Microsoft web browser that covers its tracks could hit Google's advertising - <AUTHOR> http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article4623178.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=1063742

<comment><USER2> People have had access to this feature for years now from Safari and Firefox, and things haven't exploded. Why is it suddenly a concern with a beta of IE8?

People are _really_ eager to find MS conspiracies to write about. I guess if you're a tech journalist, it's kind of like the white whale of your industry.

<comment><USER3> How it can be done it Firefox, is there some plugin to do it? I am just curious...I am aware that I can switch on erasing my private data when I close Firefox, but that isn't the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Although casual users cannot see the previous user's search history, authorities such as the police will be able to access it if necessary."

So everything is actually still there, just not present in the UI? Seems pretty silly if so.

<comment><USER5> I think the article is simplified a bit for the masses who don't understand how the internet operates.

Cookies and browser history aren't saved locally(is my guess of IE8, I haven't used it), but the ISP and/or Website could still have a record of your visit which could be obtained by the police.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Microsoft and Google failed to return calls last night.

They're just, you know, shy and unsure of what to say. Should they commit to this relationship? They've been burned before.

</comment><comment><USER3> >> "In allowing surfers to access websites but conceal their browsing behaviour, Microsoft prevents internet sites from collecting information about their users" <<

How exactly? I don't get it. I supposed they just turn off local cache and local browsing history...

<comment><USER7> InPrivate Blocking feature won't allow the site you're visiting to send information to third-party sites, various ad sites, google-analitics.com and friends included.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is so wrong it belongs on theonion. This will have absolutely no impact on google, or any other advertising.

Contextual advertising just does not work the way the article supposes it does.

<comment><USER9> I think you missed the point. Google (like most large ad networks) does a lot more than just contextual advertising, especially now that they own DoubleClick. There are a lot of sites like MySpace with little or no context that make up a huge % of Google's non-search page views.

Google serves ads there largely based on context from previous pages you visited. For instance, if you searched on Google for "digital camera" and then later went to YouTube, they might show you ads for digital cameras.

Many big ad networks do this. Browsers blocking that would greatly lower CPMs.

<comment><USER8> So the browser stops supporting cookies does it? Even if the browser does stop sending cookies to google, they could do pretty good tracking based on useragent/ip.

However, a browser that doesn't support cookies correctly, isn't very useful.

The browsers history is completely irrelevant.

From the article: "others using the same computer will not be able to see which sites have been accessed."

That is not the same as "Cookies sent from google will no longer work"

<comment><USER9> It supports cookies just fine. It just doesn't send your info to every third party site that has a pixel on the page.

Now for Google to track you as you move around the web, they'll have to do a lot more than simply give people a JS snippet to slap in their pages. That's the point. It won't make it impossible for them, but it could make it impractical.

The article probably didn't explain it so well because it was aimed at a non- technical audience.

<comment><USER8> "It supports cookies just fine. It just doesn't send your info to every third party site that has a pixel on the page."

Look. Either it does, or it doesn't. Either the cookie that google told the browser about is sent back to google as defined in the RFC, or it is not.

"It just doesn't send your info to every third party site that has a pixel on the page."

What info?? The cookie that was previously set by the 3rd party site?

You seem to be muddily suggesting that cookies will be disabled for any images/js/xhr etc inside a page. That would make a ton of websites unusable in any event.

The whole point is moot anyway, as you can track users pretty accurately without using cookies.

<comment><USER9> It supports normal first party cookie use, but easily blocks third-party cookies. This prevents people like Google from using their own cookies on third party sites.

So right now when you go to, say, autoblog (supposing it uses Google) Google reads some cookie they gave you to figure out who you are, and stores in a db that you went there. Then when you go to Myspace, they read the cookie again, look it up in the db, and know to serve you an ad for cars.

If MSFTs feature were enabled by default, this would be blocked. They could, of course, workaround it somehow, but could they do so while still making installation of Adsense for autoblog as easy as tossing in some js code? That's the threat.

If you want a more detailed technical explanation than I'm capable of giving you, I'm sure you can Google it :)

<comment><USER8> Yeah I don't think google will need to work too hard to fix that one :/

Unless MS removes even more standards support from the browser like disabling dom methods from js, you'll always be able to toss in some js.

Also it would mean that statcounters, certain iframe login mechanisms etc would be broken in IE.

It'd be pretty cool if IE does become crippled in this way though, less IE users == less headaches.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Dropped the Ball on Open Social Networks...Can Anyone Catch It? - <AUTHOR> http://ostatic.com/blog/google-dropped-the-ball-on-open-social-networks-can-anyone-catch-it

<comment><USER2> Facebook did, a few years ago</comment>


Has Amazon caught the forward integration bug? - <AUTHOR> http://internationalbs.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/has-amazon-caught-the-forward-integration-bug/

<comment><USER2> Of course, there is a big denial from Amazon about all this.

<comment><USER2> And multiple threads on here already... a couple of days ago...</comment></comment>


Lua: Good, bad, and ugly parts - <AUTHOR> http://notebook.kulchenko.com/programming/lua-good-different-bad-and-ugly-parts

<comment><USER2> I have a new meta-pet-peeve: people who are peeved by one-indexing.

EDIT: I guess it went into his "differetn" category. Never mind....

Why is one-indexing at the top of his list of bad things, or even on a list of things that matter? It is like getting stuck on adjectives after the noun...

My opinion, not widely shared here, is that 1-indexing is best for scripting and math languages where 1-indexing corresponds directly to the subscripts in the formulas. In Numpy etc, you have spend a lot of time converting those formulas by subtracting one all over the place, introducing bugs and making stuff less readable.

The only reason to use zero index is when, like in C, you are calculating your distance from a memory boundary.

Sorry for the rant.

<comment><USER3> Dijsktra on zero-based indexing:

[http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EW...](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD831.html)

Obviously the differences are small and it's not worth obsessing over, but I do think that zero-based approach works better with array code that involves offsets... and that's not the exclusive province of manually managed memory - array-index math can happen for many reasons.

Of course, one-based math is more intuitive to the layperson, which is obviously why it's the natural choice for Lua.

<comment><USER4> And for those who didn't see this on HN a couple of days ago, here's Guido van Rossum on zero-based indexing in Python: [https://plus.google.com/115212051037621986145/posts/YTUxbXYZ...](https://plus.google.com/115212051037621986145/posts/YTUxbXYZyfi)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >Good: Portable: builds on any platform with an ANSI C compiler.

>Bad: No POSIX functions built-in.

This is an either/or thing. You cannot implement those functions in portable ANSI C, it is platform-specific functionality. Also Lua is widely used on non- POSIX platforms (e.g. Windows) and given that the Lua developers have removed even most simple and basic functions like table.foreach in the past to keep the language minimal I don't see them ever adding those. Personally I like it this way.

<comment><USER6> There's a lot of great middle ground though; consider what Python does for many of those APIs :)

<comment><USER7> well then you lose the smallness. That's also why the pattern matching isn't quite regexp and about half of 'the bad' adding features adds size.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Previous submission:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5348513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5348513)

<comment><USER9> Although this has absolutely nothing to do with the submission, I followed a link from that thread, wound up at [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat) and laughed for about five minutes straight. Thanks!

<comment><USER10> I am the one that should thank you for posting that link.

I had a good laugh.

And now I am curious about javascript crazy + behavior.

<comment><USER11> Gary Bernhardt is regularly guilty of these things, checkout this other talk [http://www.confreaks.com/videos/615-cascadiaruby2011-the- uni...](http://www.confreaks.com/videos/615-cascadiaruby2011-the-unix- chainsaw)

both very interesting and very distracting, again.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs - <AUTHOR> http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/FACEBOOK-IMMIGRATION/010031Q63Y3/index.html <comment><USER2> These threads always have a great mix of:

* Subtle racism.

* Zero-sum thinking.

* Specifically, the lump of labor fallacy.

* People not realizing that code is about the easiest thing in the world to ship back and forth between different countries: if a company is hell-bent on being cheap, they'll outsource rather than bring someone in.

* A stunning lack of perspective on the benefits that immigrants bring to the economy and culture.

* A lack of historical perspective in a country founded by immigrants. There were 0 restrictions prior to 1860-something, and then it was something racist to keep the Chinese out.

* General fuzziness in terms of economic thinking. "let's have an auction for the 10113 spots the government makes available!" \- without thinking that 10113 is some magic number some bureaucrat made up with little to no relationship to the real world.

This continues to be my go-to article as one of the better takes on immigration: [http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal- number...](http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number-of- immigrants.html)

<comment><USER3> It's incredibly weird when I find myself agreeing with someone on the right. This article is filled with lots of bullshit "its just econ 101" neoliberal cliches (and uses the beloved tactic of the right that "everything I dislike is soviet central planning and a perversion of this clearly natural and non- synthetic notion of a totally free market"). None of that is necessary to what is fundamentally an argument that should rest on moral principles. I prefer this version of the argument: [https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/03/the-case- for-open-borders...](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/03/the-case-for-open- borders/)

<comment><USER2> I'm not really a right-wing guy either, but I think anyone can agree that the current "magic numbers" involved in H1-B visas are very much central planning at its worst.

<comment><USER3> It's a failure of policy to be sure, but it's not as though planning is really at fault here, just as open borders isn't really a market solution (even though the implication that it is somehow worms its way into this argument). A market solution would be to use the government to perpetuate scarcity of visa slots and enforce property rights around a visa, and allow visa holders to sell or trade their visa rights. As a corollary, the problem with immigration is not inefficient allocation of slots caused by planning, its that we have immigration limits to begin with.

It's a neoliberal trope to try to work markets into every social problem, but this is really an issue concerning ethics and justice, not allocation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish every one of these stories would talk about that there are at least a couple of different kinds of h1b's. Facebook mostly or only has employees doing real, original work. But companies like Tata just are hiring for basic, mostly non-creative IT work. The second category (I think) is much more likely to lead to displacement of native workers. It's at least much more questionable. But h1b's at Microsoft or Google of Facebook are doing real creative work. We need to somehow change H1B to account for this. You can see it reflected in the data, where the average pay of the worker indicates whether is the 'creative category where we would like to hire all we can', or whether its in the more it-like programmer.

Maybe I should add a disclaimer that although I haven't worked at facebook, I worked at some of the other large comps similar to facebook and have seen this difference.

<comment><USER5> The obvious way to make H1B work for the high end software engineers is to approve applicants based on highest paid applicant first, instead of via a random lottery.

It's fairly clear to me that this would be beneficial for the long term success of the United States. It's unclear to me what it would do to short term salaries for highly paid software engineers. Would it lower their salaries due to an increase in supply of very talented software engineers, or would it raise their salaries as companies get into bidding wars over H1B visas.

<comment><USER6> > The obvious way to make H1B work for the high end software engineers is to > approve applicants based on highest paid applicant first, instead of via a > random lottery.

This would grant a massive advantage to companies like Google and Facebook over smaller companies, and more generally to geographic locales and parts of the industry with higher pay. In terms of economic and competitive impact for those companies and for Silicon Valley, it's hard to think of anything that could have greater impact. They already have an inherent advantage when it comes to hiring due to their financial firepower.

<comment><USER7> ...and that financial firepower, and resulting ability to outbid everybody else, comes because they're using their workers more productively than anybody else. Successful companies _should_ be able to command the best, most scarce resources -- that's just efficient asset allocation, and is the entire point of the free market.

<comment><USER8> Well, it's not entirely efficient allocation, if you take the daring leap to assume that rents in certain areas are not totally subject to free market forces. I know a number of people who suggest they take home more by working in the Midwest metros than they would in equivalent jobs in the West Coast hubs.

It's possible that living in a high cost West Coast metro area is itself some sort of benefit, or at least better in ways we can't deduce by salary means alone. One alternative would be to keep the existing lottery system, and simply allow visa holders more latitude to switch employers. At which point any firms flooding the lottery with underpaid and underqualified applicants would see themselves out the door.

<comment><USER9> Well, that solves the issue of worker exploitation.

But it won't address the America first arguments, neither the rampant abuse by service companies. If TCS sees attrition rates go from 1% to 40%. Wouldn't they just put 66% more applications (40% of 166 = 66). There is no disincentive to not flood the visas. Also, if candidates are underqualified, they aren't going to switch at all.

There is no reason to keep lottery system at all, maybe normalize by geographical location, years of experience and field of work. But it is absolutely insane to put it down to lottery and incentivize companies to flood applications.

As a personal example, I am a PhD student on a F1, but I'd prefer other countries than the uncertainty of H1B and then painful decades long GC application. Further, there aren't as many jobs for PhDs. If I was a bachelors degree holder though, I'd have a ton more candidate employers to make the risk palatable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Those abusing H1b visas are companies that are usually brought in to replace aging workforce. H-1b visa holders have very limited job portability, which lets the employer abuse the system.

If the H1b employee had full work authorization similar to a green card holder (give a 6 year full work auth to every H1b holder, and his/her spouse), then there wont be a question of enslaved H-1b employees trying to grab whatever peanuts thrown by these abusive companies.

H1b numbers can be very misleading, because a bigger number of high skilled immigrants (except Indians and Chinese) can skip the who H-1b hell and go directly to getting an EAD (full work authorization).

Better way to solve this problem, is to remove the concept of H1b, have very stringent L1 visas (even these are abused a lot), and give instant green cards to anyone who secures a job in US after graduating from a US university.

<comment><USER11> >> give instant green cards to anyone who secures a job in US after graduating from a US university.

sure but PhDs and special skills only

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What people don't realize is that once the H1B program will be modified to take out companies like Tata and Infosys from the lottery, Facebook will have MORE H1B employees, not less.

<comment><USER13> I have no problem with that really. There are thousands of H1B's that are much more talented than 95% of American software engineers and they tend to be at the unicorns and the well paying big companies like FB/Google

<comment><USER14> There are also thousands of Americans that are much more talented than 95% of H1Bs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The h1b program is out of control. We've got Americans who need jobs. I've had a big corporate job where they had us train our h1b and then laid us off. I've also worked for H1B's in America who hired me through upwork. They would outsource their job to me, that's pretty messed up when you fully think that out.

<comment><USER16> > I've had a big corporate job where they had us train our h1b and then laid > us off

This is indeed ridiculous. But how often does that happen? More specifically, how many companies go to the trouble of hiring H1B workers in lieu of local workers and then make the current workers train the replacements?

if the worker being trained was actually a contractor for one of those big indian IT companies, then it makes more sense.

<comment><USER17> Happened to me last year, too. And it's not just big companies. In my case it was a firm with only about 30 employees. But outsourcing (in my case to India) has become so easy that companies of almost any size can do it.

<comment><USER2> H1B is someone coming here, not outsourcing. Fewer H1B's probably means more outsourcing, for companies who are just looking at cutting costs and not looking at quality a lot. Not that there aren't great people to outsource work to, but we all know the kind of company we're talking about that isn't seeking that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Relevant test case for reforms:

"The job categories covered under the new employer liaison service include civil and mechanical engineers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, construction millwrights and heavy equipment mechanics. Under the 24-month pilot program, those job categories will be placed on a "refusal to process" list within the temporary foreign worker program."

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-bans- hiring-f...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-bans-hiring- foreign-workers-for-29-high-skilled-jobs-1.4075684)

(Canadian provinces have some control over immigration, to the chagrin of American "states rights" proponents who can only dream of the possibilities.)

</comment><comment><USER19> The salary tab seems to say that FB isn't having trouble finding programmers in the US - it's having trouble finding GREAT programmers, while Wipro, et al just want a cheap body.

Huge difference. Nothing to see here, move along.

</comment><comment><USER20> Well, they are paying their employee good money, which is one way to justify the use of H1B, the really high skilled worker, at least in terms of market value.

Companies like Tata and Infosys are the real problems here, not only for locals, but for other people who apply for H1B as well. Some actions are largely overdue.

</comment><comment><USER21> I have worked with some truly facepalm level of stupid H1Bs. I am sure we can find the same level of stupid here in the U.S. For these scenarios, I would much prefer u.s. citizens.

</comment><comment><USER22> Sounds like it is time for Facebook to buy some congressmen.

<comment><USER23> Buying congressmen is expensive. Maybe instead, Facebook can just slowly take over the news industry and then control what people see.

<comment><USER24> Naw, it's actually pretty cheap, with a great ROI

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forge...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget- stocks-or-bonds-invest-in-a-lobbyist)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool, seeing lots of garbage opinions in this thread. Either H1Bs are bad because they create greater competition with people who aren't American citizens, or if you got fired from a job that replaced you with someone on an H1B you must be a bad worker.

Haven't seen a single comment in here acknowledging that our immigration policy exists solely to benefit the wealthy (the wealthiest immigrants, or the ones with the most marketable skills and the wealthiest employers who often choose to exploit their immigrant employees via the precarity of immigration status created by an H1B). It would be great if people started having the conversation that we can have a mutually beneficial policy if we expedite citizenship for foreign born workers and actually work to build labor power in our industry instead of adopting nativist rhetoric or attempting to justify the various ways in which workers in tech are marginalized.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't see what makes workers born in America more important than workers born in any other country. Everybody should get the same chances.

<comment><USER26> As an American, workers born in the USA are more important to me.

I care more about my neighbor's employment status, safety, and happiness than the family down the street. I care more about the guy down the street than the family across town... etc etc etc... I care more about some family in some US state that I'll never visit than a family over in India.

The closer they are to me, the more their success and problems will affect me either directly through interaction or indirectly through taxes or how they're likely to vote for something crazy in a future election out of desperation.

Local people even on a national level should get better chances if for no other reason than they've been here hopefully contributing to our system longer and they should be first to get some benefit out of it.

<comment><USER21> but these h1b holders live in your town, and possibly your next door neighbor.

gotcha!

<comment><USER26> I care less about them than they natives they displaced by getting visas handed out for reasons other than their intended purpose.

I know my next door neighbors. Not H1B holders.

Don't be an troll.

<comment><USER27> Your neighbors could be H-1B holders.

I can respect the economic arguments for it, even if I often disagree with them. This is just... not racist but it's about as foul in it's own way.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Last Week Tonight Is Dangerous - <AUTHOR> https://charcoalbin.com/posts/lwt.html <comment><USER2> I am curious to why the author chose Last Week Tonight specifically, rather than just focus on the genre of comedy/news or addressing the root issue (critical thinking).

Most of the article covers the format of late night shows, which is well known to most, I think. It is only in the last paragraph that we reach the "dangerous" part.

The crux of the argument is:

> Therein lies the main 'danger' in all of this: when viewers aren't thinking > critically and/or are using the show as a news source

Which, is true of literally every show, newspaper, media outlet, etc. Critical thinking has been a key issue in communication from the dawn of time, and will be an issue forever forward. I don't think it's fair to lay blame at the feet of a single show.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I agree with your point. The show is not only news but a political cartoon and most of my arguments could share the same criticisms that come with those formats.

However, I do think the show differentiates itself with the extra mile it often goes to act against issues (even if the call to action is small). It engages the audience further and I think has led to some misplaced idolization in a time where talk is especially cheap. From there, viewers' critical thinking faculties might start to break down and their biases, strengthen.

Thank you for commenting critically :)

<comment><USER2> Great to get some added insight to your choice and perspective, thanks for replying!</comment></comment></comment>


Hamilton to stay on $10; Tubman replacing Jackson - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/treasurys-lew-to-announce-hamilton-to-stay-on-10-bill-222204 <comment><USER2> I really like Andrew Jackson, it's too bad he's going instead of Hamilton.

Can't believe they want to take Lincoln off the 5$ bill though. Why can't we just add new denominations of currency into the system? Bring back the 500$/1000$/5000$/10000$ bills? Perhaps instead add a 25$ bill and a 200$/250$ bill?

<comment><USER3> Adding $25 USD bills would break the greedy choice property for making change. Making $40 in change using a greedy strategy would mean selecting a 25, a 10, and a 5, while the optimal choice is to select two 20s.

<comment><USER4> what about change for 50?

<comment><USER5> It would be fewer bills than without the $25, but the greedy strategy would still work for both (without, you'd get 3 bills: $20, $20, $10, and that's the optimal). Whereas change for $40, the greedy strategy will give you 3 bills: $25, $10, $5—which is more than the optimal 2 bills.

<comment><USER4> change of 50 in two bills and change of 40 in three, is less optimal than change of 50 in three and 40 in two?

<comment><USER5> It's not about comparing the number of bills vs. each other—it's not surprising that adding an additional denomination lets you make change in fewer bills. It's about whether the greedy algorithm for making change gets you the optimum number. Currently it does, but if you add a $25 bill, it would not.

Currently:

$40: greedy: $20, $20

      optimal: $20, $20

      is greedy optimal: Yes

$50:

      greedy: $20, $20, $10

      optimal: $20, $20, $10

      is greedy optimal: Yes

Including a $25 bill:

$40:

      greedy: $25, $10, $5

      optimal: $20, $20

      is greedy optimal: No

$50:

      greedy: $25, $25

      optimal: $25, $25

      is greedy optimal: Yes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "the updated $20 bill isn't expected to be issued until 2030 at the earliest, according to a report from CNN; citing the lengthy approval process by the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence steering committee"

<comment><USER7> Seriously, how does it take 14 years to verify a design and protect it against counterfeit? SpaceX sent vehicles into space and landed them back here on earth on a moving drone platform in the middle of the Atlantic in less time.

<comment><USER8> 10 years of it could just be resting on laurels. If the current design resists counterfeiting well enough, there's not much justification for making a new one yet.

I'm not saying that's the explanation, just speculating.

<comment><USER9> Do you want to pay more taxes to upgrade something utilitarian for purely aesthetic reasons?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ugh. I frankly don't like the idea of having people on the bills at all. I'd love to see just distinct abstract shapes.

I was also going to make a dig at them for changing purely superficial characteristics before actually creating accessible money for the blind, but apparently starting in 2019 there will be tactile features introduced, so, I guess they put me in my place! Good on them.

</comment><comment><USER11> Am I the only one who finds trading the image of a former slave for goods and services to be in slightly poor taste? There's no question Harriet Tubman was a great lady, but I'm not sure this is the best way to honor her.

<comment><USER12> There's no question that Kackson was a good President, but isn't trading the image of a lifelong slaveholder for goods and services in poor taste?

<comment><USER11> I didn't say we should keep Jackson....

<comment><USER13> He's flipping your "bad taste" question back on you. Jefferson _and_ Jackson have been on currency for decades and in their time treated people as currency and no one blinked.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe in 150 years they'll put Edward Snowden — or a similar activist — on a bill. It tends to take people a century or two to recognize the value of contributions made by these type of people.

<comment><USER15> You seriously think we'll still have bills in 150 years?

<comment><USER16> I hope so, or something similarly anonymous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Secretary of the Treasury has an official announcement on Medium: [https://medium.com/@USTreasury/an-open-letter-from- secretary...](https://medium.com/@USTreasury/an-open-letter-from-secretary- lew-672cfd591d02#.lhm3rivbg)

</comment><comment><USER18> My vote is to put Sally Ride on the $20 bill.

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting choice of Tubman. Is she the most important woman in American history? I don't know that much about her, I'll read up on Wikipedia later today.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's all about the Tubmans baby.

</comment><comment><USER21> Url changed from [http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/20/11469320/harriet-tubman- wi...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/20/11469320/harriet-tubman-will-replace- andrew-jackson-on-the-20-bill), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER22> Why can't we just put great american's on our money vs trying to shoehorn someone just because of their gender. Our currency should be a celebration of great people regardless. I understand Tubman's contributions to a very dark time in our history but I think if we were to celebrate equality, Susan B Anthony would be a better choice.

FDR would be the biggest missing person on our currency in my opinion.</comment>


Google is now a hardware company - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-22/its-official-google-is-now-a-hardware-company

<comment><USER2> haha just tried to submit this</comment>


India is easing sourcing norms for single-brand retailers like Apple - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/28/india-foreign-direct-investment-fdi-rules-apple/ <comment><USER2> Now is the golden opportunity for India to do exactly what they did. Seems like China is trying to wait Trump out and see someone else in the WH to whom they could dictate the terms and tell through which exit of the Airforce One they need to go. But that outcome seems increasingly unlikely as time goes on, so big businesses are coming to Jesus wrt workforce diversification. That's a good thing. India could use some of that sweet, sweet economic growth too.

<comment><USER3> The problem with waiting for another president is that both Democrats and Republicans hate China alike. And China can't afford to wait because they are sitting on a demographic time bomb due to 1 child policy (10 years left or so). So I do think Xi's approach is going to undo a lot of progress that China has made under previous presidents (when they still had a concept of term limits).

I'm really rooting for India here, the largest democracy with fast growing economy and very young population. Even if 21st century is going to be dominated by Asia I'd rather see India take the leading role than China. Among other things it would also make sure that East Asian disdain for darker skinned people and China's obsession with surveillance won't become a dominant global culture.

<comment><USER4> >Among other things it would also make sure that East Asian disdain for darker skinned people

India is no panacea on this front. Modi is a Hindu nationalist and if you're expecting India to be a democracy in the vein of Western liberal democracy with enlightenment values, you're in for a surprise.

<comment><USER5> India is not perfect, its democracy is full of cacophony with racial and tribal undertones. But once the results are out the transfer of power is clean and peaceful.

It is not Norway or Sweden, but its not an autocracy. India built its version of Democracy that is worth it.

Modi and Hindu Nationalism are the present - they were not there in power 7 years ago and 7 years from now, a new PM and Party will come.

India is no Turkey and farther away from China.

<comment><USER6> I also once thought this. But I'm not sure anymore. They're creating their own Rohingyas by declaring 4m people non-citizens [1]. One state was dissolved and remains under curfew under a constitutional sleight-of-hand (the federally appointed governor assented for the people to dissolve the state).

The Supreme Court doesn't appear to have the will to stand up to the govt. In fact, it actively encouraged the disenfranchisement of citizens.

The press has been largely brought in line. [3]

India may be well on the path to becoming a Turkey.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-crackdow...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-crackdown- in-india-on-suspected-illegal-immigration-could-leave-millions- stateless/2019/08/26/4f46b3a0-b471-11e9-8e94-71a35969e4d8_story.html) [2] [https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/08/10/modis- revocatio...](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/08/10/modis-revocation- of-kashmirs-autonomy) [3] [https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/08/22/when- indias-govern...](https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/08/22/when-indias- government-abuses-power-the-media-cheer)

<comment><USER7> Press Council of India is supporting the curbs on media reporting in Kashmir.

Supreme court of India is giving passes to meet people in curfewed Kashmir, and asking them to just meet and not do anything else (i.e. report on human right violations).

It is amazingly surreal to see this repeat again. Anyhow, how can a democracy use medieval rule like curfew on 10 Million people. Entire province disconnected from the world and themselves.

<comment><USER8> J&K is in a traditional state and while the current state is not desirable it is somewhat necessary due to the potential for terrorist attacks.

China on the other hand has put entire state's population in concentration camps and changed demography in other occupied territories such as Tibet.

<comment><USER7> So why are politicians detained? Those who swore on Indian constitution?

The reason here is not fear of terrorism, because the security theatre exists perpetually, but India does not want its suppression of a minority population to be aired out openly in media esp western and social media.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> munk-a That's an intensely newspeak usage of "liberalizes".

<comment><USER9> Why is that? It's a relaxation of regulation, and that's commonly called economic liberalisation. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_Ind...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_India)

<comment><USER10> Probably doesn't know where the term 'liberal' comes from. In America it's fairly common to have alternate meanings attached to these kinds of words.

<comment> munk-a Oh I'm well aware, but word comprehensions shift over time and within the common American understanding using the word "liberalizes" seems to be intentionally slanted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apple \- We can't make iPhones in the US and tariffs don't work

Also Apple \- Tariffs made us move production to Brazil and India.

<comment><USER12> This isn't about manufacturing.

<comment><USER11> "To boost sales in India, Apple has started to assemble several iPhone models locally and reached a stage where it can begin to export to overseas markets phones produced in India. Assembling phones in India allows Apple — as it does to other phone makers — to enjoy some tax benefits that Narendra Modi's government provides."

<comment><USER12> That is already happening. That is not the change that happened recently that this article is about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is hardly news, they're just letting them sell phones online.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is not it.</comment></comment>


Apple's sinking share in France and Germany may be fueling patent wars - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/22/apples-sinking-share-in-france-and-germany-may-be-fueling-patent-wars/

<comment><USER2> One of Apple's defining characteristics as a business has been its unfailing disinterest in market share in and of itself. So why on Earth would anyone assume that an expansion of a legal mess started in the larger markets, into the smaller ones, is driven by a sudden intense concern about market share? Particularly when the larger markets are where Apple sales and growth is strongest? If their legal goal was to protect market share, their strategy is exactly backwards.

Now is it more likely that: A. Apple has suddenly not only change its tune on market share, but is pursuing this new obsession _ineptly_? Or, B. that Apple is simply doing what every single large company does in patent concerns: starting in the largest markets and then expanding into the smaller ones?

Further, looking at market share without regard to overall market growth is somewhere between innumerate and intellectually dishonest. And the regularity of this oversight in tech reporting makes it difficult to believe it's an honest mistake.

<comment><USER3> There are no honest, repeated, mistakes. Flawed reasoning, confusing correlation with causality, and outright mis-truths seem to be the hallmark of "business journalism".

<comment><USER4> Pretty par for the course with BGR.

Inputs:

(1) press release or wire repackaging of press release that is about Apple.

Outputs:

(1) complete rewrite with no blockquotes.

(2) but uses every piece of data in the original.

(3) vaguely reference the source 3/4 of the way down.

(4) 10 other links all to BGR articles.

(5) increase wordcount 45%

(6) increase linkbait with terrible speculation.

How long til the inevitable AOL buyout?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've assumed their choices of venues was tactical and based on regional legal quirks, not related to market share.

</comment><comment><USER6> As evidenced by the patent claims already fought and lost, they might prevail on a little but not I don't think it will be much in the end. It's not really some tiny android using brands they need to sink but rather Samsung, HTC and other giants. Even if they prevail in 1 or 2 of the 10 or so claims they are making these guys will be able to eat up the costs (and one or two might be able to force a cross-licencing with their own patents). So in the end, nothing is going to stop the current trajectories where Apple will be relegated to fighting with second place in the market with Microsoft.

To my mind this is as it should be. Smartphones can only be a screen 3 to 6 inches in a thin form with a slightly modified desktop metaphor (icons on a background), and are based on a wide infrastructure that is not Apple owned. Free code initially (BSD, Linux and Webkit). SSD research, gorilla glass, AMOLED, camera chip manufacturers and ARM CPUs. Apple is more or less just another PC company, and smartphones are now pretty much just small PCs. Apple has a good music and app market which they can leverage to make sure they have a larger slice of the phone market than on the PC market, but it's not manifest destiny that they should own it. They also have to consider the public relations costs compared to prevailing in a few corner patent cases and looking (rightly so) like sore losers who don't want any competition.

Apple should stop whinging and fire 80% of the legal department and use the money to acquire another company like the one that produced Siri. Then again, perhaps the PR department is behind this to create another "stabbed in the back" mythology, like their dubious claims to stratospheric innovation on the desktop.

</comment><comment><USER7> There doesn't seem to be any evidence for this hypothesis, or for his one that slow growth is lowering market share. But something makes a difference, and English speaking countries seem to be more Apple oriented, could be a factor. France and Germany are stronger open source markets than say the uk, could also influence arly adopters. Would be interesting if there is more data about phone choice.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you sure its not driven by Steve jobs and I quote "I'm Going to Destroy Android, Because It's a Stolen Product".... "I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."?

Seems like analysts are trying to find an economic reason for something that may well be an emotion driven thing.</comment>


Show HN: Snipr – Board game I invented while cycling for 8000 miles - <AUTHOR> https://tomcooks.com/projects/snipr <comment><AUTHOR> While I was cycling between Lisbon and Istanbul I was in need of some offline form of entertainment, especially during cold nights in a tarp.

To keep the mind busy while climbing steep Greek roads, I began coming up with rules for a board game.

In the daytime I'd come up with rules, to be tested and night. Having no dices, I toyed around with pen, paper, and a handful of coins.

I have decided to release this game the other day, for free and under a Creative Commons license.

Maybe it can be useful during these times of boredom, especially if you want to avoid screens for a bit.</comment>


Twitter helps free kidnapped South African from trunk of his car - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/twitter-helps-free-kidnapped-south-african-from-trunk-of-his-car.ars

<comment><USER2> Did anyone else's Chrome throw a malware warning for arstechnica.com?

<comment><USER3> I get a "Warning: Suspected phishing site" alert in Safari.

Edit: I just checked Google's Safe Browsing diagnostics page and it's also flagging arstechnica.com [http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=arstechni...](http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=arstechnica.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article gets carried away: @pigspotter is largly used to locate speed traps, the graft and violence are relatively uncommon. Bribes are usually paid by offenders to be let off the hook, and the average law abiding driver (unfortunately an increasingly rare breed) is unlikely to be hassled unduly at a roadblock.

Also Pigspotter doesn't Tweet past 10 PM or so, presumably not to aid to drunk drivers. If it was to avoid roadblocks because of the risk posed by rogue cops, he wouldn't suspend Tweeting at that time.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why not just phone the cops if he had his phone with him?

<comment><USER6> He'd be dead before he gets to a 112 operator. The local crooks have a very low tolerance for bold heroic stuff like that.

Also, the local 911 equivalent is sometimes simply swamped with calls so its better to get the message out there & have someone else phone it in.

Sadly more & more reliance is being placed on stuff like this (community patrols, private security, gated communities etc) because the police simply isn't coping.

Glad that it worked out fine in this case.

<comment><USER5> The flying squad is usually really quick to respond, but it worked out in the end...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Warn: the page got hacked and will redirect you to a porn site.

<comment> mike-cardwell Didn't for me.

<comment><USER8> My work AV blocked a malicious site and I was redirected to some spammy looking ad site.

Edit: Looks ok now.</comment></comment></comment>


Harvard Just Discovered That PowerPoint Is Worse Than Useless - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/harvard-just-discovered-that-powerpoint-is-worse-than-useless.html <comment><USER2> I think most slide decks are pretty useless but this quote was striking:

> "PowerPoint's celebrated ease and efficiency actually mask a profoundly > disturbing but little-understood transformation in human communication. The > slides, bulleted lists, and flashy graphics we all now take for granted > [have] promoted a new, slippery 'grammar,' where faulty causality, sloppy > logic, decontextualized data, and seductive showmanship have replaced the > traditional tools of persuasion and argument [resulting in] the corruption > of language [and] the dumbing-down of society."

Pulling this quote may not have been a strong choice. It requires the reader to accept the premises that language is being "corrupted" and that society is being "dumb[ed] down" in order to buy into the argument that PowerPoint is bad. Yes, PowerPoint is bad. No, I don't buy into the notion that society's changes today are without precedent - people have always blamed new technologies for corrupting language and making society dumber.

> [Writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they > will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written > characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have > discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your > disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers > of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be > omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, > having the show of wisdom without the reality.

\- Socrates, arguing against reading and writing

</comment><comment><USER3> Powerpoint is a godsend tool for the babies, lots of pictures, easy to grok, perfect for sliding through without thinking at all. Which apparently makes it very appealing to a certain set of corporate leadership, so they can then proceed to make whatever decision they already have in mind after scrolling through it.

There's a million way to convey meaning better than powerpoint, markdown comes to my mind, instead of focusing on dazzling the audience, it focus on conveying information.

</comment><comment><USER4> Anybody who's sat through several corporate PowerPoint presentations knows this on a gut level.

My kids have all had to use PowerPoint at school to present some work. The enthusiasm they had for including as many wipes, masks, and effects as possible was a real joy. It's just that I expect more from a software architect, or a sales engineer.</comment>


Ask HN: Help with getting C++ developer job - <AUTHOR> Little bit of background: I have 3 years job experience as maintenance developer giving patches to banking product. I work in Java and C code base, but it is mostly legacy code and most of my work required knowing banking well than the technicalities of code itself
My question: I want to get out of the company and want to get job as C++ developer. What should my plan be and what are the things i should concentrate on. Please help me with concepts i should be thorough in, any resources i can use to get better.
Appreciate your help. Thanks :) <comment><USER2> I'd start by making sure you can code in c++ and learn any pitfalls you may have. No sense interviewing when the first few questions on a technical interview may count you out. My first question of an interview was to write my own Vector implementation, second was to explain how smart pointers can leak memory.

There are a lot of free resources, Thinking in C++ has 2 volumes. Stroustrup and Myers write great books and there are many other authors.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Unreal game engine is built on C++... There is a huge industrial sector using this for simulation and training, and unreal has plenty of content on YouTube for Livestreaming different topics.... People are always looking for c++ programmers because you can essentially do anything in the engine directly.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not a C++ developer but I know that it's big in video games. Seems like that should make it easy to make a few portfolio pieces (i.e., just make clones of a few old games).

Edit: to clarify, this would just show that you know the syntax and can put a working program together. You don't have to be looking for a game development job.</comment>


Kepler Telescope Detects Possible Earth-Size Planet - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/science/space/27planet.html?hp

<comment><AUTHOR> Of note, the NY Times' title was originally "Kepler Telescope Detects an Earth-Size Planet". It's now been changed to "Kepler Telescope Detects Possible Earth-Size Planet."</comment>


Qualcomm Comments on Apple Complaint - <AUTHOR> https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2017/01/20/qualcomm-comments-apple-complaint <comment><USER2> PDF of Apple's Complaint: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13449947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13449947)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ick. I used to own Qualcomm stock before I learned what a slimy company it is. The stock left a residue on my portfolio after I sold it, but the smell is mostly gone now. I hope Apple switches to another baseband processor or develops their own.</comment>


Confusing XKCD (explain-xkcd crashed due to traffic) - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/1190

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks like it's changing throughout the day...</comment>


An Open Letter to YouTube About Censoring Its Transgender Creators - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/an-open-letter-to-youtube-about-censoring-its-transgender_us_58eba45ce4b0145a227cb6d7 <comment><USER2> If I get this right, this is a trans-man illegally using a male bathroom, who's life is endangered by not passing as male?

Why not just use female toilets, as the law and community standards dictate?</comment>


The Internet Archive Pushes Back on "Notice and Staydown" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.archive.org/2017/02/23/the-internet-archive-pushes-back-on-notice-and-staydown-in-recent-comments-to-the-copyright-office/ <comment><USER2> > We think the 1998 statute struck the right balance and is generally working > well, a view shared by nearly all Internet platforms and users.

This might be peripheral to the main point, but I have a hard time believing this. Spurious takedowns have inspired multiple waves of invective on YouTube alone. It's a pretty common opinion (at least in my circles) that the current law unduly encourages copyright owners and their representatives to send vast numbers of notifications with no regard to their accuracy. Furthermore, the lopsided requirements of notification vs. counter-notification ("reasonably sufficient" contact information vs. name, address, and phone number) have been abused in order to dox people [1].

[1] [https://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-group-reveals- personal-...](https://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-group-reveals-personal- details-of-counter-notice-senders-160730/)

<comment><USER3> YouTube takedown waves are not examples of the DMCA. YouTube gives rights- holders far more power than the DMCA alone would give.

Which is a shame. If they used the DMCA and you had a video taken down for a spurious reason, you could claim fair-use or no-infringement, and the video could be restored. Then the rights holder would have to sue you personally to get it taken down, and you could potentially fight it.

<comment><USER4> Reminds me of this apt explanation of the situation: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-GTAVsMqa-U](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-GTAVsMqa-U)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > A mandatory filter run on the TV News Archive might catch a famous song used > in a political ad or at a campaign rally, and determine that such material > must be removed.

Imagine when that becomes a strategy. If always have copyrighted songs playing in the background of speeches you wish future control over, you can just sue to get those speeches removed over copyright in the background, and the removal propagated to filters everywhere.

I like my instant revisionist propaganda with The Beatles playing in the background.

<comment><USER6> Jim Sterling already uses a variation of this strategy, which he calls the "Copyright Deadlock"[1]. He discovered it is possible to defeat ContentID- based forced monetization of his videos by including _multiple_ songs/footage from different businesses.

[1] (warning: Jim Sterling uses strong language) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK8i6aMG9VM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK8i6aMG9VM)

<comment><USER5> That's gross and amazing, in equal proportion. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Blog seems down, here's a Google cache link (click the text-only link to avoid waiting for the images to fail to load):

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Hkhxzsz...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Hkhxzsznp74J:blog.archive.org/2017/02/23/the- internet-archive-pushes-back-on-notice-and-staydown-in-recent-comments-to-the- copyright-office/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER8> Or maybe The Internet Archive could _obey the law_. Google are similarly guilty of this - their empire is built on intellectual property, yet they only pay distant lip service to others' intellectual property. It would be trivial to implement a system where every rightsholder can register their copyrights and trademarks and subsequently forbid the uploading of content that infringes those. It would be trivial to scan trusted publications for new movie releases and forbid uploading content with the names and pictures they contain unless it's done from the studio's trusted account. But no - today's robber barons Google & Facebook are content to let unprecedented thievery run rampant on their services and gorge themselves on profits, while the rightsholders and content creators lose billions of profit every year. The Internet is the worst thing to have happened to our shared culture.</comment>


"So, …" What? - <AUTHOR> https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2015/04/11/So-What <comment><USER2> For me the word has no content, it is a way to prime the listener. It's the on ramp to a sentence. "Get ready, I'm about to say something."

Try this experiment. Start your conversations without any pre-amble for a day. Just launch right into the topic. Count how many times you are asked to repeat yourself.

The next day try it by adding "Hey ..." or "So ..." and count again. When I did this there was a 50% decline in need for repeats. Note: Sample size was very small.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. It's like a calibration pattern, a network handshake, or a file header.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's painfully obvious to me that I have this linguistic quirk, because my fiancé (who is not a computer geek) interjects with "buttons!" every time I start a sentence with "So...".

This is annoying, but possibly not as annoying as listening to someone who starts half their sentences with the same word.

\--

Thinking about it a little more, this habit is not specific to the computer / programming geek communities. I noticed others doing it around 2009-10, when I did almost no programming and didn't hang around with programmers. I mostly hung around with math and physics grad students. I suspect it is more generally a geek phenomenon, not specifically computer / programming geeks. Or possibly it's an even wider phenomenon than that - hard to say, since most of my friends are geeks of one sort or another.

It would be interesting to see if male and female geeks do it with similar frequencies. My guess would be that male geeks do it more often (based on the interpretation that starting a sentence with "So..." is a way of saying "I have given this topic serious thought" and the assumption that this is more likely something that a male geek will want to indicate than a female geek).

<comment><USER5> I know some non-geek Canadians who use this particle: "So, how was your day?". There are similar or even equivalent particles in other dialects and languages, for example "Also .." in German and "Look, .." in Australian English. However, in my experience, the purpose of that particle is to introduce a new topic or to indicate a context switch, rather than signaling that 'I've given the following serious thought'.

<comment><USER6> It was painful to realise that you'd spent two years of German thinking " _also_ " meant "also". :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Beowulf starts with a "So", in the 1999 Seamus Heaney translation. He explains why in the foreword:

        'so' operates as an expression that obliterates all
        previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time
        functions as an exclamation calling for immediate
        attention.

[https://books.google.com/books?id=mlg7VKOvsZAC&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=mlg7VKOvsZAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=beowulf+seamus+heaney&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TrkqVaSOC478oASw2IL4CQ&ved=0CC8QuwUwAA#v=onepage&q=Conventional%20renderings&f=false)

(click 'page' link to expand quoted area)

This is pretty much in-line with Steve Wilson's "Full-start" theory in the last paragraph.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have a theory that the use of "so..." to prefix a statement serves two purposes for the speaker: gives them a few more seconds to form their statement, and it also creates a rhetorical beachhead, allowing them to stake a claim in the conversational airspace. This is particularly useful in environments where it can be difficult to get a word in edgewise when others are dominating the space. Unfortunately it becomes a bad habit used to start every other sentence.

With that said, I despise it as well, being the adult equivalent of the teen practice of scattering "like" throughout every conversation. What is even worse is when it works its way into the written form though, something you don't see with "like".

<comment><USER9> Though I agree with the reasons you surmise, I also think "so" is used by some people like chewing gum - as a somewhat meaningless habit that occupies the time or keeps nervousness at bay. Wild theory here. Also, I am chewing gum as I write this :) But not nervous.

<comment><USER9> To people who don't agree - you might want to take a look at pluma's comment in this thread (and the part in it about being nervous):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9364377](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9364377)

Also, I don't think downvoting people whose opinions you don't agree with, is a good idea. Rather leave a comment in reply saying why you don't. And yes, I have read the rationalizations for that (downvoting) behavior, in other HN threads. But don't agree with it. Smacks of nervousness (again) to me - nervousness when someone disagrees with your opinion or voices an opinion different from yours. What's there to be nervous of? Opinions are just that - opinions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10>
        So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
        and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
        We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.

The first word of the first known English document is "so" in this style.

<comment><USER11> That's the Heaney translation. The original Old English starts this way:

> Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum

Hwæt has usually been translated as "listen", though it has since evolved into the modern word "what" and at least one researched thinks it is not an interjection but an intensifier [1]. In archaic English it might have been translated as "hark".

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/books/news/l...](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/books/news/listen-beowulf-opening-line-misinterpreted- for-200-years-8921027.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have been working very hard to avoid doing this in the last few years, but it's hard when it's so pervasive among colleagues and other technical folks.

There was - I believe - a Tesla desert demo video with the engineers that came out late last year and I had to stop and count the number of sentences that started with "So," and I think it was 90%+ for a 15 minute video.

It may not drive everyone else nuts the way it does for me, but it's filler that I feel implies a condescending tone or at minimum a way to gently increase the perceived validity of the point and expertise of the speaker.

</comment><comment><USER13> I realized reading this that I start many many sentences in French (my native tongue) with "Bon, " which is a strict equivalent. After a quick look at my IRC logs, it seems that a lot of my geek friends do the same. It's funny to see that this cultural trait is not specifically tied to the English language.

<comment><USER14> I'm an English and French speaker, and I certainly do it in both languages. In French sometimes it's even "bon, alors". I've heard in in German with "also" as well.

<comment><USER15> I'm an English and German speaker and do it in neither. I find it contrived. There's a lot about language usage today that annoys me, like the new trend of being excited for something. You might look _forward_ to something, and be excited _about_ it. I realize that language evolves, so I keep my annoyance to myself. What I struggle with is the prejudice I reserve for those who brutalize a language for little else than being conformational, trendy or contrarian.

<comment><USER16> _" There's a lot about language usage today that annoys me, like the new trend of being excited for something."_

Dear Sir/Madam. Congratulations on being eligible for your senior citizen discounts. And why yes, I'm getting off your lawn immediately.

:-)

But yeah, I agree. I am too, how to put it, well past my college years. And yes, I too find more and more things annoying with passing years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In classical Latin texts, I remember running into a lot of sentences which start with "itaque" (which means "so"). The habit hardly started recently.

<comment><USER18> No. "Itaque" means "and so". "Ita" means "so", and "que" means "and".

And so it goes ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It appears to be a "new information marker", which is a feature in quite a large number of the world's languages. English, despite the efforts of legions of fifth-grade English teachers, is a natural language, and its grammar changes, or at least tries new things, through time. Languages that aren't dead yet do that. We recently had a similar thread about the use of "no", which has become a sort of redirection/steering indicator.

<comment><USER9> "no" at the end of a sentence, after a comma, to mean "isn't it so?", was common in Mumbai (Bombay) from many years ago. Interesting that it has started being used in the States now, which I've noticed on other forums and in personal interactions too. My guess is that it came into use in Bombay English via some Indian language, where it is a normal way of speaking.

<comment><USER16> That appended, questioning "No?" at the end of a statement is prevalent all over India. And yes, it comes from a Hindi construct "Arre, Chal naa yaar" (literally, "Let's go, No? friend".)

<comment><USER9> Yes, I kind of guessed that idiom might be prevalent in multiple Indian languages, because I have noticed the same thing with other idioms - they are there in more than one Indian language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Seems related to why I feel compelled to say "ummm" or "uhhh" before responding to a Subway employee asking me what I want on my sandwich. It just feels like I am being nicer and not barking out commands.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've only noticed that I write "So..." at the beginning of some sentences, when writing a first draft. I delete it, of course, but I suspect it serves a purpose when speaking: When you're speaking, you need a quick way to divert others' attention to you. When you're writing, you already have their attention.

</comment><comment><USER22> "Geeks like to prefix sentences, questions and answers both, with "So, …" "

I didn't know it was something specific to geeks. As a non-native English speaker, I sometimes start my sentences with "so" (not sure where i picked this, maybe from literal translation of French "donc").

<comment><USER23> The author isn't writing about any prefixing of the word "so." He's writing about the use that implies "what I'm about to say is really complicated and few understand it but me, but I'm going to take my best shot at breaking it down for you."

It's accompanied by a certain tone, a slight uptick in tone, followed by a momentary hesitation.

<comment><USER24> Indeed. _That_ usage of "so" is very different from (imagine a person telling a story) "So I was walking in the park the other day...", in which case the "so" is said very quickly and almost blends into the next word (unstressed "so" followed by stressed next syllable - subconsciously converting into iambic meter, maybe?).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It comes across as aloof and detached, like the speaker is about to rattle off their pre-rehearsed response.

"So, I didn't really listen to your specific question and I don't really care about why you're asking it, and here's my cut and paste answer to this question ..."

</comment><comment> alex-g Seamus Heaney began his translation of Beowulf with "So", rendering the Old English "Hwaet" in a more natural way than the usual archaic "Listen!", "Lo!", "Hark!" kind of thing. In the introductory note, he explains: "'so' operates as an expression that obliterates all previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time functions as an exclamation calling for immediate attention." Far from being a chatty colloquialism, it is a solemn, weighty kind of "so" for Heaney.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is possible that using "So, ..." as a "full start" is a defensive measure against being interrupted?

If I end a sentence and immediately tack on "So, ..." as I gather my next thoughts and prepare them for utterance, I'm signaling that I've got more to say to everyone who might interpret a "full stop" as an opportunity to interject with their own thoughts or a rebuttal.

<comment><USER26> Too late to edit. I meant "Is [it] possible ..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> For the last couple years I've consciously tried to remove "so" from writing as much as I can. It rarely seems to add anything to what I'm trying to say. Avoiding it in speech, though, has been a bit more difficult.

</comment><comment><USER28> Harmless space-filler when spoken; annoying affectation when written.

</comment><comment><USER29> Maybe on topic: ~ two month ago, /r/TheoryOfReddit/ had a thread about the effects of using "So" to introduce headlines: [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/2tuq64/redd...](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/2tuq64/reddit_submissions_which_start_with_a_rhetorical/)

</comment><comment><USER30> I use "So..." on client calls an awful lot, usually to mean something like "I think we've talked enough about this now and I'm starting to find it boring", often followed by "just to recap..." and a précis of what we've decided, and finally an introduction to the next topic.

I haven't noticed anyone being irritated by it yet!

</comment><comment><USER31> I find this quite annoying. Not everyone around me does it, but a whole lot of them do. It has a tone of condescension in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER32> I take it as the expression of a permanent quest for logic just hung up in the air "so" someone, including myself possibly picks it up. The meaning seems to be more "so that" than "that said, how's your day been". Or "if this is correct, then this means that..." rather than " OK, got it, what else?"

</comment><comment><USER33> Harry Shearer of The Simpsons has a recurring segment on his radio show where he collects clips of people incapable of answering questions without "So, " couching.

In my book it's even less defensible in writing than in speech. You see it in countless reddit submission titles that aren't a response to or continuation from anything.

</comment><comment><USER34> If you're into this line of thought, you might also enjoy "Well, actually..." ( [http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html](http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html) ).

</comment><comment><USER24> I see a lot of speculation about what causes this, but if it is actually serving some sort of important linguistic purpose we would expect it to generalize beyond the English language, right? Do French geeks start their sentences with "Si, ..." (or equivalent)?

<comment><USER35> Not sure how reliable this self-evaluation is, but I do imagine I'm starting quite some sentences with "alors," or "bon,".

<comment><USER24> Interesting, another French speaker just said the same thing: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9364161](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9364161)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think "So, ..." is mostly equivalent to "Well, ...". Both can be used as filler words or for signalling. It's just that in our community "So" is much more common.

<comment><USER37> "So..." also gives you a few precious moments to turn your thoughts into words that the person you're talking to will understand.

<comment><USER38> Ideally, you have already finished this step before opening your mouth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Another "linguistic quirk" I've noticed among tech people is the use of the word 'right', used in the same way urban culture says "know what I'm saying".

</comment><comment><USER23> This is the geek equivalent of corporate buzzwords. Lots of communities do this and it comes and goes in fads.

Listen to political commentators. For them, the trendy thing is to start sentences with "Look,..." For tech people giving talks on stages, it's looking and sounding as much like Steve Jobs as possible. Pilots, Chuck Yeager. In hip hop, it's "Son,..."

The unifying theme and the reason these things feel obnoxious is that they all attempt to put the speaker in an implicit position of superiority. It's unoriginal, trite, and boring. It's like using lots of swear words. It's what's happens when writers don't venture outside insular communities.

</comment><comment><USER40> It's the real life equivalent of a synchronization header.

<comment><USER9> Cool analogy. Now I'm trying to think what HTTP header it could be (considered) the equivalent of, but not getting it ...

<comment><USER40> HTTP runs over TCP, so SYN?

<comment><USER9> Good one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I attended a live performance of The Moth a few days ago. Of the five storytellers, four started their stories with "So, ...". It isn't just us geeks.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is this a real phenomenon? I've never noticed it in my own speech patterns or those of my colleagues.

<comment><USER43> I guess you're probably going to notice it a lot over the next week. If not... report back :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This doesn't seem bad to me. Ending a sentence with ", so..." does.

</comment><comment><USER45> Ideally...

</comment><comment><USER46> So, I submitted this year's ago, but sadly it didn't get picked up:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2231932](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2231932)

:-)</comment>


Ask HN: Listing of software projects needed by non-profits? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone know of a listing / online community / whatever where you can find out about non-profit organizations needing or desiring software, web sites, etc? Ostensibly such work would be provided to them free of charge. <comment><USER2> I don't know of any such site but I'm not sure why it would be needed outside of vertical software for donor/member management.

I'm all for charitable work, open-source software, and non-profits (and I'm actively involved in some), but you have to remember: _non-profit does not mean non-budget_.

I personally don't think every 503(c) entity deserves free products and services simply because they are a non-profit. Some large charities or churches have huge budgets with an extremely high % of their income (i.e. donations) going to administration.

I've done pro-bono work for my church in the past and I've given away our own products to support fund-raising efforts.

I guess I'm just saying that hackers/founders need to use discretion in this arena. I think applying your skills to charity is important, but you need to be careful about who recieves it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, that sounds like an awesome idea if it doesn't already exist!

Feel-good software.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://civicrm.org/>

</comment><comment><USER5> I did volunteer work for a small homeless shelter for a time. They were thrilled to pieces to have me do little things like create more effective sign-in sheets for meetings and generally help improve their ability to meet the high paperwork burden of living with grants and similar office head office efficiency type stuff. I didn't write any software. I wouldn't know how. My then-husband was in a computer science program at the time and considered me to be a computer twit. The folks at the homeless shelter thought I walked on water and was some kind of computing goddess.

My point: Depending upon the NPO in question, "software" might be more ambitious than what they need.</comment>


Dell XPS 13 2020 review: a fantastic but flawed laptop - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/09/dell-xps-13-2020-review-a-fantastic-but-flawed-laptop <comment><USER2> Dell XPS are beautiful, but not robust. Many battery problems that Dell refuses to fix.

A battery should not bloat and warp the entire device immediately after the warranty expires.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yet another Dell laptop with Killer Wi-Fi issues. When will they learn?</comment>


Unusual Red Arcs Spotted on Icy Saturn Moon - <AUTHOR> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4671

<comment><USER2> Made me think of some sort of bloody monument a species of spacefaring conquerors might leave.

(Did some back-of-the-envelope calculations out of curiosity and found that the amount of blood in the current human population would be sufficient to paint a surface area roughly the size of Germany. I wonder if any grimdark Warhammer 40K story featured such a thing.)

<comment><USER3> TIL: Tethys might look like a moon, but it's really a shrine to Khorne.

<comment><USER4> A shrine to the Shrike!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Almost looks like what'll happen to a wall if you give a red marker to a little kid.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why are almost all impact craters perfectly circular?

<comment><USER7> I'm not a physicist, but I would hazard:

it would require a very non-spherical object to create an a-circular crater because ground resistence forces material to move primarily parallel to the surface of the planet/moon, which tends to regularize the shape. Any atmosphere will make the impacting object more spherical through resistance. Lastly, large bodies in space tend to spheres naturally as their mass converges by gravity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe Banksy's gone further than we suspected...

</comment><comment><USER9> Blood trails...</comment>


Designers need engineers - <AUTHOR> http://stdout.be/2011/10/23/designers-need-engineers/

<comment><USER2> I come from more of a designer stand point and I've realized that sometimes I've had "cool" ideas but when I go to plan out how that would look and the process behind it in a programming language, it gets quite complicated pretty fast.

I can think of the coolest UI's and 'experiences' but when you go to plan those out and map out the structure you soon realize stuff is harder than it appears on the outside. Kind of like a commercial I've seen recently that shows a couple walking into their house and everything they touch or use expands showing all the intricacies of modern conveniences. Things are so easy to do nowadays without knowing really 'how' they work.

I think this is an interesting point in our history. We can pick up anything nowadays without having a clue as to how it works. We lose sight of what it takes to bring something from idea to reality. More people need to become aware of how things work. This kind of makes me rant about how a lot of people I see constantly refuse to learn how things work. I see friends that have cars and they break and they just take it to a mechanic and let the mechanic worry about knowing how it works. In a sense that's nice but in another sense it's scary. I still may take my car to a mechanic but I at least know how it works to a certain depth and what could cause the problem. The same scenario for computers to proper zombie invasions. I'm guilty as much as the rest but I still try to keep a handle on things.

<comment><USER3> >I think this is an interesting point in our history. We can pick up anything nowadays without having a clue as to how it works. We lose sight of what it takes to bring something from idea to reality. More people need to become aware of how things work.

100% with you on that. But it's not just a recent development. Robert M. Pirsig's book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" from 1974 deals with exactly that "problem" or attitude many people have nowadays. The book is in some parts kinda slow and hard to read, but I still recommend it to everyone.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_M...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here is my take for what its worth - Great products require great understanding: The designer needs to understand what can be engineered, now, what needs to be invented, and what can only exist in the future, and an engineer needs to understand what the designer wants. And both teams or individuals are responsible for the process and outcome. If you have a flimsy designer that makes everything look pretty on paper but fails to communicate the entire picture, the engineers will inevitably produce sub par work, not because they're bad at their job, but because you did not give them enough to work with, unless you have visionary engineers with a foot in the design department as well. Then again if the engineers only think code code code they will fail to meet the designer where it counts and again the product is sub par. They are 2 parts of the same creative entity, one that lives and relies on communication and understanding. This is unlike the "well oiled machine" where each person or team resembles a mindless cog in some contraption... These are companies that do not understand the ultimate relationship between designer and engineer. It takes a designer with a stubborn focus on the big picture and a razor focus on the tiniest details along with an engineer of godlike skill to not just solve the puzzles set before them, but solve them intelligently (there is a huge difference), while keeping an eye on the final product. The two parts should always demand validation in their understanding of what the other has communicated.

Build a team that does not simply 'do', but a team that thinks, communicates, and understands; and create an environment that fosters this relationship.

</comment><comment><USER5>
        It takes one designer...

no it doesn't. it takes a design team, just as it takes an engineering team.

<comment><USER6> I think his intent was to say it takes one person to make that final choice on the design. If it wasn't then you are clearly in the right. Usually design by committee ends up being a total disaster because the UI feels disjointed.

Ultimately I believe it was in reference to Jobs being the 'taste guy'.

Sidenote: While the Mac is certainly inconsistent in design (mostly iTunes), iOS is far less so. I guess you can attribute it to Jobs always being interested in the next new thing. In the last WWDC appearance by Jobs, one could clearly see that he was more excited by iOS than Lion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you think about the phrase "designer" in its wider sense it's always an occupation that's multidisciplinary by the nature of the gig. It doesn't matter what type of design you are (industrial, graphic, fashion, etc.) because you are always working with people outside of your profession. Many people think of a designer as someone on a mountaintop who is going after "a vision" -- well that's real a fine artist.

Designers on the other hand are always about making something for an end purpose, and something that NEEDS to please an audience (be a client or end- consumer). Design should be style thrown on top of engineering -- that's decoration, which isn't what designers do. Designer solve problems, tell stories and give their creations personalities.

</comment><comment><USER8> Designers and engineers have a codependent relationship. Either party can (and should) learn to do what the other does, but a single person mastering both fields is pretty rare.

I've see a lot of hostility between designers and Engineers. Engineers can feel contempt for designers that dictate functional and UX decisions (often without understanding the ramifications of their choices). Designers often feel contemptuous towards engineers that are getting paid 2-3 times their salary.

We probably all want to be on collaborative project teams. I wish they were more common.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great article, though I would take it one step further and strongly nudge more designers to take on more engineering roles (as many engineers also work to broaden their skill set).

<comment><USER10> Many of us already are. :)

Will Miner spoke about web designer as a hybrid between designer and developer at Build: <http://vimeo.com/7835308>

I feel like I'll probably be a designer at heart, but I still want to learn as much dev-stuff as possible. I'm going to use Django for my personal portfolio, simply for the sake of learning it. I'm really looking forward to it. :)

Generally people need people of other disciplines. Developers need designers as well, and we all need copywriters for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "no, designers don't need engineers. a project needs engineers just as a project needs designers."

This.

<comment><AUTHOR> When great design depends on great engineering to work its magic, as you see with Apple products like their touch interfaces or, heck, even their lovely lovely desktop keyboards, then design needs technology, or, put another way, designers need engineers. It's English, don't read more into it than it says :-)

<comment><USER8> You are probably right. Everyone in this thread seems to be agreeing with each other. We're just discussing semantics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > good design depends on great engineers

Beware the teammate that champions the importance of their discipline over that of others. Good design and engineering have many dependencies, but neither should include an inflated sense of entitlement.

I wouldn't go too far out on this guy if I were you.

</comment><comment><USER12> comment on post from Jason Block:

      Conversely, a lot of engineers believe that you don't
      need great designers--just great products. It's a
      relationship that absolutely must be synergistic if
      one wants to captivate an audience of millions with
      their work.

lets qualify that. Apple clearly establishes markets where the first-to-market guys couldn't. That's because they build products that make people feel good. Need design and engineering synergy.

Apple was also originally a garage startup where their product was a jumble of exposed wires on a breadboard. Need engineers.

Lets not lose track of the spectrum here.</comment>


Learning Nix by Example: Building FFmpeg 4.0 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kiloreux.me/2019/03/17/learning-nix-by-example-building-ffmpeg-4-dot-0/ <comment><USER2> I recently got to know NIX, it seems pretty neat although getting it to work multiuser is annoying, in addition to installing it on Ubuntu via any sort of automation being a pain. Would be cool to see an RPM/DEB. I didn't even try to get it running on FreeBSD because it seemed like a multi-day affair...</comment>


Ask HN: Stay in west coast tech scene or join hedge fund? - <AUTHOR> I'm a fairly senior data scientist/machine learning engineer at a major tech company.  I recently got invited to apply at a major hedge fund, and decided to give it a shot.  It looks like I might get an offer, which surprises me, given how selective I perceive them to be.
Setting aside my impostor syndrome, what would I be getting myself into by taking the offer?  I can expect all of the typical perks of working at a hedge fund, but it would involve a move.  I have a family, but the move actually puts me much closer to my extended family.  I can assume that there will be more work, on a wildly uneven tech stack.
Has anyone been in a similar situation?  How did it play out, and were there any regrets? <comment><USER2> Hedge funds are much more heterogenous than investment banks. Some of them are very disciplined, other ones are overgrown family offices.

I know someone who worked at a famous hedge fund in Connecticut whose name starts with B and ends with R. He told me they hire a lot of superstars and put them to work doing things that leave them feeling underemployed even if overpaid. He left. Like many places the dominant analysis tool is Excel and lately they have gotten into desktop virtualization so that employees can't walk off with laptops full of valuable data.

Other ones are more tech focused, I had a guy from Renassiance jump on me at a vendor conference circa 2005 because I asked a question about "distributed main memory databases"

Outside of finance I am a huge fan of the startup scene in NYC.</comment>


The case against American truck bloat - <AUTHOR> https://theweek.com/articles/929196/case-against-american-truck-bloat <comment><USER2> Just thinking how much better this article would have been if Twitter didn't exist.

Despite that, I to find it annoying that all the true mini trucks have disappeared and the author nailed it - larger vehicles are extremely profitable.

Normally competition would solve this, but unfortunately we are left with the chicken tax - that lingers to this day and prevents true competition. Hyundai, Mahindra and many others have very cool mini trucks that the stupid chicken tax is effectively blocking. Lacking competition, the currently entrenched truck makers have all decided to stop producing cheaper trucks and here we are.

[https://www.thoughtco.com/chicken- tax-4159747](https://www.thoughtco.com/chicken-tax-4159747)

It's why the Subaru Brat had seats in the bed.

Indeed, that's not the only impact of this inane tariff. I would encourage folks to search themselves - ironically Ford got hit with complications of this stupid law and had to ship vans with seats and then rip them out. It's a perfect exercise of unintended consequences and in general a poster child for why less regulation is often better unless you have a REALLY effective process to iterate and refine over time said regulations.</comment>