Perhaps Jeff Atwood Should Stick to the Code - <AUTHOR> http://supervacuo.com/blog/2013/jan/22/jeff-atwood-stick-to-the-code/ Better late than never, right? <comment><USER3> I don't think this kind of dialog really helps. Jeff's post was, I thought, sincere and understandable. It's not really the same way I saw things, but I can see what he meant. It clearly wasn't intended to be disrespectful, and reading that in and then flaming about it publicly isn't helping anyone.

If Jeff was angry at Aaron for "taking the easy way out" (again: not my personal reaction, but one I think I can understand), he has the right to express that without being told he should "stick to the code". Dealing with "inconvenient" emotions is part of grief, and that process deserves respect too.

Basically: lighten up. This is _really_ not an appropriate subject to pick a fight over.

<comment><USER4> _If Jeff was angry at Aaron for "taking the easy way out" (again: not my personal reaction, but one I think I can understand), he has the right to express that without being told he should "stick to the code". Dealing with "inconvenient" emotions is part of grief, and that process deserves respect too._

It is extremely common for people to feel anger at the death of a loved one, especially a death so complicated to process as a suicide.

People take years to unravel the knot and come to accept what has happened. I took it as Jeff being human.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I get what both are saying but from a pragamtic, unemotional side I think Atwood is right. Atwood's simple premise is that if you are going to be an activist, you better realize that those in power are going to throw everything at you so you better be ready to accept the consequences. In even simpler terms, 'don't do the crime if you can't do the time'.

I know this is a bad example, but I watch 'Whale Wars'. Those folks know exactly what they are doing and walking a very, very fine line where they could be guilty of many offenses in multiple countries. But they don't care and a few have served time for what they have done. They don't seem to whine about it because they feel it's worth it.

What Atwood says appears cold and insensitive. But I think he's getting a little tired (like a lot of us) of the constant 'Swartz did nothing wrong'/'prosecution for no reason'/'visionary bullied into suicide' meme (nothing else to call it). He absolutely broke the law in a couple ways. Was the prosecution overzealous? Maybe. We don't know what the outcome would've been so we can't say whether it would've been fair.

<comment><AUTHOR> "The law" isn't some monolith, though -- it's defined by every institution (every person?) enforcing it, and every decision made in carrying out "justice".

It's a crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to port-scan Google. Are you really saying that you'd be getting tired of people talking about it if someone who'd done just that was facing years in jail (a perfectly _legal_ consequence).

<comment><USER5> _"The law" isn't some monolith, though -- it's defined by every institution (every person?) enforcing it, and every decision made in carrying out "justice"._

There are laws which may or may not be levied against us in certain situations. You are implying that Swartz shouldn't have been prosecuted just because you feel what he did wasn't wrong. Your feelings are completely irrelevant. Someone felt wronged and brought it to the attention of those who could prosecute the crime.

 _Are you really saying that you'd be getting tired of people talking about it if someone who'd done just that was facing years in jail (a perfectly _legal_ consequence)._

If it were receiving as much biased anti-law exposure as this case is receiving then absolutely. Swartz was facing years in jail, yes, but he might have (most likely) received a much more minor sentence.

What ardent Swartz supports need to realize is:

1) He made the decision to break the law - which it appears he clearly knew what he was doing was illegal. 2) He knew there were consequences - <USER2> probably not of the severity he thought. 2) No one forced him to do it. 3) There were other options for changing the system. 4) It was his choice to kill himself.

If you feel that the maximum punishment didn't fit the crime you should do something about that to possibly save others in the future. But please don't expect us all to have outrage over Swartz being punished. It's a shame he killed himself but that's tertiary to the issue of the entire case. Just because he killed himself doesn't mean he's less guilty or more innocent.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think your first sentence perfectly illustrates my point:

> There are laws which may or may not be levied against us in certain > situations.

Evidence (including Swartz's case) strongly suggests that this discretion leads to an unjust result.

It's obvious that not every legal action is socially desirable (or "moral", for the sake of brevity) and not every illegal action is immoral (whistleblowers, protestors, etc.). So, like I said before, the criminal justice system is composed of laws _and_ the people who make the call as to whether to prosecute, which in this case includes a powerful company (JSTOR), an academic institution (MIT), cops, the FBI and finally Ortiz and her office.

A few more characters than you might immediately list when you think of "the law", right?

When you say "Someone felt wronged and brought it to the attention of those who could prosecute the crime", you make it sound like it's an automatic process from one to the other. As someone who has both suffered and carried out actions which are illegal according to the letter of the law, I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth.

Read my article: HSBC broke a whole bunch of laws (to the tune of a trillion dollars a year), and got a sweet plea deal and no individual prosecutions. Good luck getting similar treatment if you shoplift an iPod, particularly if you're anything other than white.

<comment><USER5> You can pick and choose any number of 'wrongful' or 'unjust' litigation. There's a ton. HSBC is irrelevant to Swartz.

 _It's obvious that not every legal action is socially desirable (or "moral", for the sake of brevity) and not every illegal action is immoral (whistleblowers, protestors, etc.)._

Irrelevant. Social desire and morality has nothing to do with it. BTW, those are very subjective. I do feel that Swartz should've gone a different, more legal route if he wanted to cause change. I have no issue with him being prosecuted. So who is right, you or me?

JSTOR is not the law. MIT is not the law. They are involved in the criminal matter but do not determine whether something gets prosecuted. Is it arbitrary and sometimes political? Sure, but we shouldn't be outraged over Swartz being prosecuted. Very few gave a shit about the case until he killed himself. Where was all the outrage over the prosecution up until then?

 _When you say "Someone felt wronged and brought it to the attention of those who could prosecute the crime", you make it sound like it's an automatic process from one to the other._

Absolutely not. If JSTOR and MIT didn't think it was an issue it wouldn't have gone anywhere. If a crime is not reported it can't be followed up on by law enforcement. Obviously JSTOR and/or MIT brought this illegal activity through the proper channels and law enforcement took over. Maybe the FBI/Justice Dept was using Swartz as an example but he still broke a law.

 _As someone who has both suffered and carried out actions which are illegal according to the letter of the law, I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth._

You can feel free to rape, murder, and pillage all you want. If there's no one to report the crime, no one willing to report the crime, or no authority to report to, then, sure, you won't be prosecuted. But don't be outraged if you get prosecuted when you break the law.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Sure, but we shouldn't be outraged over Swartz being prosecuted.

WTH not? It was pretty outrageous. I'd be interested to hear your argument that he deserved even 6 months in prison for copyright violation.

> If a crime is not reported it can't be followed up on by law enforcement.

... which is not to say that if a crime _is_ reported, it _will_ be followed up by law enforcement. Many reported crimes are not acted upon at all; some of them get a huge overreaction (like Swartz's) and some get an under-reaction (like HSBC).

That's the link: that justice is only just if the rules are the same for everyone, and they clearly are not.

<comment><USER5> _WTH not? It was pretty outrageous. I'd be interested to hear your argument that he deserved even 6 months in prison for copyright violation._

Outrageous to whom? You?

I feel the punishment doesn't fit the crime, however, that's the punishment. I wouldn't want that punishment so I do not steal copyrighted material. That's Atwood's point in it's entirety: Swartz knew there were strict penalties and wasn't willing to accept the consequences if caught.

 _... which is not to say that if a crime is reported, it will be followed up by law enforcement._

This depends on a lot of factors and you know that. But there isn't some Illuminati deciding whether every case is important enough to prosecute.

 _That's the link: that justice is only just if the rules are the same for everyone, and they clearly are not._

Prosecutors prosecute what they think they can win. Swartz was a win for obvious reasons, HSBC wasn't for reasons unbeknownst to me. Our system is what it is. If you can't accept losing, don't play ball.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is a real danger that other people see what Aaron did, and the resulting response, and conclude that the most effective activism is martyrdom/suicide. I think Jeff was trying to push back against this idea with his post, while also taking responsibility for not doing more to help Aaron while he was alive. He also points out that activism frequently coincides with jail time, and that the most effective activists (ie MLK), frequently end up there.

The point of your article seems to be that Jeff Atwood should stick to coding, because he isn't an activist and can't comprehend how bad being on the wrong end of our flawed criminal justice system can be. "Jeff Atwood is apparently saying that Aaron Swartz was taking an underhand route to escape the consequences of his activism, and that he was being a bad activist in so doing."

Let's be frank. Jeff Atwood is saying you shouldn't commit suicide. At no point does he characterize this as an "underhand route"... that is your language. But furthermore, I agree with Jeff Atwood. You shouldn't commit suicide. Even if the corrupt and incompetent federal government charges you with 50 years in prison for downloading journal articles. Don't commit suicide.

So I don't really understand why you're piling on Jeff Atwood. In the past Jeff Atwood has deserved some piling on for his writings... this is not one of those times.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I think Jeff was trying to push back against this idea with his post

If you want to make the point that suicide is bad, find a way to do it without insulting a recently-deceased campaigner, especially if a) you have very little personal experience of equivalent situations and b) you have done comparatively little to help others (a fair guess, given that Swartz was so much more active than most people).

> But furthermore, I agree with Jeff Atwood. You shouldn't commit suicide. > Even if the corrupt and incompetent federal government charges you with 50 > years in prison for downloading journal articles. Don't commit suicide.

If Jeff's article had read like your comment, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I have no problem with you saying that suicide is either morally wrong, or an ineffective campaign strategy — although I happen to disagree with you on both points (citing euthanasia as a sometimes-moral suicide and Thích Quảng Đức & Mohamed Bouazizi as suicides which changed the world for the better).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You don't get off to persuasive start when you call everyone who disagrees with you (before even making it clear what you're disagreeing ABOUT) a moron.

<comment><USER8> You are misreading the first line of the article. The article's author is lumping himself AND Jeff Atwood (not to mention nearly the entire population of Hacker News) into the same bucket here: ALL of them saddened by the passing of Aaron Swartz.

He then disagrees with Jeff Atwood about a further point: whether Aaron should have "accepted the penalty" for his activism.

Personally, when I first read Jeff Atwood's original essay I felt that I understood what he was getting at ("I'm disappointed that Aaron 'quit' on us, and I hope no one else does."), but I felt (as does this author) that his suggestion that civil disobedience requires one to accept the penalties for breaking the law. I am neither sure that Aaron Swartz intended to engage in civil disobedience, nor am I sure that meekly accepting the state-imposed punishment is a necessary component of civil disobedience.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I am neither sure that Aaron Swartz intended to engage in civil disobedience

This is an interesting point: I would develop it to talk about _levels_ of disobedience.

Like Andrew Auernheimer, I think Swartz knew he would get "in trouble", but didn't appreciate the scale -- which is understandable, as I say in my article, because the details of "trouble" are deliberately obscured.

<comment><USER9> From a NYT article on the matter: _A respected Harvard researcher who also is an Internet folk hero has been arrested in Boston on charges related to computer hacking, which are based on allegations that he downloaded articles that he was entitled to get free._ (<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/us/20compute.html?_r=0>)

It is also reasonable for one to think they wouldn't get in trouble for this. Either way, at the root of civil disobedience and activism is the desire to change.

I think Dr. King's quote is being taken out of context in these discussions. Dr. King doesn't mean to simply "grin and bear it", Dr. King means that fighting for our freedom is hard, and thus activists must, in order to have any chance of producing change, be prepared for the worst, in some form of self sacrifice.

Atwood is saying (I feel erroneously) that Swartz came so close to creating a change, but gave it all away when he "ragequit".

The point is, what happened happened, and I hope we never have to have a "next time", but I'll bet that if there is a next time, it will play out _very_ differently, and for the better, _thanks to Swartz_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > 22 January 2013

?

Why wasn't this submitted last month, when Atwood's post was being discussed? It seems odd to submit it nearly a month after discussion of that has pretty much ended.

</comment><comment><USER11> "I say this not as a person who wishes to judge Aaron Swartz. I say it as a fellow gamer who has also considered playing the same move quite recently. To the point that I – like Aaron himself, I am sure – was actively researching it."

Atwood is saying that he's considered suicide - recently, and that he doesn't want to judge Aaron. Most importantly, he's grieving, and different people grieve in different ways.

I think you're being overly harsh in your post. Especially since you have two messages for Jeff: stick to code; alter your message. Which would you prefer? Either way, you're judging his grieving process, which I think is unfair.

I think you should express your own grief (and outrage) in your own way. Pointing fingers at others who are grieving isn't nearly as constructive, I think.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. But "respecting Atwood's grief" was outweighed by "challenging his dangerous ideology", especially since (as he says in his post) he'd never met Swartz.

Don't think his suicidal thoughts are relevant to his chosen topic of noble activism. If anything, Atwood mentioning it came across a little " _I_ beat suicide... but this guy couldn't".

<comment><USER11> Someone's dealing with suicidal thoughts, and your message is "shut up."

I think your post is the dangerous one.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Dealing with suicidal thoughts" and "scaring off potential activists by being nasty" are two separate activities.

<comment><USER11> So respectfully empathize with him, and point out your differences about activism.

Telling him to "stick to coding" makes you an insensitive clod, and sends a dangerous message to others with suicidal thoughts that their feelings are not welcome.

<comment><AUTHOR> > So respectfully empathize with him, and point out your differences about > activism.

There's no moral problem with being slightly irreverent to someone in such a strong position: Atwood is apparently financially successful and has a large readership. He is also — unlike the target of his own criticism — alive.

So maybe your concern is strategic. I happen to think "respectful empathy" would have been a worse way of making my point.

Finally, I think my article is pretty clear. The category of person I want to "stick to coding" is "Jeff Atwood", or, more specifically, "Jeff Atwood talking about something he knows nothing about in a socially-damaging way". I don't think anyone would come away with the impression that I don't want to hear from people who've thought about suicide (hence why I didn't mention that aspect of Atwood's post at all).

<comment><USER11> > being slightly irreverent to someone in such a strong position

You're also telling everyone who happens to agree with Atwood to shut up. And they don't all have the same strong position.

You're not WRITING AN EMAIL TO ATWOOD, you're broadcasting to the world that everyone who agrees with him is wrong. And you're doing it disrespectfully.

> (hence why I didn't mention that aspect of Atwood's post at all).

Don't you think, given the topic, that you should have specifically mentioned that category of people, and shown empathy? Perhaps starting with Atwood, and generalizing from there?

Fuck it - you don't care what I think, and you're casual about telling people to shut up, so my efforts are completely pointless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In a way, I agree with Jeff, and I wonder what would happened if some other famous activists have taken the path Aaron took.</comment>


Verizon to Acquire Tracfone - <AUTHOR> https://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-to-acquire-tracfone <comment><USER2> Sounds like Verizon just wants the subscriber count.

Tracfone already uses the Verizon network (early in the article) and nothing mention later makes it sound like Tracfone would not be able to use the Verizon network to do the same thing.</comment>


Show HN: GitHub Pull Request Bot - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Schachte/WIPCream <comment><USER2> Hey there, I looked at this but still have no idea what it does. You say it helps limit the number of open PRs and encourages closing them and issues, but there is nothing telling me how it does it unless you read the entire screenshot which is more than I want to do at a glance to figure out what it does.

It seems to me that it auto closes the PRs that someone tries to open if the PR threshold is met? Does it do that to issues too? I think I wouldn't want a limit on issues personally.

I like the idea of the tool though!</comment>


The Mosteller Hall Puzzle - <AUTHOR> http://jonathanweisberg.org/post/Teaching%20Monty%20Hall/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand why the given solution doesn't fall prey to the same problem of "her logic would make it unnecessary to consult the guard".

By this solution, if the guard says "B" (as in the original story), the probably of A being condemned goes up. But if the guard says "C", the probably also goes up by the same amount, because the graph is symmetric!

Going by this logic, if the guard is not allowed to say "A", then their answer doesn't matter. So why isn't the final probability still 1/3?

<comment><USER3> I think it's the author's fault for switching between probabilities and odds and the readers for not recognizing the switch.

"Thus A's chance of being condemned remains twice that of being pardoned."

When he says this, he is talking of odds of 2:1 and therefore, the probability of not being condemned is 1/1+2 = 1/3

Also when he says "Because, unlike in Monty Hall, the intuitive judgment is the correct one in Mosteller's puzzle." He means the intuitive judgment that 1/2 is incorrect.

I was extremely confused the first 2-3 times I read it and kept trying to understand the author's viewpoint because everything other than these two statement seemed to make sense. At least I wasn't the only one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think a correct analysis of this problem requires you to know the guard's exact policy for what to say in every possible situation. The author has assumed that in the case that A is pardoned, the guard randomly chooses whether to answer "B" or "C" with equal probability, but we have no evidence for this.

Consider, for example, how you would analyze the situation where the guard says to A, completely unsolicited, "Hey, just so you know, B is still condemned to die."

On the one hand, it seems that the author's exact same analysis could be used in this situation: the guard's policy here might be exactly the same as it was in the original situation (where A asks the guard to name one of the other prisoners). On the other hand, perhaps the guard's policy was to only offer this information to A if A were pardoned. Or maybe the guard would have only said this if C were pardoned. We just don't know, so we can't calculate the probability that A is pardoned.

<comment><USER5> > a correct analysis of this problem requires you to know the guard's exact > policy for what to say in every possible situation.

Just as with Monty Hall, where one ought to specify that the host knows exactly what's where, and always opens a remaining door such that it contains a goat (choosing uniformly if there's more than one such choice).

The nice thing about the variant in the article is that it is fairly well and intuitively specified.

(By the way, if the guard chooses B with probability x (rather than 1/2) in case A is pardoned, then the probability that A is pardoned is x/(1+x), which is between 0 and 1/2, but indeed is 1/3 only for x = 1/2.).

            A = A is pardoned
    	etc.

    	P(A) = P(B) = P(C) = 1/3

    	SA = guard says A still condemned
    	etc.

    	P(SB | A) = x
    	P(SB | B) = 0
    	P(SB | C) = 1

    	P(SC | A) = 1-x
    	P(SC | B) = 1
    	P(SC | C) = 0

    	P(SA) = 0
    	P(SB) = (1+x)/3
    	P(SC) = (2-x)/3

    	P(A | SB) = P(SB | A) P(A) / P(SB)
    	          = x * 1/3 / (1+x) * 3 = x/(1+x)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems identical to the Monty Hall problem, except that the typical telling of the Monty Hall problem elides an important detail: that Monty knows which door conceals the car and intentionally always picks one that conceals a goat.

With that omitted (on Wikipedia [0], it's omitted in both the introduction to the page and the "canonical" reader's letter it quotes), people correctly conclude that their chance of winning doesn't go up by switching doors.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem)

<comment><USER7> It's not the same as the Monty Hall problem because the prisoner is not given a choice. If you are sure you know the answer to the Monty Hall problem and are a programmer then I suggest writing a little simulator to test your answer.

<comment><USER5> It is structurally the same. With the wrong conclusion that A now has 1/2 chance of being pardoned, he'd be indifferent between remaining himself or rather being C.

With the (correct) conclusion that A still has 1/3 chance of being pardoned, and given that B has 0 chance of being pardoned, A would now rather "switch" with C, who has 2/3 chance of being pardoned. (That he doesn't have that choice doesn't matter.)

<comment><USER7> I didn't mean it was mathematically different, but the framing is sufficiently different to cause most people to miss the most interesting part. I was leaving out the correct conclusion so as not to spoil it for anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Bit of a tangent here, but I don't get the relevance of the goat animated gif at the bottom of the article. Perhaps it was just for fun, or is there some deeper metaphor I'm missing?

<comment><USER9> In the Monty Hall problem, the bad outcome is opening a door and finding a goat -- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a puzzle that everyone gets intuitively, but formulating the error exactly is still a good learning exercise.

Maybe a good interview question?

<comment><USER11> I found it!! The elusive source of it all! Here, ladies and gentleman, you can see the birth of the exact thought:

"Hey I just read this really obscure article on something I've never heard of in school or used in my professional life, and didn't have to figure out for myself.

I bet it would make a great interview question."

<comment><USER12> You don't deserve the downvotes because that seems to be the exact thought process here: an interview is not about what the candidate can do, but how [s]he responds to weird gotchas.</comment></comment></comment>


Why are browsers so slow? - <AUTHOR> http://ilyabirman.net/meanwhile/all/why-are-browsers-so-slow/?repost <comment><USER2> You're using a mac. That's your problem right there. Think different!

</comment><comment><USER3> Too many scripts and plugins. A typical website has hundreds of pages worth of JavaScript that must be rendered

</comment><comment><USER4> CIA</comment>


NSW seeks to build 'unhackable' netbook network - <AUTHOR> http://www.itnews.com.au/News/156528,nsw-seeks-to-build-unhackable-netbook-network.aspx

<comment> rm-rf It looks like they've had to bring in a large collection of vendors in order to solve the technical challenges (Remedy, McAfee, MS's AV & System Center, Aruba Airwave) and functional requirements (iTunes, MS Office, Adobe CS4).

So with that suite of software, will the netbooks perform reasonably well? (Mine would not).

</comment><comment><USER2> I very much doubt those machines will last 4 years. Even if they are taken well care of by the student, other students might not (so you get to keep your lunch money but not your netbook). And with only 2GB of RAM, it won't be able to run any of those high-end programs in just a few years unless they aren't updated to the newest versions.</comment>


Why Malcolm Gladwell Matters and Why That's Unfortunate - <AUTHOR> http://blog.chabris.com/2013/10/why-malcolm-gladwell-matters-and-why.html <comment><USER2> If you ask me . . . :-)

The rhetoric of Malcolm Gladwell's work represents that of the "new historicism" in literary studies, which emerged in the 80s.

There is a common style to these works:

\-- They start with a startling and interesting anecdote, and, basically, tell a story.

\-- They leverage finding from various articles.

\-- They use a lot of argumentative ju-jitsu. For example, when the author is going to basically attempt a kind of whopper, they will admit that there are some failing to the argument. The rhetorical tic for Greenblatt is to write: "To be sure . . ." to make the reader feel that, yes, there are other opinions, but I'm kind of right. Then they go barreling ahead with a highly contentious argument.

For Greenblatt and the literary historians who write about the past: Their claims are rarely falsifiable. Sometimes other scholars will say that the new historicists are "wrong," but it is not uncommon for the critics' basis for their own claims to be equally frail.

If you asked Greenblatt, he might not claim that what is describing is "true," but, rather, "good to think with." For the past, maybe that's reasonable.

But:

Gladwell is almost always talking about the present, and making claims that should be testable with a robust experiment. Very frequently, he will cite incredibly thin research (as Chris Chabris notes).

I think this is the essential problem:

Gladwell's style is OK if you can't really test the hypothesis (new historicism). But if you're talking about the here-and-now, you have to answer to a higher standard of argumentation.

<comment><USER3> > [Greenblatt] might not claim that what is describing is "true," but, rather, > "good to think with."

Ah! _Gleichschaltung._

<comment><USER2> Bwa ha ha! Right you are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem I have with best-seller pseudoscience is that it gets used by people to justify assinine decisions in the workplace and even worse, in public policy. In that respect, people like Gladwell can do real harm, rather than advancing scientific literacy or spreading knowledge.

Gladwell gets rich with his writing, so good for him. But his dubious counterintuitive "insights" are really close to snake oil in some cases.

That said, maybe there's money in writing books to take down Gladwell.

<comment><USER5> I have a hard time imagining that the decisions people would have made, if not for reading Gladwell, would have been of higher quality, generally.

<comment><USER4> You make a good point. A manager who would take Gladwell's advice of making the font more difficult to read would probably be the type of person who would've made many other ignorant decisions on his/her own.

The problem is, the more popular the pseudoscience is, the more likely it is that you'll run into it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like him. Lively writing, interesting anecdotes, bold (to say the least) explanations of described phenomena. It's a fair point that he/his publishers often hype it as the real thing (like in real science) but that's how promotion is done these days. I don't see the case of Gladwell as especially abusive in this respect and again the guy has a lot of interesting/entartaining things to say.

Comparing it to Oprah and The Secret hype (as some other commenters did) which is snake oil in the purest form is not fair imo.

<comment><USER7> I'm with you.

I've read and enjoyed Mr. Gladwell's books, and may even prefer his essay writing[1].

The guy isn't writing a dissertation; this is lightweight pop-science from a fairly good writer and presenter, with a knack for inductive reasoning (albeit sometimes controversial). The fact that the masses misjudge the scientific efficacy of his arguments is not a real issue. It's not like the guy is selling hate-speech. He should be WAY down the list of authors requiring a scientific debunking.

[1][http://gladwell.com/category/the-new-yorker- archive/](http://gladwell.com/category/the-new-yorker-archive/)

<comment><USER8> "The guy isn't writing a dissertation; this is lightweight pop-science from a fairly good writer and presenter, with a knack for inductive reasoning"

Gladwell's angle is that he's done the heavy lifting and read those dissertations for you, in the end democratizing these counterintuitive tidbits of intellectual shortcuts that will allow everyone to understand the world better. His audience listens to him because there is a belief that he is simplifying hard material.

Only he isn't. The conclusions he draws seldom have any legitimate supports, though Gladwell writes as if he does. Indeed, I have to disagree that he has any knack for inductive reasoning -- his real knack is to identify those conclusions that will get him PR, which in turn will make him rich and important.

 _The fact that the masses misjudge the scientific efficacy of his arguments is not a real issue_

This is unfair to every reader of Gladwell. Unfair to everyone who quoted his various assertions in blog posts or infographic form. Because they did it based on the idea that there is a reasonable probability that his claims are valid. But they aren't. They might be randomly generated with as much legitimacy.

Gladwell is a fantastic writer, but scientifically he operates with the same behavior of a million snake oil salesman.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I believe that the biggest problem with Malcolm Gladwell's writing is that one may be left with the impression that it's journalism. To understand why he does not provide critical analysis of the topics he writes on, this quote from last week's NY Times Sunday Book Review is enlightening:

 _I also like to steer clear of writing about people whom I do not personally like. My rule is that if I interview someone, they should never read what I have to say about them and regret having given me the interview.[1]_

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/books/review/malcolm- gladw...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/books/review/malcolm-gladwell-by- the-book.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Gladwell is a meme-optimizer, and he's got it dialed in perfectly for his audience. Same with Ferriss, but for a different audience. Kiyosaki, same.

The techniques are amazingly well executed, even if (or especially because) the practitioners are sociopaths. That doesn't mean they are always wrong or offering bad analysis, but it does mean that meme-optimization (certainty, in- group/out-group creation, etc.) will trump the truth.

<comment><USER11> Do you think Gladwell and Ferriss are sociopaths? Why?

<comment><USER12> Ferriss is obviously a borderline scam-artist. Just read the titles of his books.

For more detailed information, you can search out blog posts by others (or by him!) where it's blatantly obvious he spammed Amazon, blogs, and other services with MTurk-like workers to promote his brand.

Not to mention cheating the push-hands tournament (if in spirit and not law necessarily), etc.

<comment><USER11> I was already aware of a lot of this, didn't mean to appear like I was doubting the claim - I mostly wanted to hear this stuff from a fresh mouth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >I think the effect is the propagation of a lot of wrong beliefs among a vast audience of influential people

You mean like politics? sports? Hollywood? Yes, maybe Gladwell's writings don't pass muster for publication into an academic journal. But in a world obsessed with 30-second clips, I'm sure glad he's peddling his "gateway drugs". Maybe he's not good with qualifiers, but at least he's working hard to research complex issues and, for goodness sake, even uses references! In light of the _usual_ quality of information that the public is exposed to these days, intellectuals telling Gladwell to shut up is an incredibly self- defeating attitude.

<comment><USER14> _He 's not good with qualifiers, but he's at least working hard to research complex issues and, for goodness sake, the man even uses references!_

I'd say no reference it pretty much better than distorting the overall state of research. (Edit: Also Gladwell isn't researching at all, he's reading research and presenting it, just FYI).

Sure, everyday debate and everyday judgement involves continuously formulating and using unproven, unscientific beliefs. But at least we should be aware when someone is doing that. Arbitrary judgement that just presents itself as arbitrary judgement, that you have strong to examine yourself, it better than dubious positions that present themselves as Proven By Science.

<comment><USER13> Well, I'd say everyone tries to overstate their case a bit, don't we? But if we care about the state of everyday debate and judgment then we should also accept improvements. And it could be considered improvement if a politician / manager / director gets their knowledge of science and psychology from Gladwell than from _CSI_ or _ESPN Live_ respectively (which they would otherwise).

<comment><USER15> Actually, this is a specific case of the bad is worse than the none (as opposed to the bad being better than none. I.e., half a loaf of bread is better than no bread if you're hungry, but a half-finished boat hull won't float, if you take it out it'll sink under you).

In this case, your friendly PHB looks at Gladwell or other pop sci author, decides its true (a falsehood), and then makes policy based on the _illusion_ of correctness. Now you, in your quest for truth, have to defeat Gladwell as well as spread truth. See how it gets worse than your PHB just derping it up on his own?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> People like Malcolm Gladwell and Oprah (her gross promotion of The Secret was pretty bad) are basically snake oil salesmen or con-men. They'll tell you something you like to hear for a small fee, but you'll be no better off for it. In fact, depending on what level of credibility you assign their claims, you may be worse. It's frustrating, but part of the human condition. I imagine it wasn't too long after language was invented that the one human looked at another and made up a story that was credible because the audience was scared or frustrated at being saddled with the human condition.

<comment><USER6> So I am not familiar with all of his books and it was some time I've read the last one (Outliers) but he doesn't give (at least not much) direct possibly harmful advice to people. He just describes some phenomena and some bold theories to explain those. It's not like you will hurt yourself committing to 10k hours of deliberate practice in your field or something.

On the other hand Oprah with her promotion of The Secret which is potentially very harmful if you start applying things it advocates or Kiyosaki with his books/mlm promotion are better candidates to put into scam category.

<comment><USER17> I mostly agree, but one thing I saw was multiple 7 year olds in my kids' kindergarten classes. They were "red shirted" by their parents because after reading Outliers they thought it would give them an advantage. I think it ended up hurting those kids because they were bored. It also hurt the youngest kids (some nearly two years younger) who were physically and mentally outmatched. And it hurt the class because the teacher had to split attention between kids who were very different in maturity and ability.

<comment><USER18> I have seen a fair bit of 'red shirting' also. It seems quite strange to me - but then I graduated high school at 17 (no skips) and many high school students in my town are 19 when they graduate now. The inevitable result of 7 year old kindergarten students I guess (btw one of my sons is 6 and in first grade).

After reading Outliers at least I have a theory of why I was a crappy hockey player with my October birthday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the real reason why people like this author don't like Gladwell is because he bypasses this writer's academic community to deal directly with the masses. He gives normal people what they want, makes them feel smarter and more confident analysing the world, and, most insultingly, does it without respecting the rules of conduct developed by academics. This really stings because the community itself has failed to communicate with normal people, but its members still feel like they deserve to be listened to because they _know_ they are right. Its playground jealousy - they can't accept the fact that they don't know how to compete with Gladwell, so they sit around wagging their fingers about the hidden dangers of his writing.

<comment><USER19> "Hidden dangers"? The review doesn't say Gladwell is dangerous, just that he doesn't actually PROVE anything, but people take his claims as if their solid & settled science. There are scientists & researchers who can communicate clearly — Einstein did, Bill Bryson does for astronomy, etc. — without going too simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Another criticism of Gladwell's writing by Steven Pinker some years ago: [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html?pagewanted=all)

</comment><comment><USER21> Thank you for the very interesting submission. Christopher Chabris, the author of the blog post submitted here, is a good friend of several of my friends around the country, and I have interacted directly with him in online communities of human behavior researchers. So I take Chabris's criticisms of Gladwell's writings, especially his most recent book, seriously.

Gladwell is indeed on record saying that he doesn't write to be true in the scholarly sense, but to be thought-provoking. He has said in an interview that he writes to try out ideas.

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html)

"Q: Do you worry that you extrapolate too much from too little?

"A: No. It's better to err on the side of over-extrapolation. These books are playful in the sense that they regard ideas as things to experiment with. I'm happy if somebody reads my books and reaches a conclusion that is different from mine, as long as the ideas in the book cause them to think. You have to be willing to put pressure on theories, to push the envelope. That's the fun part, the exciting part. If you are writing an intellectual adventure story, why play it safe? I'm not out to convert people. I want to inspire and provoke them."

And Gladwell is good, while trying out ideas, at crediting his sources. Any reader of a Malcolm Gladwell book (as I know, from being a reader of the book _Outliers_ ) can check the sources, and decide from there what other sources to check and what other ideas to play with. Gladwell doesn't purport to write textbooks, but I give him a lot of credit for finding interesting scholarly sources that haven't had enough attention in the popular literature. He is equaled by very few authors as a story-teller who can tie ideas together in a thought-provoking assembly. And in particular, I recommend Gladwell's "Disclosure Statement," an essay about conflicts of interest for professional writers,

[http://gladwell.com/disclosure-statement/](http://gladwell.com/disclosure- statement/)

which I learned about from another HN submission. Gladwell has strong integrity of a kind, but it is not the integrity of a scholar of psychology like Christopher Chabris.

Regarding the new book under review, I am particularly worried about claims that dyslexia is any kind of advantage for anything. Many cases of dyslexia are the woeful result of poor practices in teaching reading,

[http://learninfreedom.org/readseri.html](http://learninfreedom.org/readseri.html)

[http://learninfreedom.org/readbook.html](http://learninfreedom.org/readbook.html)

and it would be very regrettable to drop efforts to improve initial reading instruction on the flawed theory that dyslexia provides advantages to young learners. Gladwell says he is "happy if somebody reads my books and reaches a conclusion that is different from mine, as long as the ideas in the book cause them to think," and definitely we should all think each time we read anything.

<comment><USER22> If, in my nonfiction book, I write, "Under normal circumstances, water boils at 80 degrees celsius," then I am a liar, and there is nothing I can say after the fact that will excuse my behavior.

Malcolm Gladwell often writes lies in his nonfiction books. I have found myself personally deceived by some of his lies. For instance, on page 39 of _Outliers_ , he writes:

 _The striking thing about Ericsson's study is that he and his colleagues couldn't find any "naturals", musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did. Nor could they find any "grinds", people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn't have what it takes to break the top ranks._

The first time I read this passage, I thought it was one of the most extraordinary pieces of information I'd ever encountered. It meant that practice almost completely determines ability! I mostly believed that for more than 4 years. (And so did the rest of the world -- that's the core of the 10000 hours meme.)

It turns out that the passage is completely false. Ericsson's study did not actually say anything about individual violinists at all -- it only ever reported average statistics of groups of violinists.

Other studies of the relationship between total practice time and ability have found that different people may reach a given level of ability with enormously different practice totals. For instance a study of chess players found that the average amount of practice time needed to reach the Master level is ~11000 hours -- but the standard deviation of the distribution is more than 5000 hours. One person only took 3000 hours to reach Master level. Another took 23000 hours. [1]

Calling this kind of deception "being playful with ideas" is absurd.

[1] Note: I have not read the study in question. My info comes secondhand, from [http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training- and-...](http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-and- performance-secrets.html?m=1) and [http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor- adventure/media/books/H...](http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor- adventure/media/books/How-Athletes-Get-Great.html?page=all).

<comment><USER23> Water does boil at 80 deg-C... depending on pressure (see its phase diagram). Of course "normal conditions" is the hedge. It's still useful to think about other facets of the "truth." Critical thinking is, indeed, the key.

<comment><USER24> Where do you expect to find humans at significantly high elevations like say, the peak of Mt Logan, BC, Canada (which is ~6km or 19k ft above sea level, where water does indeed boil at 80 deg C)?

I certainly wouldn't call that normal. Noone lives at those altitudes.

<comment><USER23> It's normal when you work in a physics or chemistry lab using vacuum chambers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If his TED Talk on the David and Goliath story [http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_the_unheard_story_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_the_unheard_story_of_david_and_goliath.html) is any indication, his book is for people who find Sun Tzu too subtle.

Much of his previous writing and public speaking are, at least, literate and entertaining. Listen to the whole TED talk, I dare you! I could not finish. The treacle was too thick, the grinding of clashing unapt analogies too loud.

It may be easy and popular to slag Gladwell, but man he set himself up for it this time.

</comment><comment><USER26> The whole Googling "proved" vs "showed" thing is junk science at its finest. Not really an effective way to illustrate your point, dude.

<comment><USER27> He admits it rather openly that its not a rigorous method. So the question really is: is it even slightly rigorous? To which I would say, yes, its ok.</comment></comment>


The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences (1960) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf <comment><USER2> I think so much maths comes from thinking about science; really self evident with the development of calculus, statistics, LA, formal logics, etc.

It's not like there is maths and there is science and it's shocking that maths applies to science because the two came up independently: they are confounded by each other.

</comment><comment><USER3> Math is as far as we can tell a totally universal building kit for anything we want to set up, all the way from elegant models like Newton's laws to billion- parameter monster neural networks. The surprise is not so much the unreasonable effectiveness of math as it is the unreasonable simplicity of fundamental physics.

<comment><USER4> Example of physics' 'unreasonable simplicity'?

<comment><USER5> Physics is the poster boy for reductionism, i. e. the ability to split any situation into its parts, understand those, and then reassemble a complete model that actually describes the world. Hence the jokes about spherical chickens (the approach works, but not for chickens).

Physics has also taught us to expect absurdly simple laws as the inner workings of seemingly complex observations. e = mcc would feel like a cruel joke on anyone trying to grapple with how reality works pre-Newton.

This mindset, and the so obvious wins of physics in its golden age (ca 1900-1970), from the atom bomb to the moon landing, also set unreasonable expectations for the other sciences.

Hence, people expected no less than a cure for ageing from the unraveling of the genetic code and the decryption of the human genome. Yet, as it turns out, biology cannot be reduced in the way that physics can. Genetics is a madman's den of complexity, nonlinearity, and unpredictability. It's almost literally what you would expect from a few million years of Perl snippets evolving. The same is true of neuroscience, meteorology, sociology, and, to a lesser degree, chemistry.

<comment><USER6> Some of that larger scale complexity may be due to irreducable emergent relationships that reductionism alone can't explain without essentially simulating those reductionist relationships to the scale you need from the ground up (which defeats some of the goals of reductionism).

You may need perfect information in order to fully simulate such systems (a snapshot of all initial conditions and perfect knowledge of physical laws). This may be the case for many scales of relationships we're interested in.

Current reductionist theories can't tell me if I'm going to have coffee tomorrow morning. I don't expect them to either, yet they still have very useful purposes. They may never be able to tell me if I have coffee tomorrow and I'm fine with that (maybe due to error propagation inherent in quantum mechanical principles or the need for say emergent models).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13954804](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13954804)

2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8520610](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8520610)

<comment><USER8> I'm surprised those are the only two given it's from the 1960s. There really needs to be a section for timeless content like this.

<comment><USER9> We have that! 'Hacker News Classics' [http://jsomers.net/hn/](http://jsomers.net/hn/)

<comment><USER8> Amazing, I hadn't seen that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The question I'd ask is if you found a description of nature, is there any chance it would be called not-math yet still describe the phenomenon in question?

Is there any example of something that isn't considered math but describes nature?

Isn't there a tendency for math to grow with science too?

<comment><USER11> "Is there any example of something that isn't considered math but describes nature?"

\- "The apple is red"

No math, describes nature.

<comment><USER10> Inevitably you'll become more interested in what exactly red means and you'll end up with something recognisable as math. If you're not already there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is the question

"Is math behind everything or is that anything can be explained with math?"

a valid question?

Even for "chaos" we have a chaos theory. Where we cannot apply function/formulae to physical phenomenon, math tends to use empirical calculation and theory to study systems.

Is is that the universe bends to math or math bends to the universe?

<comment><USER13> I like how Bertrand Russell viewed that:

"Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover."

Math isn't behind everything, and not everything can be explained with math. But it happens that the things that are mathematical turn out to also be quite useful.

<comment><USER12> > not everything can be explained with math

Can you give me any examples? I'm curious.

<comment><USER14> It's the same as: There are more real numbers than you can write down. (Everything you can write down using symbols can only be enumeratable many (you can enumerate all symbol combinations starting with single symbols), but there are uncountable many real numbers)

So now you say: Could you give me an example of such a real number that we can not write down?

Answer: No such example can be given because even e or pi or any other real number constructed by an equation is given by just inventing new (countable many) symbols (like π) or by writing down an algorithm which consists of countable many symbols.

So to answer your question: There could be problems that can not be explained by math but in the same way you might not even be able express/name/describe the problem.

<comment><USER15> _because even e or pi or any other real number constructed by an equation_

Not true. Most real numbers cannot be constructed at all [1] [2]. There is some interest in replacing the mathematics of real numbers with computable numbers, but this adds additional complexity to analysis (requiring a computable modulus of convergence).

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

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

<comment><USER14> Yes that's what I was trying to say with the later part of my setence you quoted:

Only coutable many real numbers can be given by name (like pi) or by an algorithm. But there are still many more numbers left which you can not name/point to/give as example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> An amazing book I've been reading is

[https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Powers-Calculus-Reveals- Univ...](https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Powers-Calculus-Reveals- Universe/dp/1328879984/)

The author explains the history of calculus leading up to Newton's treatise on Calculus and how important calculus is to modern life. It's behind everything you use from cell phones to containing HIV. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER17> Reminds me of this:

[https://youtu.be/HEfHFsfGXjs](https://youtu.be/HEfHFsfGXjs)

</comment><comment><USER18> That's because everything can be approximated with maths. Even with shoewhat random events you can tame it with statistics.

</comment><comment><USER19> If ever there was a argument for Intelligent Design, this would be it.

<comment><USER20> Well, we have a universe of, perhaps, two trillion galaxies that live together in a regularly nonuniform background radiation that can be predicted by a mathematical model predicated upon our advanced understanding of physics and a single point-source event we call the Big Bang, whose physics are beyond our physical reality's description and require some serious hoops to be jumped through (e.g. inflation) to align its progression with the state of our universe today, and yet we have the model and it accurately predicts the precision of our measurements of it (the CMBR) and even its non-uniformity. The universe has a precisely-defined conversion between matter and energy (thanks, Einstein) as well as precise laws that conserve both matter and energy; therefore, nothing gets created and nothing gets destroyed, only transformed, and yet some people deny that something literally "extra- ordinary" is the Source of it all, stuff and its interrelating laws.

To say there is no "Prime Mover" is the height of hubris, for we live in a universe with laws that bely its own creation. For we creatures -- no matter how cognitively well-endowed we are -- to say that we are capable of understanding everything about the Source of this creation is not only absurd, but unscientific and logically unsound.

5/6ths of our universe's matter is missing.

The energy that keeps the universe expanding is missing.

We have no explanation for how the universe implements gravity and, thus, how it works with respect to the other three fundamental forces.

And yet "scientists" claim there is no Creator. The interrelation of all the dynamical systems at work in the various levels of the universe is so precise that even a small variance of one of them -- e.g. the Fine Structure Constant -- would not just break the entire structure; it would render it unmanifestible.

No, we can not understand how this universe was created, because, as the time- dependent creatures we are, the Creator of all that exists, including time itself, is literally beyond our comprehension. Knowing that "the Unknowable" exists should be common knowledge by now, especially for the physics community, as they work to transform subsets of Unknowns into Knowns.

All you who downvote such opinions think yourselves better than Einstein who himself understood that there was a Creator, even as a non-religious person who failed to crack _all_ the mysteries of this wonderful creation. The problem of hubris is a purely personal problem that involves a completely different mathematics fought in a different realm.

Only by accepting the truth of reality can one successfully explore it, my dear friends. Plugging one's ears and yelling, "Blah! Blah! Blah!" is not the way of progress, even if it is the way of social media's self-selecting herds. This grand experiment has shown -- among other things -- that people who can not refute any points of an argument would simply rather make the argument go away. Everyone who knows the history of scientific advancement knows what became of that vast majority who ridiculed Boltzman and Einstein.

<comment><USER21> > ...precise laws that conserve both matter and energy; therefore, nothing > gets created and nothing gets destroyed...

Not your main point but just wanted to point out that because of inflation, energy actually isn't conserved! It's kind of surprising, but consider light getting redshifted from a far away galaxy. Its frequency drops as it travels through space and thus, so does its energy. This happens with the beam not interacting with anything, so the lost energy doesn't really go anywhere.

<comment><USER20> Thanks! That is truly fascinating. I have never encountered that idea of it being a consequence of the red-shift before but it does make sense. I wonder where that energy goes. Perhaps there is an ether after all? Seeing as Planck implies that nothing is continuous in this universe, then I wonder what the quanta of the redshift is? Perhaps time itself causes the friction. (I apologize for my layman's spitballing here but this universe is nothing if not fascinating.)

And by inflation, I was referring to the brief period shortly after the BB where the clumps of galaxies quickly separated themselves. Is that what you are referring to here, or are you referring to the general expansion of the universe?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


21 Days of Rage for Some EBay Sellers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/your-money/ebay-policy-leaves-some-sellers-fuming.html?ref=technology

<comment><USER2> Why not keep the money in an interest bearing account and give the interest to the people who own the money? It's not so much about eBay earning interest, it's about me _not_ earning interest (among other things). eBay not earning interest doesn't fix that.

<comment><USER3> What eBay is trying to do is protect themselves from the allegation that they are flagging accounts so that they can profit from the interest on the float.

The easiest and cheapest way to do that - for them - is to simply hold the float in a non-interest bearing account. By contrast, giving the interest to the sellers would add a lot of paperwork and complications relating to taxes and such.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This happened to me a few times. I did have a new account but after I made a few successful sells it still happened. Shipping to California took a week or more plus an additional 3 days of "review" period, it really sucks. There's also a new charge called final value free where they take a chunk of what you sell and keep it, apart from the seller fees already. If you sell something for $200 you better believe it'll be $170 before it's over with.

I don't know if it's greed, or they really are trying to be helpful but it's starting to be a pain. eBay is turning into MySpace, I wonder who the Facebook will be?

</comment><comment><USER5> So once again a large company introduces filters / AI / algorithms that screw up and occasionally (Or not so occasionally) screw the little guy.

and you know that, unless the little guy can get media interest to help on his behalf, there is nothing he can do.</comment>


Miyamoto: Nintendo's internal studios have 'mastered' the Unreal Engine - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/07/miyamoto-nintendos-internal-studios-have-mastered-state-of-the-art-technologies-such-as-unreal-engine/ <comment><USER2> > Also, even though game software developers in the U.S. and E.U. are often > said to have superior skills to their Japanese counterparts when it comes to > software development techniques

Is this a common thing that Japanese developers hear?</comment>


Google Teleport - <AUTHOR> http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com.hk%2Fintl%2Fzh-CN%2Flanding%2Fteleport%2F <comment><USER2> So this is Google's April Fools joke in Chinese?

The translation is pretty hilarious, though. I especially like "Samsung Centauri" ... I guess that means that Alpha and Samsung are written the same in Chinese?

But maybe we should just be grateful that HN isn't full of Erlang submissions right now.

<comment><USER3> No it's real. They don't have AF in China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow these jokes are growing weaker and weaker each year. There was a time when their jokes were actually interesting.

<comment><USER5> Like free "google mail".. that one was a riot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Best was mission to Mars, back when Google could do no wrong...

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a really poor translation, not a joke</comment>


Gates Foundation funds Facebook fact checkers that defend it from allegations - <AUTHOR> https://reclaimthenet.org/gates-foundation-funds-facebook-fact-checkers/ <comment><AUTHOR> Article references a new piece in the Columbia Journalism Review: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24239764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24239764)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'll give the Gateses a pass -- and anyone else that saves millions of children from death.

<comment><AUTHOR> "The big move covers the little move" [https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipulation/](https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/)

<comment><USER2> Sorry - a bit too subtle for me... Not sure what you mean.

<comment><AUTHOR> Funding vaccination efforts in the third world is a high profile part of the Gates Foundation's activities which you are meant to focus on. In the meantime, it carries out its real purposes almost unseen: laundering Gates's reputation by buying and controlling media sources, increasing the value of his investments in sectors like pharmaceuticals, and furthering certain of his agenda items like charter/online schools or reducing population growth in the developing world.

[https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates- foundat...](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation- philanthropy/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for your response. Saying that Gates's motivation in his charitable work is to launder his reputation seems a tad cynical to me. Isn't it plausible that he is simply trying to use his time and resources the best he knows how?

In any case, I now understand what you meant when you said "the big move covers the little move."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


UploadVR sued over 'rampant' sexual behavior in workplace, wrongful termination - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/15/uploadvr-sued-over-rampant-sexual-behavior-in-the-workplace-and-wrongful-termination/ <comment><USER2> I'm not so much shocked at the allegations here, but rather I'm shocked that we exist in a universe where these things are even possible. It is literally inconceivable to me to imagine a workplace like this. I can only barely imagine a living/housing environment like this (but then again, I was never in a frat, so maybe that's why?).

Talking about female coworkers? Sure, that happens.

Talk about sex at work? Sure. Not at my workplace, but ok.

Talk about rubbing one out because a coworker gave you boner? Eh.... O_o

Hell, my parents are still surprised to hear I can show up at whatever time in the morning and leave whenever I feel like it! That's what they consider outrageous.

<comment><USER3> I was writing exactly the same thing. I can't understand how this is even possible.

But fuck. How fuck can you have a sex room in the office ? How can someone have sex in the office ?

I'm seriously speechless.

<comment><USER4> Sex in the workplace is far more common then you think.

<comment><USER3> People can have sex if they want to(in theory no, on the workplace shouldn't be allowed so openly). BUT company that offer a bed/room for sex ? this seems to be too much.

It's a workplace, not a frat house.

<comment><USER5> Might some see this as a healthy, progressive, sex-positive evolution of the modern workplace?

<comment><USER6> The workplace does not need to be sex positive! If anything, it should be sex- agnostic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > For example, male employees stated how they were sexually aroused by female > employees and how it was hard to concentrate and be productive when all they > could think about was having sex with them.

> The suit also claims that the company paid male employees more despite > sharing the same roles and responsibilities.

This is horrible and illegal in a lot of ways. And what were management thinking? How can anyone be productive at work with such a toxic environment? I would just be ashamed of working in such a place. And that is part of the problem, employees that do not fit in the company "culture" usually leave or are fired. So the toxic environment gets perpetuated.

I work in a company with a lot of diversity, and I like it. We have only a few female developers, as there is not so much female software engineers graduating from university, but we have better parity in all other roles. We have people from a lot of different nations, and English is our shared language even that is the native tongue for just a few. I like the open, friendly environment where people get the respect they deserve. It boosts productivity and collaboration. I wouldn't like it any other way.

</comment><comment><USER8> Direct link to complaint: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3722345-UploadVR- law...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3722345-UploadVR-lawsuit.html)

It's something.

<comment><USER9> Holy crap. This is almost unbelievable, it's so bad. How are ANY of the things listed as complaints possibly good ideas in someone's mind!?

<comment><USER6> Lack of separation between personal and professional life. One of the things Silicon Valley companies have been working on doing for a while is blurring the lines between work and not work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I respect TechCrunch's decision to not publish the plaintiff's name in the primary portion of their article. It's easy to look up for those who have a reason to search for it, but it's not necessary to the discussion, and could potentially alleviate some of the social backlash (or at least issues) associated with going to court. Employees with legitimate legal gripes against their employers don't need to face additional barriers (such as social stigma) to legal action.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand why it even happens. With all high-profile cases in the last few years, can people hold it for a while? Or everybody is hiring 19 year old boys who physiologically can't?

<comment><USER12> I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that young college students and/or recent graduates building startups and hitting it big with VC funding.

It's effectively giving kids that haven't grown up a large sum of money.

<comment><USER13> Even so, do these VCs not install any kind of adult supervision when they put their money on the line? Sure, they don't want to just bring in their own CEO, but a little bit of guidance along the lines of "this is a fucking workplace, not somewhere for you to play out your immature sexual power fantasies and jeopardise my money" would go a long way.

<comment><USER14> Fetter one's stable of unicorns? Heaven forfend! They're such _delicate_ creatures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm genuinely interested in knowing the answer to this question: What makes someone stay in a job after they've been asked to clean up a room where they found underwear and opened condom packets? Especially if the top honcho was allegedly engaged in such behavior. There is no chance the situation is going to get better no matter who you complained to. get out now!

<comment><USER16> That's exactly what I was pondering after reading the lawsuit.

I mean, being told to be the 'mommy' of the male workers, not being supplied with equipment in contrary to the others, having to hear directly of mentions to threesomes and disapproval of sexual appearance, being kicked out of your room for your boss to have sex with someone in it, being ostracized by not using drugs at work.

Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction so I would not doubt that is true, I am just having great difficulty to understand how such scenario would be feasible. I mean, how could someone continue to work in a place like this for almost a year?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A "smush room" ... gross. I haven't had to deal with that kind of gross culture since I quit an it job on wall street.

It sounds like wall street executive culture is leaking through and through silicon valley.

</comment><comment><USER18> Lol, I just checked UploadVR's website and a popup window used for collecting email has following: > GET HOOKED UP

I'm not gonna even expect the accused to clean up their acts. Only way they will learn, and teach other younger ones not to copy their acts, is for the investors to hammer this down hard.

They only understand the all mighty dollars so they need to be dealt with accordingly.

<comment><USER18> Hm, why am I voted down?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bloody hell. This sounds like a parody of a dreadful Silicon Valley company.

<comment><USER20> I think if a company like this was in the show Silicon Valley it would be badly received because it would be too out there and unrealistic even for that show.

<comment><USER6> Funny story: Dan Lyons, a writer for Silicon Valley and the author of the book Disrupted, about his experiences working at the high tech startup HubSpot, said that he had pitched many things that he personally saw during his time there. He was frequently shot down because they seemed too far outside reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Many of the defendants are in this promo video.

[https://upload.io](https://upload.io)

</comment><comment><USER22> As mentioned on TechCrunch, Greg Gopman (dude who wrote the incredibly tone- deaf anti-homeless piece that went viral a few years back) is named in the lawsuit.

Shitheads gonna shit.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think VC's should just pull funding from companies that have dog-rain management.

Sort of like the Abhishekh Guttani case. Sites like crunch base should give them a "DO NOT FUND ASSHOLES" stamp.

</comment><comment><USER24> What sort of professional would even want to work at a company with an office "smush room"? Before the issues of discrimination and harassment come up, the smell of the place must be appalling.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow. Wonder what Robert Scoble is going to say about this... He's been talking them up recently on Facebook.

<comment><USER8> Scoble works (EDIT: worked) for UploadVR. [https://uploadvr.com/scoble-why- vr/](https://uploadvr.com/scoble-why-vr/)

<comment><USER26> He no longer works there according to his LinkedIn, and posted this a few days ago: [https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/1015527865493465...](https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10155278654934655)

<comment><USER27> I love how Scoble thinks that just because he doesn't include the company's name means he isn't violating the non-disparagement clause

<comment><USER28> Think this case may have just rendered any damages moot, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> My lowpass filter makes me not to believe in this, but it's been wrong before :(

</comment><comment><USER30> It's like a different universe over there.

</comment><comment><USER31> Yes, but if one _must_ have sex in the workplace, I would rather it be in a designated area than, say, on my desk. I want to _know_ what surfaces genitals have been pressed against and where, with a reasonable degree of confidence, they haven't.

I'm not even hung up about the sex at all, if it's consensual you do you and or whomever you like, but it's a matter of hygiene.

<comment><USER32> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14346328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14346328) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER31> I can understand why you would want to prune the thread but it's not off- topic. It relates directly to the topic.

<comment><USER32> I don't disagree. "Marked as off topic" also has a technical meaning here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think we should always pay attention to the other side of the story before we buy into the allegations.

I am not playing down the possible harassment of any employee but let us not be blinded by the allegations alone either.

<comment><USER34> If it was just general allegations about sexual behaviour at the workplace, I would be a bit skeptical. However when they provide concrete factual examples, it seems somewhat unlikely that it would be completely made up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If it's consensual and everyone is an adult, I don't see the problem. No different than everyone having sex in the meditation room at a coworking space (true story!).

But harassment and abuse? Do not pass go. Go directly to court and liquidation.

<comment><USER35> Consent is not an issue here. Two adults can consent to have sex in the workplace and, as a result, cause a third coworker psychological harm.

In other words, two consenting adults can create a toxic work environment, which is why sex in the office is pretty much verboten.

<comment><USER3> Totally agree and was part of my point.

Workplace should be for work. If people want have sex, they can go at home or at a motel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Male employees used that room to have sexual intercourse, which was > disruptive and inappropriate.

With whom?

<comment><USER37> Presumably, female non-employees (likely, though not necessarily exclusively, prostitutes), at least if that room is consistent with all the other allegations of sex involving male employees at company events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think that a surveillance society is the only possible development that can come from issues like this.

Instead of 'he said, she said', companies will have detailed records of everything said by most employees.</comment>


Nintendo Announces Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield - <AUTHOR> https://swordshield.pokemon.com/en-us/ <comment><USER2> It looks nice.

I'm still waiting for an "open world" style Pokemon game. For example take the Zelda: Breath of the Wild game/engine as a starting point and make a Pokemon game.

There's nothing inherently wrong with an on-rails game, and Pokemon games are well known for it. But it feels like the type of theme where exploration being a cornerstone would be fantastic.

I was hopeful after Pokemon Go's success (a game pinned on exploration) and Breath of the Wild, that that would be a natural progression.

<comment><USER3> The open world style of Breath of the Wild seemed amazing at first, but I failed to get into it like I had every other Zelda game. It didn't feel like a Zelda game to me.

It may be more successful to make that style of game, but it would alienate fans of the traditional style of the game like myself.

<comment><USER4> It's an interesting take. For me, I felt BotW was a return to the original form: the first game clearly had a path of progression in mind, but didn't technically stop you from picking up (or refraining from picking up) the wooden sword and tooling around on Death Mountain right from the start if you wanted (granted, you couldn't actually challenge Ganon unless you did beat all 8 dungeons, unlike BotW).

As of approximately Ocarina of Time (if not Zelda 2), Zelda games have been a lot more "on rails" in the sense of a well-defined path of progression that is difficult to break (generally because of the need for some artifact or some plot-point to develop that opens the next path point). BotW gave me a clear directional hint (key for modern game design; we're well past the point where most players lack patience for "Here you are; I won't explain the rules; try not to die" game design), but if I wanted to ignore the hint and go run off into the sunset or try to rodeo a Lynel in my shorts with three hearts, I could.

<comment><USER5> Context for those who haven't played:

> or try to rodeo a Lynel

Taming one of the toughest non-boss enemies in the game, starting at 2,000 HP and ranging up to 5,000 HP.

> in my shorts

No equipped armor/clothes, meaning no reduction to damage if hit

> with three hearts

Early-stage, just-started Link. In tandem with "in my shorts," every hit from a Lynel in this condition would be a one-hit kill. Beyond that, it's implied that Link in this condition might only have access to the most primitive weapons (around 25-30 HP per hit before meal/potion bonuses), though even assuming the absolute maximum damage doable from even the best weapon with the best consumable bonus (~110 HP), you're looking at landing 19 hits on the weakest of these guys _without being touched._

It's doable on speedruns by advanced players who've gotten a hang of all of the game mechanics. Fixermark's point is more that BotW _gives you the option_ of embracing this sort of masochism should you choose, but it includes a predefined soft-path should you not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm really disappointed that they're re-introducing the random encounters system. Let's Go was such a breath of fresh air with being able to see them walking about. I would often find myself hurrying off somewhere but stopping because I saw a pokemon running about that I hadn't caught yet.

<comment><USER3> I do like the visible Pokemon, but the Let's Go style of catching wild Pokemon prevented me from buying the game. It seems like they could have had visible encounters plus wild Pokemon battles.

<comment><USER7> Yeah it's not like they couldn't have the best of both worlds. It's like they heard the backlash over the wild battle system and threw out the whole lot instead of considering which parts really work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It'd be nice if I could "rent" a Nintendo Switch to play this, like they used to have at Blockbuster. I wouldn't want to buy the whole system otherwise. Although it _is_ pretty cheap.

<comment><USER9> Not to sell you on something you don't want, but I adore the Switch. My favorite aspect of it is that I hit the power button and I am instantly in my game. I feel like it's easy to play in 10-15 minute chunks when I have a little bit of free time available. I play in handheld mode probably 80% of the time and I find myself taking it with me more than I did when I had the original DS. On top of that, this system has the best 3rd party content of any Nintendo console since the 64. I'd really recommend it if you have interest in it at all.

<comment><USER10> Overall I love the switch. I do dislike two things.

-Left joycon drift

\- Parental control scheme... it is console based rather than user/mii based. So it is very hard to cordon off a game like SkyRim to the teen/adult mii account. You cannot restrict playing hours bu mii - you have to restrict the whole console.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't Nintendo generally do well with replacing/fixing left joycon drift, though? I hope so, as mine's starting to get too annoying to use when I'm playing Smash with my roommates.

<comment><USER12> You can recalibrate them in the settings, it usually does the trick.

[https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...](https://en- americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22340/~/how-to- calibrate-the-controllers)

<comment><USER13> When that doesn't work, try a can of air, or if you are hardware and electronics savvy, take it apart and give it a real good cleaning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pokemon is recycled garbage and I WANT IT NOW.

</comment><comment><USER15> Pokemon set in Industrial Era England, eh? Better than it could have been. I just hope this one's mechanics lean closer to XD than, say, Moon.

</comment><comment><USER16> Looks like they will keep sacrificing playability and enjoyability for graphical greatness.

<comment><USER17> I feel like they should be able to pull off a nice looking pokemon game. Think Breath of the Wild but pokemon! This looks pretty close to that no?

<comment><USER16> Why should BOTW be the objective? It was a pretty meh game. And dungeons were terrible.

Explaining myself to the user below: weapons breaking too often, combat is crap, very limited amount of types of enemies, etc.

<comment><USER18> Probably because many people loved BOTW and it was wildly successful, both critically and financially. So there's clearly a market for that style of game among Switch users.

<comment><USER16> Sure, but I'm interested in getting a good Pokémon game. I don't care what the market wants. Of course, the market will win, that's how all franchises get ruined.

<comment><USER19> > Of course, the market will win, that's how all franchises get ruined.

"The market" is how all franchises _become_ franchises in the first place.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fixing Legacy code – On Strategies, Habits and Mindset - <AUTHOR> http://szymon.hussa.rs/IELg

<comment><USER2> do you include the additional time needed for such "cleaning" in your task estimations?

<comment><USER3> Hi, when I need to estimate than I'm always adding some margin for unexpected work and this is such a case, especially in projects with lot of legacy code :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who provides the most accurate weather prediction? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Planes.Passenger planes. Now when is corona virus crysis nobody is flying, and those planes collect atmospheric data for meteo forecast. That told me a friend, when I complained at lousy weather prediction. Is it true or false, I don't know!</comment>


How to hang swings at your startup - <AUTHOR> http://davemargulius.com/2013/07/19/how-to-hang-office-swings/

<comment><USER2> $400 for two floorboards and $50 of rope? Maybe I should get into the swing seat business.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thats very cool. How do you get around health and safety matters? What happens if someone falls off it and tries to sue you? (apologies for the morbid question, just curious thats all)

<comment><USER4> Liability insurance is the only "safe" way to approach this type of projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" We considered these two oak and cedar models from Dzierlenga F+U, but ended up going with this reclaimed yellow pine swing from Peg and Awl, because it looked beefier and less modern (our office beams are pretty rustic)"_

Being from the sticks, that made me chuckle. (I still think it is great that they have swings though; and I am wondering the same thing Sealy is about the H&S dweebs.)

</comment><comment><USER6> You know something's gone wrong when you spend $680 on making a rope swing</comment>


The Word "Douchebag" Seen Through the Lens of Google's Ngram Viewer  - <AUTHOR> http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=douchebag&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

<comment><USER2> So it appears that the slang originated with a fictional pimp, but really took off in the 1960s with Selby's _Last Exit to Brooklyn_ (he'd later write _Requiem for a Dream_ ). Fascinating stuff.</comment>


AudioKit: Open-source audio synthesis, processing, and analysis platform - <AUTHOR> http://audiokit.io/

<comment><USER2> Looks like a very nice project. I've only glanced at the pages so far but it looks like you've really been putting good work into the packaging and documentation, which is refreshing.

It might have been useful to learn a little sooner that this is a Csound wrapper. I can understand your reasons for not advertising it as such, but I think there is a genuine utility for your users in knowing that the library they choose for iOS/OSX development has a structural analogue on any other platform they may ever want to write for.

<comment><USER3> > It might have been useful to learn a little sooner that this is _only for > mac_.

For the rest of us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> See also: "Essentia is an open-source C++ library for audio analysis and audio-based music information retrieval released under the Affero GPLv3 license (also available under proprietary license upon request). It contains an extensive collection of reusable algorithms which implement audio input/output functionality, standard digital signal processing blocks, statistical characterization of data, and a large set of spectral, temporal, tonal and high-level music descriptors. In addition, Essentia can be complemented with Gaia, a C++ library with python bindings which implement similarity measures and classifications on the results of audio analysis, and generate classification models that Essentia can use to compute high-level description of music (same license terms apply)."

[http://essentia.upf.edu/](http://essentia.upf.edu/)

(which I discovered from the game Crypt of the Necrodancer which uses it to do (at least?) beat detection for your custom music)

</comment><comment><USER5> If anyone is interested in playing with this kind of stuff in Python, I have been doing a lot of work in simple gist for LPC coding and synthesis, as well as sinewave synthesis. No musical synthesizers yet (focused on voice) but many of the ideas are similar. It might even work on music (I haven't tried).

[https://gist.github.com/kastnerkyle/1450aa7f39c3369742b3](https://gist.github.com/kastnerkyle/1450aa7f39c3369742b3)

This looks really cool and clean! Nice documentation. I will definitely look at this if/when I start the next iOS project.

</comment><comment><USER6> Semi relevant, but could anyone recommend any decent javascript libraries for audio analysis and synthesis?

<comment><USER7> analysis, features: [https://github.com/hughrawlinson/meyda](https://github.com/hughrawlinson/meyda) analysis, metadata:[http://developer.echonest.com/](http://developer.echonest.com/) synthesis: [https://github.com/TONEnoTONE/Tone.js/](https://github.com/TONEnoTONE/Tone.js/) General signal processing: [https://github.com/corbanbrook/dsp.js/](https://github.com/corbanbrook/dsp.js/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Website looks great and basing it on CSound is a solid choice. Some people may think of it as "old," but really CSound has 1,000s of hours on it over several decades. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes!

</comment><comment><USER8> Has anyone compared to [https://github.com/kstenerud/ObjectAL-for- iPhone](https://github.com/kstenerud/ObjectAL-for-iPhone) ? "Mac & Audio Development, minus the headache"

</comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone of you point me to something that can make me detect a CLAP? :D

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks cool, is there going to be a CocoaPod?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, that is in the works.

<comment><USER10> Nice!</comment></comment></comment>