stronger with less effort than you. Does that mean you shouldn't bother with weightlifting? That it's all a scam?

</comment><comment><USER4> With any luck Olympic medals will no longer be handed out based on who crosses the finish line first!

Sure luck plays a part, but to find fault with someones accomplishments because they are lucky? Very weak argument. People succeed due to luck, perseverance, and hard work. In some cases it is smart work.

Imagine no longer finding value in a person who has started and then sold a company. They have value and merit far above someone just out of school. Simple fact.

<comment><USER5> > Imagine no longer finding value in a person who has started and then sold a > company.

This is a great point. One could imagine comparing two candidates for a job, one had started and sold a company, the other just coming out of school. For the meritocracy total-denier the two candidates have equal prospects - <USER2> it must have been luck that the one candidate was able to build and sell their company. In practice this is __completely __false, the candidate that sold their company is __light years __better than any given recent grad.

<comment><USER6> I can understand this but at the same time it could possibly go the other way. What if the person sold the company because it was going downhill? What if it wasn't properly managed and the whole thing was sold just to get rid of it? I would say someone who has experience building and selling a company has value but not in every situation and it isn't always 'light years' ahead.

<comment><USER5> I would say the fact that someone would pay for their company, no matter what the situation is, puts them light years ahead. There's no stronger signal than someone else being willing to part with cash in order to obtain the rights their work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either "essential" or "very important" when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill."

The article does not present anything to counter this widely shared belief in the UK and US.

Being rewarded for intelligence and skill is not the same as only being rewarded for intelligence and skill. The fact that luck is a factor does not mean that skill is not a factor. Or that hard work is not a factor.

I'm not sure if the author is accidentally conflating this illogical leap, or purposely trying to mislead.

Meritocracy, to me, does not mean some Star Trek episode world where only merit determines position. I think it means that merit is the most influential determinant. I would like to see some research of the impact of skill vs luck. Meritocracy is preferable, I think, to other systems like heredity or seniority or equity based on random factors.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you get significantly better grades than your peers, you can land yourself a high income job, no matter how poor you grow up. Many US immigrants take advantage of this, and have achieved single generation jumps from lower class to upper middle class. I have known several, personally. Isn't this the definition of meritocracy?

<comment><USER8> I would say that it is a facet of meritocracy. After all, status alone doesn't necessarily represent the reward one might expect for one's achievements.

For certain people, class, or remuneration probably matters much less than recognition, for example. If said recognition goes to whomever shouts the loudest or makes sure to 'appear' best (even though anyone with expert knowledge would immediately know this person isn't the best), then you are no longer living in a meritocracy.

I should note that I find the whole idea of a meritocracy rather flawed, as it would somehow require to perfectly equate all of your actions, every single day, in every walk of life with some kind of reward or easy-to-query metric.

That's just not feasible. And even if it was, who would want another type of China-style sesame credit on steroids?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe, but I still want my surgeon to really good at surgery.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you use any back end as a service platform? - <AUTHOR> Do you use any Backend as a service or Mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) platform? I remember a few years back there used to be a platform called Parse which Facebook acquired and killed it.
With the ever-growing frontend development frameworks and environment, I believe such services will be very common. Firebase is somewhat like Parse what else you people know?
If you use any such platform please do share your experience.
Stay Safe & Thank You <comment><USER2> Just my 2 cents, I don't/wouldn't use a service like this on anything other then an MVP or non-critical internal tool.

I say this because if you base your entire business on a 3rd party service like Parse was or like Firebase etc, your entire business is at their mercy and whim. If they decide to remove a feature you rely on you are potentially stuck trying to rapidly recreate it. If the service gets bought and the new acquirer decides you are a competitor or that they wanted the team but don't care about the service, everything can disappear. Of course, I am not advocating you never use/depend on a 3rd party, cause we all have too, but just that having your entire critical core infrastructure not being something you own is not smart long term. FWIW, Firebase as it matures within the Google ecosystem would be one that I'd be more likely to use in production. Technically my current solution does have Firebase integrated into Production but we are removing it as I disagree with storing any critical production data in a "database service" where it isn't something I can migrate easily. e.g. we use postgres in AWS as the primary datastore, I could use postgres in GCP/Azure or in my own datacenter and not change any code, but I can't do that with Firebase.

I do think services like Firebase etc are great for MVP's or for some proof of concept work, I just don't like them for live production services. I also have used them for non-critical internal tools or tools which have a short lifespan etc.</comment>