How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse - <AUTHOR> http://www.xs4all.nl/~wtv/powerdown/greer.htm

<comment><USER2> One of Tainter's more interesting arguments is that collapse, when it occurs, is a sensible, reasonable response to negative returns on societal complexity. He notes, somewhat famously, that the average nutrition and health of Romans actually improved after the collapse of the Roman empire, presumably because the wealth they generated was no longer being siphoned off to maintain the empire's overhead.

<comment><USER3> Well, they call it the dark ages for a reason...

Statistics might show improvement because wealth is redistributed, but the total wealth is also a lot less, which isn't always a good thing.

<comment><USER4> It's an example where greater welfare may be derived from less overall wealth, if a) the marginal benefit of more wealth per member diminishes with each additional unit, generally, and b) the distribution between members improves, such that more members are in the steep part of the slope.

Proponents of capitalism usually point to (a) not always being true. That is, at some point, and under the right social conditions, the marginal benefit per unit picks up again, when instances of per-member wealth is great enough to finance capital-intensive production.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> He makes a solid argument which really comes down to the problem facing any component of an ecology... either keep expanding until you can't... and then die back "involuntarily" (pretty much the universal pattern) or get your act together and make a better plan!

And that's an option only available to "rational" components of an ecology...

So he's really making just a rational argument for the need to either recognize limits or expand the frontier.

Regarding his thoughts on the role of complexity and a society's need to simplify... there's some truth in it but to achieve that solution without the chaos of collapse may actually require an "increase in complexity.

</comment><comment><USER6> "[The author] is active in the contemporary nature spirituality movement"

While the concept seems interesting, this line made me seriously doubt the credibility of the author. I will wait for a few more comments before attempting to read again.

<comment><USER7> Isaac Newton was an alchemist.

Any more examples?

<comment><USER8> Yes, Isaac Newton was an alchemist... _in the mid-17th century_. He died decades before Antoine Lavoisier founded "modern chemistry".

If Isaac Newton was an alchemist _today_ , I think we would not spend much time listening to him.

Alchemy was a mix of practice and mystery back then. It's not the same as a modern alchemist, who is left only with the mystery, because modern chemistry claimed all the practice centuries ago.

<comment><USER8> (Correction: Late 17th through early 18th. He died in 1727, Lavoisier was born 1743.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Could there be the seed of a video game here?

</comment><comment><USER10> A great read on exactly this issue is A New Green History of the World by Clive Ponting. Noticed it is cited in the page linked but wanted to call it out specifically since I have read it and really enjoyed it as a history of human civilization from the perspective of resource availability and utilization.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the recommend. I'll reciprocate with a rec of Arnold Toynbee (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_J._Toynbee>), who wrote about the cyclical nature of civilizations and societies with a blend of perspectives from various fields, rather than the basic 'flow of history.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I swear it's Aubrey De Grey :) <http://www.singularitysummit.com/bios/grey></comment>


Observation about healthcare efficiency and Covid deaths - <AUTHOR> 7 countries with the most efficient healthcare systems according to WHO study from 2000 (page 18) https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf
France, Italy, San Marino, Andorra, Malta, Singapore, Spain
7 countries with most deaths per capita https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
San Marino, Belgium, Andorra, Spain, Italy, UK, France
The overlap is quite surprising. Is there an explanation besides chance? <comment><USER2> Your WHO study from 2000 is, well, 20 years old. It tells little about today.

France public healthcare changed a lot, it went down for 20 years, successive governments handled it with the capitalist logic that, basically, healthcare should be profitable, like any other business. Budget for public hospitals was reduced again and again, the number of available beds was reduced, staff was reduced or not renewed.

I don't think French healthcare ranks #1 today, not even in the top 10. Try to see if you can get your hand on a more recent report.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite way to learn something new? - <AUTHOR>

I'm sure many HN'ers would describe themselves as life-long learners. What's your favorite way to go about learning something new? How do you choose the next thing you'd like to learn? Once you've picked a topic, what's your preferred process/method for learning it? <comment><USER2> Wouldn't that largely depend on what the topic is?

If I want to learn a language, I'll find a basic book on it and then grab as much native audio as I possibly can.

If I want to learn about something in math, I'll go to Khan Academy.

If I want to learn about irrational decision-making in everyday life, I'll read a book.

And that all starts with the assumption that learning follows the waterfall method: pick what you want to learn, learn it, move on to something else. I find learning much more iterative: be intrigued by something, follow it, see what it leads. I never really decided to learn about systems thinking, but I came across the personal MBA reading list one day, thought it was fascinating, came back, picked a book that looked interesting (Thinking in Systems), and read it.

A couple of weeks ago, I learned a great deal about writing fiction with characters of a different gender or race than you. I never set out to, but I do NaNoWriMo each year, and one of the most active posts on their forum was about "writing the other." It fascinated me, so I followed it, and learned something for it. This, to me, is what lifelong learning looks like.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I definitely agree that it depends on the topic.

That said, I didn't want to limit it to a specific topic (e.g. just learning a new language) and hoped that people would enumerate some of their preferred topics and corresponding methods, just as you did :)

I was also curious about how people go about choosing what topic to dive into next, if it's anything beyond the normal ongoing mental list of interesting potential topics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you are interested in learning for retention (i.e. learning something and then being able to remember it the next week, next month, next year...) then you should look into Spaced Repetition software (search for "spaced repetition" on Wikipedia for a good overview). The software presents information in a question/answer format, like flashcards, but spaces out the repetition so that the material you need to review most you see more often, and the material that you remember well you see less often. There are several programs available that support this form of learning including Mnemosyne, SuperMemo, and Anki.

As for how I use the software, as I'm reading something I want to retain, I try to extract essential concepts as question/answers pairs and add them into a deck in the software. Then review the deck with the software on a regular basis (usually daily). The spacing effect provides maximum learning with a minimum time investment.

As for choosing a topic, that's entirely up to your personal interests. There are no shortages of posts on Hacker News listing books the readers are interested in. Search Hacker News for "good books", go through one or more of the lists, and choose one (or more) of the books that sound interesting to you, and get started.</comment>


Integration testing Backbone.js - <AUTHOR> http://open.bekk.no/integration-testing-backbone-js/

<comment><USER2> It still seems more like unit tests..

For example this line states that if you are given 20 records that 20 make it into the view.

expect(view.$('.persons li').length).toEqual(20);

This mocks out the server to give 20 results back and simply tests that the template iterates over the returned collection (given that the 'reset' binding for view.render is in place). You are specifically not in an 'integration'.

As for the argument for not using capybara for speed reasons - it seems that the speed difference is acceptable given the confidence and power it gives you.

This is not the same as an integration (acceptance) test. Whence you mock the server you can no longer be confident that a breaking change was not introduced across the stack.

The purpose of integration tests is that you are the user, and express your functionality in the same manner that the user would.

This is not that. It is therefore not an integration test.

<comment><USER3> But does it matter if they are somewhat like unit tests or somewhat like integration tests? Isn't this just nitpicking on the definition of an integration tests? According to Wikipedia: "Integration testing [...] is the phase in software testing in which individual software modules are combined and tested as a group." That's what we are doing here. We are testing that the entire _client-side_ application works as expected.

And yes, I totally agree with you regarding the confidence we can have when we mock out our server-side application. But in the context we were working it would be a world of pain to have proper acceptance tests going through the entire stack. They would also take much, much longer time than about a second (we are not in a regular database type application using Rails and all that, this is an enterprise project with many, many years of legacy code in it and an ESB and whatnot).

The purpose of these tests for us is first of all to be able to deliver functionality fast and with high confidence, which they, beyond a doubt, has helped us with.

<comment><USER4> Don't know about this being nitpicking or not. Sounds like a terminology problem. What you are essentially doing is mocking out the XHR requests and performing unit tests on the client side. An excellent thing to do, but you aren't really testing that individual modules are able to interact together correctly, which is the purpose of integration testing.

<comment><USER3> Okey, so let's just say that I'm testing in a way I haven't seen mentioned by anyone with regards to Backbone.js. The point is the execution, not the naming.

Btw, if anyone has been talking about / doing similar testing of Backbone.js, I would love to share some insights and ideas.

<comment><USER2> [http://blog.involver.com/2012/01/26/testing-backbone-js- best...](http://blog.involver.com/2012/01/26/testing-backbone-js-best- practices-2/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While you may have confidence your code is working as expected, you are missing out on the importance of unit tests. The point of unit tests is to ensure _your_ code works as expected. In your write up all I see are tests for Backbone.js, which btw, already has unit tests.

When you do something like:

var collection = new SomeCollection(); collection.fetch();

assert(collection.length === some_number);

How are you testing _your_ code here? You're going through the library abstraction which is Backbone. The tests are making sure Backbone can fetch and populate a collection.

I'm not sure I see the value. Instead you should be testing that your code is set up properly and leaving the trust to Backbone which you're using because you have some level of trust in it =)

<comment><USER6> I think you need to read the post again.

In the first example, he:

      - initializes a view
      - asks the collection to fetch itself
      - asserts that the VIEW now has 20 person elements, not the collection.

What this first test does is asserting that the "PersonsView" and its event binding and logic is setup correctly.

The same applies for the second example where PersonsView is the object under test. In this example he asserts that an ".errors" element exists in the view if the ajax request fails. I.e. that view logic and event binding for error handling is setup correctly.

Both cases test custom code in PersonsView. The tests would probably fail if PersonsView->initialize or PersonsView->render didn't behave correctly. As far I can tell, no code test Backbone in itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why not just use capybara and the selenium or webkit drivers?

<comment><USER8> Jasmine is used for unit testing and you should mock dependencies like faking XHR requests, whereas with Capybara/Selenium you do acceptance tests to test the frontend/backend integration.

<comment><USER3> Another aspect related to this point is that we have a slow backend system and we wanted our JavaScript tests to be blazingly fast, also the integration tests. I hate waiting for tests. Now I can run ours all the time because they don't use any time at all (well, okey, they take a second ...).</comment></comment></comment>


Amateur Radio at a crossroads with unpopular board actions proposed - <AUTHOR> There are a number of proposed changes to the ARRL articles of incorporation that has most of the ham radio community up in arms.  Primary is a shift from having just member elected directors on the board to having the president and two vice presidents making decisions.  This, coupled with the ability for easy dismissal and replacement by the board of directors would allow the board to get stacked.
Details here:  http://www.central.arrl.org/  and http://www.kb6nu.com/january-19-arrl-board-proposals-posted/
If you are a ham radio operator, it's worth a read.  If you are a business owner, it's a good read to see how a few insiders can take over. <comment><USER2> This is the beginning of an empire, with emperors, court jesters, "off with his head" will be heard....

Woe to Ham Radio

<comment><USER2> A survey of the ARRL blogs shows that these people have been pretty much beaten back.

<comment><AUTHOR> ARRL just fired back that we are all misinformed, No they know what they are doing, we should just sit back.</comment></comment></comment>


Rocketcharts, Open-source HTML5 Financial/Statistical Charts - <AUTHOR> http://blog.chasegale.com/introducing-rocketcharts-open-source-html5-financialstatistical-charts/

<comment><USER2> Pretty nice. Another excellent charting library is highcharts, they also have released a stock charts library too.

Highcharts.com

The one thing I haven't found is a nice chart library that can do gantt charts properly, so if anyone knows of one let me know.

<comment><USER3> Haven't used the Gantt part personally, but Fusion supports it:

<http://www.fusioncharts.com/widgets/gallery.asp#gantt></comment></comment>


The Bonkers Idea to Make a Hyperloop-Style Rocket Launcher - <AUTHOR> https://www.inverse.com/article/28339-james-powell-hyperloop-maglev-rocket <comment><USER2> Bah. I hope his patent application gets shot down. LINAC/railgun launchers are an _old_ idea, described in HeinLein's 1966 novel _" The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"_, for example: [https://books.google.com/books?id=HtuRSsAb2fEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA...](https://books.google.com/books?id=HtuRSsAb2fEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA248&q=catapult&f=false#v=page)

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't bonkers at all. It'll be absolutely necessary if we want to do anything significant in space at a reasonable cost per kilogram.

For example, if you are an entrepreneur and take on the challenge to build a robot to mine an asteroid, you can't raise $200M and then fold the company when you fail on your first attempt.

BTW some NASA engineers came up with this idea awhile ago and called it the Star Tram. There is a book about it.

<comment><USER2> Space elevators are a possible alternative, with cargo lift OpEx estimated at $10/lb. (mostly electricity).</comment></comment>


1099 and the Upcoming Elections - <AUTHOR> http://blog.axlehire.com/index.php/2015/06/12/1099-status-quickly-becoming-focal-point-for-2016-elections/

<comment><USER3> thanks for posting this; I've been doing 1099 off and on since 1990.

It's important to understand that the legal distinction between a contractor and an employee does not depend on one's job title nor contractual relationship. Both federally as well as in at least some states such as california, what counts is the nature of the relationship and not what is written down.

What determines this federally is known as "the twenty factors" and is also commonly called "the twenty questions". There is no specific score one must obtain to determine whether one is a contractor, rather it is a purely subjective decision that is quite commonly made by labor judges as well as the tax authorities.

Among the factors are whether one faces financial risk in the event the project fails. When I am an employee I get paid even if my code doesn't work; I might get fired but even so I get paid for the hours I've worked.

Other factors include whether one provides one's own equipment - <USER2> software in our case - whether one can determine one's own working hours, as well as how the work is performed.

If I am a contractor then you pay me for a deliverable which may have a fixed deadline; at that point I am free to determine how the deliverable is prepared. There is no particular requirement that I show up to your office.

</comment><comment><USER3> One more thing - while there are some laws having to do with gender and racial discrimination in contracting to the extent any exist they are far weaker.</comment>


Ask YC: Management or Accounting Course? - <AUTHOR>

I have room for one business class in my schedule this semester, and this is my last year so I really want to make it count.  For a startup cofounder, do you think it would be worth more to take an introductory management (for when the company grows obviously) or first semester accounting? <comment><USER2> First-order answer: What's behind door number three? I wouldn't pay money for either of these things.

The basic principles of accounting are nice to know, but there are books and websites that will teach them to you, and it's not a subject you need to slowly grind through for months. What you need is to skim a few books on the subject to become tangentially familiar with the vocabulary and the concepts. Why spend tuition money and sixteen weeks of work on two weeks worth of material?

I don't mean to imply that accounting is a trivial field. It isn't. Which is why you'll be paying someone else to do it for you. All _you_ need to do is understand what your professional accountant tells you.

Meanwhile, the things you really need to learn about managing will surely not be taught in management class. And a single class won't give you the big advantage of the MBA degree: Socialization with other MBAs. ( _Note: This is only an advantage if you are on the typical MBA career path._ )

Second-order answer: Take the course with the best teacher. Whatever it is. If the management teacher is an amazing lecturer, forget everything I said and take the course.

Other suggestions. First priority: Have you taken introductory statistics yet?

How about economics? Linguistics?

If you've taken all of those already, consider: Have you had enough writing and speaking practice? If not, take something that makes you write essays or give talks. For writing, English composition is one possibility, but I'd lean toward something more interesting like history. Or maybe the management course will make you speak in front of class a lot -- that might be another reason to disregard my advice and take that class anyway.

The ability to write and speak clearly is far more valuable than accounting. You can _hire_ people to do your accounting, but you can't hire them to speak for you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Both classes are important. I think Accounting will be more useful now, though management will be more helpful down the road.

Most accounting courses teach you the basics of keeping books, which is useful when your business is smaller. The management courses on the other hand, they're designed for people who go out and get hired as managers inside of fortune 500 companies. You'll be managing in a smaller group, and I think your natural social skills will be all that is necessary to manage that group. You could always take the other class after you graduate if you feel they're both important.

</comment><comment><USER4> As someone slogging through company-mandated management & financial training, I'd skip both and take an introductory Finance course instead.

If you only have those two choices, then go with Management. The problem is I've found that the best learning experiences of my management training comes up in the role-playing parts (e.g., employee conflict resolution) or the preparation for them and a single one-semester Management course isn't likely to do anything like that.

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-of- Management/index.h...](http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-of- Management/index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER6> management. you'll probably be paying for accountants.</comment>


Android 5.0 Lollipop reviewed - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/android-5-0-lollipop-thoroughly-reviewed/? <comment><USER3> Received the calendar app this morning, it is a major step-backwards.

What was once a killer app, a core productivity tool, has given way to an almost unusable interface.

It is now really hard to perform some tasks.

For example, I am a heavy calendar user and I have something in the calendar almost every day. It is now extremely difficult to answer the question: When is a three hour window free in the next month or two?

That used to be a single glance at the month view which communicated to me full day events, part-of-day events, and for the latter which part of the day and how long the event took. A single glance at month view could answer it and I could move forward backwards to glance at the next/prev month.

Old: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiic7fdrmu65172/2014-11-13%2006.56...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiic7fdrmu65172/2014-11-13%2006.56.24.png?dl=0) (October 2014 in the old v4.4 Calendar app)

To achieve it now, I'd need to use the 5 day view, and for each 5 day segment to scroll up and down as even on my Moto X (2014) I cannot view more than half of the working day.

New: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgqbhnc1ifp02a9/2014-11-13%2006.56...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgqbhnc1ifp02a9/2014-11-13%2006.56.51.png?dl=0) (October 2014 in the new v5 Calendar app)

Gone is the ability to use Calendar on the phone as the core way to organise your life, it is essentially now unusable on the phone for anything other than a near-term agenda/itinerary.

All of the new Gmail/Inbox to Calendar features? Dead to me, all of my accounts are Google Hosted accounts and none of the Google Now, Gmail, or Inbox integrations with Calendar work on Google Hosted accounts.

<comment><USER4> "Received the calendar app this morning, it is a major step-backwards _for me_." FTFY.

<comment><USER5> I think this is what people overlook most of the time. I did not use the calendar app because it was overloaded with things that were completely unnecessary for ME. Now, it is much simpler, might start using it.

Majority of their users probably are better off with the new calendar app, so they readjusted it for a better fit. If it turns out this is not the case, they will change it further, maybe bring some old functionalities back.

They focus on what will please majority of their users, as any other company would and should, not their power users.

<comment><USER6> _I did not use the calendar app because it was overloaded with things that were completely unnecessary for ME. Now, it is much simpler, might start using it._

What's wrong with just ignoring the features you don't need (yet)? All software has a learning curve. The more you use it, the more features you should discover and find useful. Trying to flatten the learning curve by removing features (or making it much harder to discover them) just keeps more users from ever advancing beyond the "novice" stage, because there isn't all that much more to discover.

Power users became power users because they explored and discovered more functionality, and this is because they were motivated to explore in the first place; extremely simplified UIs reduce much of this motivation, which results in less power users - and eventually developers. Maybe "we don't want power users and want them to disappear" is their goal (I hope not but wouldn't be surprised if it implicitly is), but this constant trend of lowest-common- denominator dumbing-down apps is, in the long term, not beneficial to anyone.

Software should have defaults that make it easy to use initially for the beginner, but it should also encourage growth of the user's knowledge. Instead we get software that's easy to use initially - and then effectively stunts their growth, and all the aesthetics they throw at it cannot compensate for functionality. I think it's really quite sad; although if you believe in the theory that Google is aiming to take away user's control over their devices and replace it with Google's, then it makes a lot of sense to keep users as blissfully ignorant as possible. ("You can't easily check your schedule anymore... but look, we gave you beautiful rounded buttons!")

From the parent:

 _is essentially now unusable on the phone for anything other than a near-term agenda /itinerary._

Looking at the way it doesn't even show the year anymore, "near-term" is right!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pure conjecture, but at some point, Android is basically just going to be the Kernel and a distribution medium. Everything else will come from the Play store, the GUI, device drivers, the fonts, the apps, the clock, core APIs, the runtime, _everything_ and the OS will simply move to rolling partial updates. Version x simply won't be meaningful anymore and the kernel can stay static for years and years.

This is a great future that honestly wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the fragmentation and slow update issue that carriers and device manufacturers created. It's like trying to grab toothpaste once it's out of the tube. The harder you squeeze, it simply finds another crack in your hand to go out of.

Material is also fantastic, almost joyful to use. It almost nails the flat- with-a-dash-of-skeu that Microsoft and Apple have both missed. There's still a few too flat bits here and there, but it's a great place to be.

<comment><USER8> How is it great? You'll be stuck with all decisions Google make for their average user, weather you want or not. In fact, once they lock down the user- land, what's to stop them from moving to a FreeBSD derived kernel, and we'll be left with only Mozilla (and maybe Canonical) trying to provide a viable open platform?

At least for now, it's possible to access/install the play store even if you're running a cyanogen build -- I'm not convinced that'll last, but we'll see.

<comment><USER7> I've been giving this lots of thought recently, with all the changes to Android. I frankly don't really care all that much about the politics behind open/closed software. It's almost never been a deciding factor for me and I've been bit and blessed about as many times by stuff from either camp. I also know that _right_ now and in the near future, if Google completely closed source Android _today_ , it wouldn't impact me in the slightest because there's really only two viable mobile OSs at the moment, neither of which I spend any time mucking around with the source on -- and neither of them are built by Mozilla.

I think what I care more about is accessibility. How easy is it for me to build stuff on their platform? Google makes it really easy, Apple makes it really easy. There's a healthy debate as to who makes it easier, but in the end it's not about openness it's about accessibility. If Google replaced their kernel with the most locked down closed source kernel ever conceived tomorrow, but made no other changes, it wouldn't impact that in any way.

And that's what I, and to be honest _most_ developers care about, getting stuff done, which is what accessibility is all about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just a quick skim through, lots of neat features but it doesn't look like there's a lot of privacy-oriented ones, which is rather disappointing.

I was really hoping they would bring back whatever API made it possible for things like AppOps Launcher to allow you to prevent other apps from accessing things like your contacts, account listing, or location. I was hoping that when they took it away it was because it was intended for release in a future version, but we've yet to see it since.

<comment><USER10> AppOps is still alive, though you'll need root in order to access it.

The problem with coarse-grained control like AppOps is that it can cause apps to malfunction or even outright crash when they try to use permissions that you revoked. This is probably not the kind of behavior that Google would like to enable for the average user.

Personally, I'd prefer a subtler (but possibly more draconian) approach, such as exposing a fake or empty contact list to apps that want my contacts; exposing some random location in the middle of nowhere to apps that want my location; and exposing a fake or empty folder to apps that want my pictures. Grant access to my messages, but never actually notify them when a new message comes in. Grant access to my microphone, but only ever feed them silence. Poor apps will not even suspect that anything is amiss! Is there any way right now to do something like this on rooted phones?

<comment><USER11> The CyanogenMod OS has this built in. Very similar to what you describe (provides empty contact list, empty folder etc to apps you specify). Don't know if there's a standalone app to do the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As an iOS user since the 3GS, I have to say this is the first time I find Android to look significantly _better_ and more usable than iOS, which IMO has regressed since iOS 7.

How is the situation with backups and restores nowadays? If I'd have to redo all my settings when switching from an Android to another Android phone in 2016, I'd be pretty sad. I'd even be willing to restrict myself to Nexus devices if that makes a difference.

Oh, also, are there any good Nexus phones with dual simcards? That would be a major reason for me to switch over.

<comment><USER4> As a recent convert from 3GS (yes iOS6) to Sony Xperia Z3 Compact I strongly disagree. There is so much weirdness in Android that I don't even know where to begin. A big chunk of it is the ecosystem though but Google is to blame here as well. Mainly for the lack of privacy (seems like 70% of apps I try to install wants access to my contacts at install-time. And the design. Oh god how many ugly things in the Play Store). The openness is Android isn't an openness in practice. You would assume CalDAV and CardDAV would be a native feature like in iOS. Nope. You would assume you could uninstall non-critical apps. Nope. You would think 1Password could integrate itself to Chrome like on iOS? Nope. The back button is a story in itself. Go back? Exit app? Go to another app? The russian roulette back button got you covered. The way of selecting text in various places is also implemented in a similar mysterious way. And then you have whoever made the phone (Sony in my case) adding shit. Not only apps but core behaviours. When I long press on the home button Sony decided that Google Now could be easily available. Which is useful. But also they have Sony Whats New which is some weird little app that showcases some various content for sale from Sony. On the main button on the screen.

I can totally understand why people for various reasons would like not be in Apple's walled garden or don't like how Apple things work. But Android is a very poor alternative. It doesn't give us the truly open system that we as users deserve. It has a horrible broken ecosystem in regards to privacy, design and annoyance (ads, ads everywhere). Google enforces their own products beyond just "hey look at this cool youtube thing" in a way that is much beyond what Apple does.

Yes I do really like stuff Apple produces but was really looking forward to use an open mobile OS. But the whole experience with Android and Google has left me very negative to use anything from Google again.

<comment><USER13> > seems like 70% of apps I try to install wants access to my contacts at > install-time

How does iOS handle this?

<comment><USER12> Not parent, but: it asks for every permission separately at runtime (on first time usage). That might seem a hassle, but IMO it's much better this way. Apps tend to be much more conservative in order to not disturb their users too much with permission questions, and they also have fallback modes for every permission that's not critical - a Maps app will still work without location data for example.

<comment><USER14> To give an example, consider a document scanning app that has a feature where you can sign up for a DocuScans account and use it to share scanned documents with other people who use the same app.

A useless feature, as far as I'm concerned. But on Android, the app will demand access to all of my contacts at install time, just in case I ever wanted to use it. And then I have no idea what else they might be doing with it.

On iOS, the app doesn't have permission to get my contacts until it asks for it. Using Dropbox for your scanned documents instead of the DocuScans sharing system? Then the app will never request permission to access your contacts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Android 5.0 Lollipop is at least the biggest update since Android 4.0"

Isn't that how versioning works generally?

<comment><USER16> I took it to mean that 4.x to 5.0 has been the biggest major-to-major update.

<comment><USER17> Yeah it's obvious what they meant, but they probably could have worded it better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This paragraph made me smile:

> Since Dalvik only compiled at runtime, the compiled code was never written > to _disk_. [...] This would lead to a lot of _disk_ thrashing [...] Since > ART is already compiled, the compiled code can be paged out to _disk_

(emphasis mine)

It's funny that we still call _disk_ any slower, non-volatile memory (and it's even funnier to imagine an Android phone with an actual disk).

</comment><comment><USER19> This is an extremely thorough review. Tough to say anything negative. Huge fan of Google Material design and have been using a lot of it for my native app designs, and my users have frigging loved it. Also transferring a lot of this into desktop (web) design as well and getting lots of great feedback.

<comment><USER20> I like Material design a lot too, but I don't like how branding is mostly done through colors now with no icon in the action bar. Since everything is flat now, it makes all apps look too similar to each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> One of the most significant changes in 5.0 is the new Camera API, which will introduce two major benefitting photographers:

1\. Ability to change exposure settings without purging the imaging pipeline, making exposure bracketing and high-FPS shooting faster and better.

2\. RAW capture; phone lenses are improving but will always be limited on account of their dimensions, so having the RAW is even more important in trying to improve images than in a compact camera. Every little helps...

Looking forward to camera apps that take advantage of these new features.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Devices that ship with Android 5.0 are encrypted out of the box. If you set a lock screen, you're given the option to require a security challenge before the device turns on. Enable this and a PIN, pattern, or password prompt will come up even before the boot animation. After you pass authentication, the device decrypts the data partition and mounts it, allowing the device to fully boot."

Good news. Not sure if I think it is good news that you can pair the (presumably ok) encryption with face-unlock... though. Seems like it's not possible to (easily) brute force a disk-image off-line any more at least:

[http://blog.kaspersky.com/full-disk-encryption- android-5/](http://blog.kaspersky.com/full-disk-encryption-android-5/)

"In addition to enabling FDE out of the box, Android L is expected to include hardware protection for disk encryption keys, as well as hardware acceleration for encrypted disk access," Elenkov concludes. "These two features should make FDE on Android both more secure and much faster."

Now we'll just have to wait for the source code, to see if this will be usable by all "tenants" on Android hardware... I hope so -- I'd love to be able to drop to a simpler unlock key, knowing that it's eg: set to self- destruct/severely rate-limit after N tries.

<comment><USER22> In 4.x, the decryption password is the same as the unlock PIN. I'm hoping it's possible in 5.x to separate the two, so that the password can be stronger than the PIN.

<comment><USER23> It actually never had to be; if you're rooted you can set it fr the command line.

[http://niki.hammler.net/wiki/Android_Device_Encryption](http://niki.hammler.net/wiki/Android_Device_Encryption)

However, please note that I have not yet reviewed Android 5.x's FDE.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for that. Right now I'm running stock Samsung rom on my Note 3 (thought I'd wait for cyanogen to mix it up with 5.0 before flashing). But at least then there is another option than what I do now, basically a compromise that combines the worst of both worlds: a password/phrase that is too long to be convenient to type in to unlock, and probably too weak to offer real security, assuming the encryption key is generated via a straightforward derivation (not sure if there is any decent stretching involved?).

Either way, for a device like a phone, I'm pretty sure TPM is the way to go. Alternatively a strong pass-phrase to unlock/boot, and a hard limit on attempts to unlock the lock screen before the device turns itself off (or at least "guarantees" that the disk is unmounted and the key wiped from ram...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The most important feature: Full access to the SD card has been reenabled for apps after the public outcry[0].

      Updates:
            Status: Released
            Labels: Restrict-AddIssueComment-Commit

      Comment #4444 on issue 67570 by jshar...@android.com:     Android 4.4 Samsung Galaxy s4 external sd card is now read only, Remove or option to edit non app files.
      https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67570

      Hey all, in KitKat we introduced APIs that let apps   read/write file in app-specific directories on secondarystorage devices, such as SD cards.

We heard loud and clear that developers wanted richer access beyond these directories, so in Lollipop we added the new ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE intent. Apps can launch this intent to pick and return a directory from any supported DocumentProvider, including any of the shared storage supported by the device. Apps can then create, update, and delete files and directories anywhere under the picked tree without any additional user interaction. Just like the other document intents, apps can persist this access across reboots.

This gives apps broad, powerful access to manage files while still involving the user in the initial selection process. Users may choose to give your app access to a narrow directory like "My Vacation Photos," or they could pick the top-level of an entire SD card; the choice is theirs.

To make it easy for developers to transition to these new APIs, there's a new DocumentFile support library class. It looks and feels just like a traditional java.lang.File object, which makes it easy to adapt existing code:

[http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/pr...](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/provider/DocumentFile.html)

These new APIs aren't just limited to shared storage; they can be used with any DocumentsProvider that adds support for Root.FLAG_SUPPORTS_IS_CHILD, such as the advanced Vault example:

[https://android.googlesource.com/platform/development/+/andr...](https://android.googlesource.com/platform/development/+/android-5.0.0_r2/samples/Vault/src/com/example/android/vault/VaultProvider.java#258)

If you're an end user, please reach out to app developers to ask them to start using these new APIs. With these new rich APIs in place, this issue is considered fixed.

[0] [https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67570](https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67570)

<comment><USER25> I still feel that offering desktop style access to the file system is a mistake. The file system is way too complex for a normal user and since developers can put files almost anywhere it is usually a total mess. I would much largely prefer a personal sandbox for each app : their own folder in Android/packageName like they can optionally use right now. On top of that, add an API to grant access to shared folders for music/photos/documents/misc files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good review. I really love Material, and would place it above iOS 8's design guidelines after using and developing apps for both.

However, there are some inconsistencies - besides the Calendar app heavily described here, the Contacts app on my Nexus 7 has some weird design choices.

Firstly, when viewing a contact, there is no back button in the top left - <USER2> need to use the system back button, or drag the card down. Secondly, when adding a new contact, the checkmark button is in the top left, and to discard you need to go to the top right overflow settings button, and choose discard changes (the only option in the overflow). Completely counterintuitive (top left for Create, top right for discard), and the opposite of the Gmail app's Compose window (which uses the standard layout).

</comment><comment><USER27> I have tried to port my IMAP email accounts into the new GMail. As far as I can tell, there's still no support for IDLE and the phone constantly suggests a "sync time" for my accounts. I guess my phone checking for mail every 1/5/15/30 minutes shouldn't bother me with the new job scheduling upgrades etc. but it does feel half baked.

I'm happy to go back to the K-9 Mail derived apps which I've always used...but I was hoping that the new GMail design would be easy on the eyes (since I spend much of my phone time reading e-mail). Then again, now that I think of it there's no real "archive" support for non-GMail accounts in the GMail app either, so maybe it's more of a hack.

</comment><comment><USER28> just my 2 cents, but my biggest grips are still no universal search, ala spotlight; and privacy controls for each app, for each function. If they fixed those i'd switch.

(and no, i don't want to have to download other apps, tweak this and that to achieve the desired outcome. It should be standard)

<comment><USER29> Universal search (once a part of Android) has long been stripped out due to patent issues with Apple.

The app permissions system on Android is all or nothing. Which I think would benefit from a more rigorous approval process. All the access is disclosed though before install.

Glad the world has options.

<comment><USER30> Rather ironic that someone has an advantage over Google for universal search.

<comment><USER31> Unlike Apple, Google isn't so keen on enforcing its patents. Do you really think Google doesn't have _hundreds_ of search related patents that they could use against anything Apple does with search, including Siri?

Personally I _prefer_ them not doing anything like that, though, because I'd like them to stay out of this vicious patent war circle. But it's a shame that means the war has to be one-sided. Apple and others can fire at them, but they can't fire back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I am one of those people who always felt that Android didn't look nearly as good as it was feature-loaded. Feeling that I could always do pretty much anything with a powerful Android phone, I'm happy to see Google taking a serious big swing at design.

</comment><comment><USER33> In my opinion, the level of stretching and radially-wiping animations in material design is completely at odds with Google's claim that the central metaphor is paper/cards. While I like most of their redesigned applications rather a lot, even if I try to force myself to see them as sheets of paper, I cannot, as the widgets actually behave almost nothing like paper.

<comment><USER34> That's why it's a metaphor, not a strict skeumorphism.

The core ideas taken from the concept of "paper" are stacking, layering, print-design-style blocks of color, and the idea that things can be shuffled and moved but cannot instantly appear and disappear in/out of thin air. That doesn't mean it's literally trying to be a pile of looseleaf, just that it's mimicking those abstract concepts from the real world in an attempt to make the interface intuitive and less "magical" (in the negative sense).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Good review, I agree on all points! But no mention of the new keyboard design where the borders surround the letters have been removed. On my Nexus 5 I am making significantly more typos than usual. Anyone else notice this?

</comment><comment><USER36> How is the lag? Still a lot of stuttering everywhere?

<comment><USER37> Better. Flawless almost everywhere, couple of places which can still drop a frame or two in specific situations - but iPhones do that too.

<comment><USER36> Thanks. Sounds great!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Maybe not the place to ask, but why is Calculator part of the core OS?</comment>


"Front-End Job Interview Questions" Answered - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/yangshun/front-end-interview-handbook <comment><USER2> Some of these questions are really good, but some are more buzzword bingo than anything, like "What are the building blocks of HTML5?"

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks pretty out-of-date. It doesn't even mention React and Redux, styled-components, electron...</comment>


Nitrous Service Shutdown – November 14th - <AUTHOR> https://community.nitrous.io/posts/nitrous-service-shutdown-november-14th <comment><USER2> As the founder of Codeanywhere a competitor in the Cloud IDE space this event saddens me. They worked for years trying to change the way people code, but did not make it in the end.

Contrary to what people may or may not think, they will be missed.

<comment><USER3> If it's ok to tack on here, how do you convince developers to move to Cloud IDEs? I've been trying to convince my team, but they are glued to PHPStorm and thus my attempts to move them meet steady resistance. The value-prop for me makes sense though, get out of the business of trying to maintain a vm on everyone's machine. Granted maybe we could solve it in other ways with containers or such but Cloud9, Codeanywhere, and some of these other tools seem like the right thing to move to.

<comment><USER4> I'm going to get flack for this, certainly in this discussion, but... seriously? What is this obsession with cloud IDEs?

The reason you can't convince _me_ is that nobody has ever been able to explain in clear terms the benefit or the point of using a cloud IDE.

A cloud IDE presupposes excellent uninterrupted connectivity. Guess what? I often work on the move and often don't have that.

I'll admit that keeping Visual Studio service packed can be tiresome but this irritation is vastly outweighed by the fact that I can use it on the move. Likewise Sublime Text, or WebStorm, or whatever. And it's not as if software updates can't be solved in a different way (Chrome, Firefox).

For me the combination of a locally installed IDE with a distributed version control system still offers the best value prop for working portably.

I'm not saying a cloud IDE is always a terrible idea but, after 4+ years of these things, I still don't really get the appeal.

<comment><USER5> As a former volunteer CS instructor (for high school students), the cloud IDEs were great for use on school owned hardware that got wiped randomly, often had boot issues, etc.

As long as the students had a working machine, they'd be able to get to their projects regardless of whether it was on the machine they used the previous day (without have to deal with git/etc).

In my professional life I would never use these tools.

<comment><USER6> I use them the same way. I find git as a single developer to be also a much better fit for me. I work in three different locations on three different machines and a laptop. Git works for me, but I have taught some and the cloud IDE is great for teaching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice no-nonsense shutdown post. I kinda miss the nonsense though.

Like why are they shutting down, are they keeping their static-hosting service Pubstorm, and if so, how - at $5 per month - can that be more economical?

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure if it's worth (economically) maintaining Pubstorm though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A couple years ago when I was first learning to code all I could afford was a cheap chromebook and nitrous enabled me to learn and grow as an engineer with very little barrier of entry.

I am sad they're shutting down, but more for sentimental reasons, I haven't used nitrous in over a year and once they dropped their freemium version I couldn't convince myself to come up with the cash to use them.

</comment><comment><USER10> What was the value proposition of this (and other services that are still alive)?

We can already use git to store code in the cloud AND do so only when we want to. Was it the containerized environment? Even in that case why wouldn't they provide some sort of "dropbox for coding" type of service instead?

</comment><comment><USER11> I tried Nitrous a few times and thought it was nice, but I kind of feel like it's the wrong decade to start depending on a proprietary dev tool you can't host. Being able to install Cloud9 on your own computer was great if you were xx - xxx ms from a server or offline.

Hopefully their software resurfaces with new opportunities when it's open sourced.

</comment><comment><USER2> As the founder of Codeanywhere a competitor in the Cloud IDE space this event saddens me. They worked for years trying to change the way people code, but did not make it in the end.

Contrary to what people may or may not think, they will be missed.

<comment><USER12> What's left? c9.io what recently bought by Amazon. There's codenvy still, which is migrating from codenvy.com to codenvy.io for some reason: "The legacy IDE at codenvy.com will be shut down on Friday, November 4th 2016. This is the last phase of our 3 phase sunset for the legacy codenvy.com system (details are below this message). Your account will be automatically migrated to codenvy.io. You will need to reset your password upon first login in that system."

<comment><USER2> We are, codeanywhere.com :)

<comment><USER12> Yes, got that. But besides you?

<comment><USER13> How about Koding? I always thought of Koding to have a similar proposition.

I was looking at their site today and they claim 1,000,000 users on their website. How many developers are in the world? 11 million or so? So about 9% of world developers use Koding and somehow I have missed pretty much all of them.

<comment><USER2> Hi Khash :) Yeah but they changed focus a while back. Stated they are no no longer a Cloud IDE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've read many comments on this thread regarding usability and value-prop of online IDEs. Here are some points from a perspective of a developer who was relying heavily on Nitrous.

1\. I was able to patch my production apps from anywhere.

2\. I was able to deploy my apps, in-case my hosting service provider decided to reboot the servers while I was at home, away from my development machines.

3\. I was able to build new features, on alternate git branches, while enjoying at home with my family.

4\. I was able to host new features, from a development branch, and let my colleagues provide real-time feedback.

I am one of the developers who will be crippled if online IDEs like Nitrous go away.

<comment><USER15> I do that all now with a mixture of rdesktop/rdp and SSH and occasionally Emacs tramp mode over a VPN.

Basically if I have my local emacs I can use it even when the dev, test and prod servers are 1000 miles away, and if I don't have my emacs (on my tablet or something) then its rdesktop/rdp and run my IDE remotely.

My current employer is pretty chill with all my machines being 1000 miles away in a corporate national data center, but is not chill with the idea that some 3rd party will host the critical development path and connectivity could disappear at their whim.

Its the classic "cost too low" problem for PaaS. My code, no matter how important it is to me or my employer, cannot be worth more than $39/mo to Nitrous in some kind of worst case scenario. Actually its only worth their cost of sales to replace me, which might be higher or lower, but certainly isn't a lot of money. On the other hand my management team can escalate a locally hosted problem such that a big enough problem might in theory cost multiple sysadmins their job, maybe their boss too, lets say a max of $500K/yr if multiple people got fired for over the top gross misconduct. That means my boss has AT LEAST a thousand times more leverage in case of problems with self hosted vs PaaS. There's a big difference between "eh $40 here, $40 there, who cares about that trouble ticket" and "our shared veep said you'd fix ticket #24153 before going home today or you're unemployed". "I don't care if your total budget is $10M/yr or a thousand people are sitting down waiting until its fixed, you're only worth $40/mo to me and not a penny more, tough luck".

I mean, seriously, 14 days warning? I've taken longer than two week vacations. Imagine coming back from a long vacation and trying to log in to get some work done and finding out everything was wiped a week ago, LOL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> TechCruch piece on this [https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/31/cloud-development- platform...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/31/cloud-development-platform- nitrous-io-shuts-down/)

I would add: don't trust anything you can't reproduce on your air-gapped machine.

</comment><comment><USER17> I always thought Nitrous had more potential as an educational platform as opposed to a remote/cloud based development environment.

It's a shame to see this, they had some cool stuff.

<comment><USER18> Their email about this says they're open sourcing some of it... we'll have to wait and see what, exactly, that is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have been a daily user of nitrous since February 2014, the news hurts like a punch in the stomach, thanks to them I started programming again after a 15 year break. It feels as if a dear friend and office mate was diagnosed with 15 days of life. Such a bummer, Hope the best for the team.

</comment><comment><USER20> I recommended Nitrous in my book 'Learn Ruby on Rails.' The service is ideal for beginners who have difficulty installing Rails on their local machines. It's a useful service but I presume they don't make money with the beginner/educational market. It didn't help that they dropped their free tier snd then brought it back months later. Sorry to see them go.

<comment><USER21> I moved everything to c9.io for my Rails book and workshop for the same reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I coded in the cloud full-time for over two years and loved it. I switched back and forth between Cloud9 and Nitrous based on plan changes and new features. The primary reason I switched back to local was for better Cordova debugging and Electron. For web development, it was really nice.

<comment><USER23> I'm exploring Electron already, so out of curiousity, what did you build with Electron? Any recommendations of a good "starter" app/tutorial/walkthrough?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've been happily using the nitrous.io service for 2 months to play around with Meteor. It is a great service. I quickly defaulted to the shell with tmux rather than using the IDE. Hosting was only $19/month which hit the sweet spot between shared hosting and a VPS.

Shared hosting for Meteor is not an option as a 'meteor update' always runs out of memory and gets killed for using too many resources. You can upload a config, but this is unwieldy and is antithetical to the whole point of Meteor.

</comment><comment><USER25> That's really sad. I really liked nitrous, and am still a really big fan of the "hack" button for projects.

</comment><comment><USER26> I am excited by the possibility to host your own Nitrous instance.

I don't know about their backend stack, but imho this is the kind of project that could/should go under the umbrella of the Apache Foundation.

It could be a serious competitor to web-base version of Eclipse.

</comment><comment><USER27> Let me start by stating I am the release manager for Codenvy and Che. When trying to decide if a cloud IDE is right for you like so many things in life "It depends". A local IDE probably works "fine" for most single developers or small teams. Developers that have been using a certain local IDE may find that it is better to stick with it than to invest time in learning about and how to use a cloud IDE. Also certain program development can only be done with specific local IDE software. Codenvy is trying to fit into as many developer needs as we can but we know we will not always be right for everyone.

However, Codenvy and Che does have advantages over local IDEs. The biggest in my opinion is having a consistent programming environment that can be distributed quickly. We leverage the use of Docker in creating workspaces that run machine(s) which are Docker containers. Source code, compilers, debuggers and executables are all "contained" in the same runtime environment. This means consistency in compiling, executing and debugging. When a developer get's something to work successfully others will be able to do the same consistently. Also, transitioning from development environment to production in most cases is more consistent and faster if your production environment uses or can use Docker containers in production. Running the IDE on a dedicated server also can increase compile performance and reduce local machine hardware requirements.

One special advantage that Che and Codenvy over traditional IDE's is some embedded systems. A developer could include a built-in IDE in their embedded system. When the embedded system is connected to a network the developer could use Codenvy or Che to directly reprogram the device using the device's ipaddress and a web browser. Downside to having the IDE on the embedded system though is processing power but could work in some cases. Alternatively, a cross compile development environment could be setup with Che and Codenvy that could upload the binary/assembly to the embedded device after compiling. This is actually what we are doing Samsung's Artik development board with the Artik IDE.

On the topic of leaving a developer "high and dry" if the product fails, is why open source is a good idea for an IDE. Open sourcing Che, which Codenvy is built on, ensures that the product has the ability to live on without us if for some reason Codenvy fails. Not only is Che open sourced but is part of the Eclipse foundation.

This is a great topic and glad to see all the interest. It's good to see what developers feel about and want from cloud IDE's.

</comment><comment><USER28> Sorry to hear this. I always thought Nitrous had a pretty nice platform compared to other cloud IDEs and Peter is a great guy that was building some cool stuff. Wishing the folks at Nitrous all the best in whatever comes next.

</comment><comment><USER29> Well, this is sad. I miss the old Nitrous.io. The new updates they rolled out suck, and now that they are completely shutting down the service I'm just even more disappointed. Back to PythonAnywhere I suppose?

<comment><USER30> PythonAnywhere dev here -- we'd be very happy to have you back! (Especially if you tell us what made Nitrous a better platform while they were still operating.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Another reminder to not let your business depend on the cloud :/

</comment><comment><USER32> We trialed Nitrous with our kids at ScriptEd (after school coding non-profit) a couple years ago. Their free tier was leaps and bounds above Cloud9. Sad to see them go.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'll admit I haven't seen the editor since summer '14, but it was honestly shit then.

The only thing I saw it used for was abstracting away environment setup for kids at a high school coding bootcamp, which I can forgive because it was only like 10 days. I'd be suspicious of anyone using something similar professionally. 1 day of environment setup is nothing in the context of a professional project.

The editor didn't even indent for me properly.

</comment><comment><USER34> Will they be providing PRs to reomve all the nitrous button links in so many open source projects?</comment>


Ask HN: Blockchain type system for systems testing - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone,
I am trying to do some systems integration testing within a bank - where we are tracking trades as they move from one system to the next. On some systems users have to perform some manual tasks before releasing the trades for succeeding systems.
I want to find out if there is some Blockchain style system for doing this where each system owner is sent a token when required to act or validate and then the user passes the token down to the next system owner after processing is done.
We would ideally like to have a dashboard where we can see the where each trade is in the workflow.
We used Jira for the last round of testing and we were not particularly happy with it.
Thanks <comment><USER2> What exactly do you think is solved in this scenario by distributed timestamping, a.k.a. blockchain?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am trying to pass a token round and only one person can hold that token at time i.e. it's your turn to do some work and when you are done pass then token on to the next person in line.

I am not sure we need the distributed timestamping elements for now. I probably have the techniques mixed up

<comment><USER2> So you need something to manage workflow, not to jump on any bandwagon.</comment></comment></comment>


Aphorisms, Rules, and Heuristics - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8nhAlfIk3QIODdHYl95d1dWNE0

<comment><USER2> _Running commentary_

9\. It is quite a predicament to be both evil and risk averse.

 _This basically explains 4chan_

41\. One of life's machinations is to make some people both rich and unhappy, that is, jointly fragile and deprived of hope.

43\. High Modernity: routine in place of physical effort, physical effort in place of mental expenditure, & mental expenditure in place of mental clarity.

 _It 's hard to get clarity out of someone who doesn't share your abstractions, it's hard to get effort out of someone who doesn't share your goals_

47\. Life is about execution rather than purpose.

52\. Used skillfully, a compliment will be much more offensive than any disparagement.

 _As a Canadian I know this, and I am tempted to learn Japanese because I think it will take me to the next level_

63\. The ultimate freedom lies in not having to explain "why" you did something.

69\. Saying someone good at making profits but not good at managing risk is like saying someone is a great surgeon except for cases when the patients die.

75\. The only valid political system is one that can handle an imbecile in power without suffering from it.

 _I disagree, and I bet he wouldn 't say this about a hedge fund_

88\. An economist is a mixture of 1) a businessman without common sense, 2) a physicist without brain, and 3) a speculator without balls.

110\. If you detect a repressed smile on the salesperson's face, you paid too much for it.

 _Competition: escalate if they 're happy. Love: escalate if they're sad._

112\. If powerful assholes don't find you "arrogant", it means you are doing something wrong.

125\. In a conflict, the middle ground is least likely to be correct.

 _A compromise between two sane solutions can easily produce an insane solution_

129\. Intellect without balls is like a racecar without tires.

163.Journalists reporting on journalism (such as the NYT intrigue) is an unconscious form of onanism.

187\. For life to be really fun, what you fear should line up with what you desire.

191\. In the days of Suetonius, 60% of prominent educators (grammarians) were slaves. Today the ratio is 97.1%, and growing.

</comment><comment><USER3> For those who want a some insight into the man without reading one of his books, I recommend the Econtalk podcasts where he is a guest

[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/_featuring/nassim_taleb/](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/_featuring/nassim_taleb/)

</comment><comment><USER4> "Never hire an A student unless it is for taking exams"

I understand the idea they're trying to get across but that's a terrible saying

</comment><comment><USER5> The biggest gem for me is this:

      193. A writer told me "I didn't get anything done today".
      Answer: try to do nothing. The best way to have only good
      days is to not aim at getting anything done.

      Actually almost everything I've written that has survived
      was written when I didn't try to get anything done.

This happened to me trying to craft aphorisms. There's some sort of inverse psychological effect where the more direct you are in what you pursue, the harder it becomes to achieve it. It's as if by being direct you suppress what your unconscious is quietly brewing.

Pg had said it's hard to write quotes, because they are so dense, like one- line essays. I suspect he meant it's hard to come up with one consciously. It's surprising how easy it is to spot an aphorism when you aren't really looking. Big revelations come when you least expect them.

To me aphorisms feel like conclusions that help you move forward. No aphorism, no direction.

</comment><comment><USER6> These are contextless gnomic utterances, which are not prima facie uncontroversial and therefore mostly useless to us. Why should we care? We want reasoning here surely, and perhaps some supporting data rather than a set of rules from somebody with financial acumen but it seems limited social insight. I suspect this author Mr Taleb has an ego of gargantuan proportions.

<comment><USER5> Operating with partial context is not only part of real life, but also a branch of mathematical logic called computability theory. That's far from useless.

We should also care because social insight often comes from relative comparisons. They let us compare things without having precise data. For example, people growing indignant is often a sign they don't understand a topic well, which is generally true without knowing the particular person involved.

One of my favorites from this list is the following, which is also supported by research on vulnerability[1]:

 _It is a sign of weakness to avoid showing signs of weakness._

[1] - [https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability](https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't remember reading anything more pompous.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> About the changed title: These aren't random Aphorisms and Heuristics (my original title was "Nassim Taleb's 201 (and counting) Aphorisms and Heuristics compilation"

Nassim Taleb is compiling his own aphorisms in this document. And he said that when he reachs 500 he will write a new book. Awful title change.

source: [https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1015221578...](https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10152215786363375&id=13012333374&fref=nf)

<comment><USER8> It was you who changed the title. If the author had wanted to call it "Nassim Taleb's 201 (and counting) Aphorisms and Heuristics compilation", he would have. Since he didn't, we replaced it with the original, as the HN guidelines request.

The way to supply context for a story you're submitting is not to stuff it in the title, but to post it as a comment to the thread. Had you done that here, you could have shared with us the Facebook link where Taleb describes what he's doing. That would have been more informative, and in keeping with the HN guidelines as well.

<comment><USER9> I much prefer context in the title, and find this antipathy to editorial headline construction ridiculous. I'm not likely to open a thread just because there's one comment on it, and the original title is so generic as to be uninteresting.</comment></comment></comment>


The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty - b-man http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/8134/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not just politically incorrect, it's also incorrect. Hong Kong was not setup as a place for the british to run, the british came in and controlled it. There's a difference - because the british were absolute law and order. There were not two voices.

A more apt comparison would be suzhou. Areas of it were developed under singaporean authority. The singaporeans ended there with huge losses, and I don't think they are interested in doing such anymore.

And singapore and china are relatively close culturally - if for example china were to setup cities in Africa, diaster would occur. You can see the same happening with current chinese ventures there: they are run and managed solely by chinese and employ chinese. I was watching a BBc documentary the other day about some chinese companies in Angola, and an Angolan man complained: "Why do they need to bring people from China here to drive trucks?" The answer is simple - if you have people from two different countries and two different cultures where one is driving a truck and the other is managing his work, then productivity will sink massively.

A country administering a town in another country will be constantly beset by these cross-cultural problems. There will be conflicting interests, conflicting cultures and conflicting work attitudes. One side will resent the other, and instead of new booming towns, there will be wastage and empty buildings.

The current system is better, where a country simply sends its people to build infrastructure and then walks away. Perhaps even build the entire physical infrstructure and buildings of a city, but the actual management has to be separate, I'd think.

<comment><USER2> The problems in Angola aren't cross-cultural, they're just cultural. Like a lot of Africa, there is no concept of good governance there. Starting up a business with locals would be a nightmare.

If you were trying to remotely build a business in Angola, how would you avoid having it stripped bare by staff corruption? The politicians would use bullying to push the 'wrong' people away from applying for jobs there, and look for opportunities to make payoffs to get their people hired into the structure. Their people have grown and been fed by corruption, and would perpetuate the practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think your comment is just horrible. You seem to be implying that African culture is simply more corrupt and somehow inferior, which is really not nice of you to say.

"Starting up a business with locals would be a nightmare."

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many companies from many countries are successfully creating businesses in Africa. And they are getting rich at it. But people like you undermine the entire growth process of africa - because you just lump everything together into a single bundle, and then condemn it to be a place nobody should ever invest in. That's just horrible.

The problems ARE cross-cultural. You know why? European & American companies trying to set up shop in Africa do indeed face the problems you are describing above (probably because they come in with your mindset), but south african companies are making billions selling goods to consumers. Things like satellite TVs, Mobile Phones, etc are making billions in profits, without it being 'stripped bare by staff corruption'.

Why's that? It's because they understand the cultural issues and don't expect western style personal responsibility.

Just like in china things have to be done the chinese way, in africa, things have to be done the african way. Those who know how to do it that way are making money in the continent with the highest growing GDP.

People like you, however, who make these blanket statements about how it can never be improved and should never be invested in, should indeed stay out - but best of all would be if you don't discourage others from investing.

<comment><USER2> In lots of Africa, there is an extremely poor standard of governance. I'd expect South Africa to be much stronger than average, and Botswana too.

In preparing my earlier comment, I originally typed out and then deleted a long section saying that we need language that allows us to distinguish regions of India, Brazil, South Africa where it's straightforward to do business, and to distinguish that from places where it's not. That the term "third world" is too broad.

        People like you, however, who make these blanket
        statements about how it can never be improved

I did no such thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> You misunderstand. South African companies are doing business in WEST AFRICA. Celtel from a Sudanese guy is very successful everywhere. What you have suggested in this other post is even MORE offensive. You've doubled down and said that you want to elevate those countries into a new category and put the African countries even lower in the list.

You have basically no idea about how business runs in Africa or what are the countries. That's why you're pointing out the old mainstays of SA and Botswana. That's not where the growth is in Africa.

You, my friend, are prejudiced. Yes, I'm using the word correctly, because you have formed opinions about places and things before you actually have information and facts about them.

We don't need language to further categorize African countries into a fourth world or however you'd like to describe it. Rather, we should get rid of the terminology that even categorizes countries as a lower kind of world.

<comment><USER2> Your refusal to engage in sensible, evidence-backed prejudice is leading you to bizarre conclusions.

        You have basically no idea about how business runs
        in Africa or what are the countries.

I don't, and neither do the Chinese investors. Like them, if I could make a business work by bringing my own people in now, I'd do it. Much better than running the gauntlet with the known governance problems and the predictable chaos it would cause my business.

        Rather, we should get rid of the terminology that
        even categorizes countries as a lower kind of world.

Language should reflect the way things are, not a politically correct perspective. Otherwise we could be encouraged towards ridiculous ideas, such as that it's as easy to put a team together in Angola as in Japan or Germany (or South Africa!).

<comment><AUTHOR> I do business in Africa, I work with chinese companies doing business in Africa, I do business in Germany, in China also. I've spent many years in those countries. You don't, you just have this prejudice without any justification. It's not evidence. I have experience, you have a bunch of articles you read on the net.

People like YOU are the greatest problem Africa faces. I'm glad the chinese are not like you, but go where money can be made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm not going to fault this piece for being hand-wavy and poorly justified: it is that, but then again, it's a piece of popular journalism which is allowed to be. So, I'll criticize the broader idea.

This article cites China as a model. Hong Kong did not pull the rest of China up as it grew. It certainly played a role, but frankly the communism that took resources from the urban coast and built roads, schools, and other infrastructure in rural areas was more likely a bigger contributor to the massive improvement in (purely economic) standard-of-living for most Chinese.

It was in particular /not/ enlightened foreign rule of urban areas that did this. If we accept that all geopolitical entities respond to incentives, it is not clear that direct foreign control of areas of the developing world will produce the ideal outcome for those areas: this will only be the case when the incentives and interests of both the local population (which is not monolithic, btw, but we'll ignore that for now) and the foreigners align; long term prosperity requires that incentives align for both in the long term, which seems terribly unlikely. Moreover, the history of development is fraught with stories stories good-intentioned outsiders failing to make a beneficial impact because they poorly understood the complex local situation, and it's simply unrealistic to assume you can just start with a clean-slate-by-fiat in a "charter city" and build without considering a place's history.

I think Romer has a good core idea, one that few people would argue with. Namely, development is not just a matter of fixing the "Production = F(capital & labor)" equation; good governance, good ideas, and good people all are required. While it may be surprising to some, this is an idea that is pretty well understood (at least at a high level) in the development community/industry. My beef with his idea is a flawed execution, and one that I think could be potentially damaging in the long term. These ideas need to come from local populations and make sense for their own contexts.

As an analogy, you just aren't going to reproduce Silicon Valley by emulating the Bay Area's regulations and investment level: there is a whole history that made it the way it is. Attempts to do so are kind of doomed from the start, so it's better to focus on creating new centers of prosperity that make sense for the local context. I don't think foreigners are well positioned to do that.

\---

Another point to make, the Millennium Villages Project had a similar premise to Romer's. The idea was that solving the problems of poverty in particular villages through strong international partnerships would lead to spillover effects throughout the surrounding areas. Everything I've heard about it is that the results have been alright, but not really that great. Besides a bit more of a heavy-handed foreign-involvement approach, I'm not sure if the "charter cities" idea really is that different than MVP and hence it's not clear how it will overcome the obstacles MVP faced.

Edit: William Easterly is quoted here. He has an awesome book, "The Elusive Quest for Growth", that discusses a lot of non-intuitive reasons why development efforts have historically failed. I would highly recommend it.

<comment><USER4> At the same time, Hong Kong served as a model for China to emulate when it gradually liberalized its economy, beginning with the SEZs in coastal southern China in the 1980s. I think charter cities could be a novel way of easing people who have lived in generally corrupt and economically distorted environments into better institutions. Westerners take for granted that the trust embedded in the social contract and the civic and economic habits that emerge from this trust are not a given in many places (i.e. trust that the government/criminal entities/rent extractors will not capriciously bend things to their advantage).

<comment><USER5> It seems fairly clear to me that China succeeded by inviting foreign investors in, offering them a good deal _and_ keeping them on a tight leash. The last is a _big_ "and".

You can contrast China's relative success to the failure of Mexican Maquiladoras. By allowing US companies to set-up shop in fashion that involved no commitment, no building of infrastructure and no requirements to keep capital in the country, Mexico opened itself up for the situation of today, where US companies in Mexico are closing shop and moving to ... China.

Edit: China also had the luxury of being so big a market that many investors have the "I can't afford not to be there" mentality. I'm not sure if any other country could duplicate that now.

<comment><USER6> Failure of Maquiladoras? Could you explain this statement?

As far as I know, Mexico has more or less continually grown since NAFTA, and Maquiladoras play an important role in their economy. They certainly are facing competition from much less wealthy countries (like China), but so is everyone else in the industrialized world.

[http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb- wdi&ctype=l&s...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb- wdi&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:MEX:CHN&tstart=-315619200000&tunit=Y&tlen=49&hl=en&dl=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article pops on hn periodically, so I do not have time to refute it in detail yet again, but should point out quickly that this is just a plan to create private paid for dictatorships. It is very unlikely to result in reduction of poverty as this rarely happens in dictatorships.

What will most likely happen is some type of slave camp deal as it is already happening in Dubai.

Now you will say, "but the people have a right to vote with their feet, i.e. to leave if they do not like the place." Technically yes, but in reality no. The poor foreign workers that are being held in Dubai also theoretically have a right to leave, but they cannot because the Dubai police will simply club them on their heads if they even mention leaving before finishing their job.

If you do not have an overall legal framework that protects individual rights, if the people do not have the right to elect their own leaders and/or police chiefs, then it is very unlikely the police will protect the people's rights.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure that the situation in Dubai is one that Romer would envision. You're attacking a straw man.

Having said that, I won't argue either way. The devil is in the execution no doubt. But in trying out his idea, I would hope that there's something we can learn from it besides the would-be automatic response of "that doesn't work." What we're currently trying is clearly not working all that well, so we'd be insane not to try something different and I'd hope that Romer can get two parallel "experiments"--for concisenss--in two different countries to see which conditions, if any, are better suited for his model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Previous discussion at:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1426429>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1584200>

</comment><comment><USER10> Very interesting article - makes you think.

The Atlantic is one of the few magazines that I subscribe to in print. There's a nice blend of culture, politics, and forward thinking, and there doesn't seem to be a ton of editorial stance. You'll read one article from a liberal perspective, and then another one from a conservative one. It seems to be an all around solid publication. I don't always agree with what they publish - but its almost always thought provoking.

</comment><comment><USER11> Related: [http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/from- cr...](http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-cromer-to- romer-and-back-again.html)

I agree with the upshot of Moldbug's argument: _"Thus the practical problem with 'charter cities' is that no one wants them: not the host regime, not the international regime. For both, they simply work too well. Colonialism had to die not because it didn't work, but because it worked too well."_

<comment><USER12> Umm ... colonialism doesn't actually work well for the colonized.

<comment><USER11> Well, I'm not sufficiently satisfied with my historical knowledge to hang around and argue this point with you, but I would point out that Moldbug defends it vigorously. If you can't be arsed to wade through his lengthy mumblings, you can CTRL-F _"The fundamental observation of colonialism is that non-European societies thrive under normal European administration, at least in comparison to their condition under native rule"_ in the above essay and read for a bit from there. His conclusion is that _"...to assert that their average quality of government service was anything but far better than either their predecessors, or their successors, is a political distortion of history which I have no trouble at all in comparing to Holocaust denial."_

<comment><USER12> Right. It's worked out soooo well for Native Americans here in the US. Except for the whole smallpox thing. And the reservations. And the massacres. And the Interior Department.

<comment><USER13> > Right. It's worked out soooo well for Native Americans here in the US. > Except for the whole smallpox thing. And the reservations. And the > massacres. And the Interior Department.

The US didn't colonize NA land. We took it and "gave" them reservations, which we mostly ignore.

They'd be better off as colonies or independent. As colonies, we'd care about getting a return on our investment. As independent, they'd benefit from whatever development that they did.

<comment><USER14> Only vaguely related, but I've heard it explained that the term "reservation" derives from the idea that it's land that the Indians "reserved" for themselves, rather than ceding in treaties.

Now, that's of course a distortion of the forces at work that caused the so- called reservation of lands to be necessary, but there's also some contemporary value to Indian leaders in restoring that sense of meaning to the word today.

<comment><USER15> Well, I can tell you that the land picked for reservations was not picked by the tribes. Mostly it is not the best or nicest. Some tribes got lucky because of what was discovered later. I would need a source cited who thinks this interpretation of the word would be good for a tribal leader.

<comment><USER14> The source cited is me. I think it would have value as a method of strengthening a sense of autonomy.

There's a lot of difference in the idea of land someone else reserved for you vs land you reserved for yourself.

The place where the land is will not be changing, but it's possible to change the perception of what that land represents, and thus the benefits of that land in a political sense.

<comment><USER15> That is not part of the history, nor is does it jive with some of the ongoing land claim. Changing wording and trying to convince people that something that didn't happen did does nothing except base your leadership and cause in a lie. Changing perception is only a good thing when it brings you closer to the truth of a situation, not clouds future decisions in more fog.

<comment><USER14> The point is that it is in fact a part of the history.

Perhaps only nominally so originally, but that doesn't mean it can't be used to advantage now.

<comment><USER16> Denying the truth doesn't motivate or cause cohesion. A vision of a brighter future with opportunity and prosperity does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The most interesting part of this is the irrational thinking it exposes in the developed world.

What's the difference between extending Canada to include a bit of Africa, and letting more Africans move to the existing Canada? I think it's pretty minor. Then why would Canadians bother with Romer's plan, when they could simply relax their immigration laws?

<comment><USER8> That's a valid observation.

Surely, immigration is good for the home country of the emigrants economically speaking (think remittances, entrepreneurs going back, etc). This, I'd argue, is indeed better than foreign aid. But what Romer is arguing is that his model is meant to change the rules and bring the ideas to the country. As an immigrant, what would be the point of moving to Canada and learning new models/ideas if when you go back, you won't have the power to change them and expose others to them under the same circumstances?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Honduras recently amended its constitution to permit the creation of Regiones Especiales de Desarrollo, following Romer's ideas: [http://www.congreso.gob.hn/contenido/1640-cronologia-del- nac...](http://www.congreso.gob.hn/contenido/1640-cronologia-del-nacimiento- de-una-ciudad-modelo-en-honduras)

<comment><USER19> Special economic zones are a convenient way for host nations to introduce reforms gradually and in constrained areas. The flow of kickbacks and bribery can continue in the mainland, while new laws and rules are developed in the SEZ islands. Even better, the political oligarchy can receive rents from these new areas if they become successful.

<comment><USER18> That's a very positive way to look at it. But bribery is not the only aspect of normal politics you can leave behind in your special economic zone; you can also abridge, for example, import tariffs, labor laws, _accountability_ for political corruption, and environmental regulations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Here's the project's website: <http://www.chartercities.org/>

</comment><comment><USER21> This reminds me of this Journeyman documentary subject on the plans of Chinese business-persons to develop a Swedish town into a large commercially thriving community - <http://www.journeyman.tv/61449/documentaries/chinatown.html>

Not poverty-reduction-related but does relate to the subject in a different way..

</comment><comment><USER22> When I read "Politically incorrect", I was thinking of Jonathan Swifts' "A modest proposal" (<http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html>)

</comment><comment><USER23> not hacker news.</comment>


Ask HN: What should be the content of wedontneedno.education? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't use it for anything other than Pink Floyd-related things. I wouldn't trust an educational website with this domain... For a PF lyrics/music repository it would be cool though.

</comment><comment><USER3> It could be a good domain for a blog critiquing elements of the modern education system, perhaps with some novel suggestions for improvement. Of course to really stand out it should be properly researched enough to have some evidence, instead of just making sensationalized claims with no backing.

<comment><USER4> I guess you mean putting some backing data but without making it too complicated, in an easy-to-understand way. A short and simple but informative page with infographics and everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://wedontneedno.education](http://wedontneedno.education)</comment>


Ask HN: Do you own a E-ink tablet to take notes - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Yup, I have a mobi scribe, I'm an electrician and use it for whole projects, keeping notes, and the ability to draw diagrams, make free hand notes, draw pictures, etc., is fantastic.

It feels similar to paper, and the stylus hasn't worn out in the year I've been using it, but it came with a spare.

It's slow, but I don't usually find it a problem, unless a client is there and waiting for information, then it's a bit embarrassing waiting for page changes to refresh.

The software is a bit limited, but I find it very usable for my applications within it's limitations.

It has a micro usb port to download your data, or I assume print it, I don't know as I don't need to do either.

Oh, it also has a switchable back light, and an on-screen keyboard that I rarely use, and one can store and read some ebooks with it, no sound, no Wi- fi.

The battery life is finally getting to where I need to charge it after a couple of days, instead of every week.

But yes, it's replaced pen and paper for my needs, and I'm just fine with that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tried but decided against the e-ink option. The reMarkable is nice and closer to paper then an iPad but I've actually come to like and use the iPad pro with an apple pencil for manual note taking. It gives me the hand-writing experience while still being useful for other applications so it's not a single use device I have to carry around. Paper still feels better, but I usually lose paper.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you tried remarkable

<comment><USER3> Yes, it does feel more like paper then an ipad, but it's a single use device and I use other apps on my ipad, so the extra cost and adding another device to the mix wasn't worth it for me. Maybe the remarkable 2 will be enough of an improvement to make it worthwhile, but we'll see when that actually ships.

<comment><USER3> I'll also add that one thing I like doing is highlighting and adding notes in different colors on top of docs, which a black and white e-ink display doesn't allow for, but the ipad does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed but i think it's just personal preference

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No, you'll have to pry my fountain pen from my cold dead fingers. I have tried a lot of digital note taking solutions and I always find that they distract from the task of actually taking notes, including typing. Or, perhaps it is that taking notes with pen and paper doesn't distract from what you are actually taking notes about.

</comment><comment><USER5> Personally I wouldn't consider any electronic note taking that doesn't have automatic bidirectional syncing with my other devices (phone, desktop). That should really be table-stakes by now, because ubiquity is one of the main upsides of "going paperless".

</comment><comment><USER6> Own- yes, take notes- no. My Pocketbook eReader supports note taking but those devices are too slow to mimic real note taking.

</comment><comment><USER7> I want to like the remarkable tablet and am an e-ink fanboy. I want to use this for notes but think it is overkill

</comment><comment><USER8> I use a typewriter to take notes in general, though it isn't very practical if you need something mobile

</comment><comment><USER9> No. I sometimes take notes in my phone, and even that lag is too much. If I need freehand notes, I use paper.

</comment><comment><USER10> Remarkable baby!

<comment><AUTHOR> How's your experience with remarkable i just ordered mine today</comment></comment>


Ask HN: San Fran "Competitive Salary" for Devs - <AUTHOR>

How much should one ask for for a San Fran "startup" developer position?  Midwest salaries are much lower (due to cost of living and small tech scene) and the avg developer makes around $60k, so my reference point is low.  Moving to the valley and possibly getting a job for an exploding startup, what is a reasonable starting point w/ 3 years of solid experience? <comment><USER2> Depends on the amount of funding and how much equity you're getting.

If they're well-funded (Series A or later) and you're getting negligible equity (hopefully not), then you should take the same salary as an established company like Facebook or Twitter would offer you. Probably a bit over $100k base for 3 years of experience.

Take that starting point and adjust it for the amount of equity they're offering and how much you think it's worth. Now your goal is to get them to pay you no less than you're worth. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Judging worth is not always easy unfortunately. It varies by need, in relation to other benefits, region, and more. I wish there was a simple test to take that would spit out a salary worth... Alas...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't think experience matters that much. If you're awesome, you should be paid $100K or more. If you're awesome, btw, I'd like to make you such a job offer.

<comment><USER4> are you being serious? How can you be awesome without experience? Otherwise, why not hire a janitor and pay him 100K as a developer (he's awesome!)

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure he means "can make great things happen" trumps "7 years Java experience on the resume"

<comment><USER6> 30 years experience doesn't mean much if it's the same year thirty times.

<comment><USER7> I'm going to use this quote in the future because it's so true.

Hope you don't mind the attribution "a wise man once said [...]"

<comment><USER6> I stole it from someone else.

maybe "a stupid thief once said [...]"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>