Sony announces PS4 with 8-core x86 processor, 8GB GDDR5 memory and DualShock 4 - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2013/02/21/sony-announces-playstation-4/ <comment><USER3> If their recent rework of the Playstation Store is any indication, the PS4 is _doomed_. They are just Microsoft II - on the surface it ticks all the boxes, but the resulting experience sucks balls. As if it were designed, implemented, but never actually used before the release.

When PS3 came out, it was excellent. It was an adult-oriented _standalone_ console that worked well as a media center and it was also really well designed. It was true to the spirit of old Sony electronics - a self- sufficient device with a polished interface that matched its function. Sure it had a hook up to the Internet and PSN, but it was secondary. But then they started "improving" things. First, you got promo ads in the corner of the home screen. Never asked for a permission, no way to turn them off, even by disabling the network connection. So _my_ device was little bit less mine. Then they started pushing "selected apps"- Netflix-Shmetflix and what not. Again, without asking, just because it was good for me, and, again, the device became even less mine. At the same time they increased the font size and replaced that beautiful Navier-Stokes visualization of a loading indicator with some generic spinner clock thingy. Sprinkled some other crap over the UI.

Just now imagine your old Sony cassette deck deciding to show you ads for new Justin Bieber album and offering to share shit on Facebook. That's PS3 _now_. So it's hardly surprising that I have no hope and zero expectations that PS4 will be anything else but a disappointment.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't matter if they are Microsoft II since Microsoft is their only competition in this space.

<comment><USER5> I don't know why you're saying that, disruption is right around the corner:

<http://greenthrottle.com/> \- Play mobile games on your TV

<http://www.bluestacks.com/> \- Play mobile games on your PC

<http://www.ouya.tv/> \- Android gaming console

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/6/3958162/valve-steam-box- cak...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/6/3958162/valve-steam-box-cake) \- Play games sold on Steam directly on your TV

<comment><USER6> With the exception of the steam box, you listed mobile gaming platforms.

Mobile games thus far can be placed into one of two categories:

A: Ports of obsolete PC/Console games with terrible control schemes.

B: Casual games.

The last time around, Sony tried to position itself as the platform for hardcore gamers. It appears that they are doing the same thing with the PS4. Hardcore gamers only play casual games either when they are away from home, or when they don't have time to play on their platform of choice. I'm not sure who technically won between Sony and MS, but it wasn't a landslide victory.

Don't get me wrong, casual games are great. Nintendo, Apple and Google have proven that there is a huge market for casual games, and it probably has a larger market than there is for hardcore gaming, I don't really know. Even if it is, that doesn't necessarily mean that traditional gaming is going to die.

<comment><USER7> The Ouya is a console with a controller. It won't just be casual games and it won't suffer from terrible control schemes. I have my doubts it will do much to Sony, but I'm glad to see the additional options coming.

<comment><USER8> Ouya is not even out yet, and just because it found 100 000 clients on Kickstarter does not mean it will be much bigger once it reaches the market. And it's probably "too cheap" in terms of hardware to motivate anyone serious with gaming to buy it.

<comment><USER8> mrbill, not sure if you know but you are [dead]. Anyway, for me being serious about gaming is not just about playing good games of all ages, but also keep trying NEW games. I would not be satisfied playing with the Atari 2600 forever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There were quite a few true innovations shown off in this endless whatever:

\-- silent preloading of games you may be interested in

\-- immediate local play of digital titles while they download

\-- OnLive/Gaikai style video streaming of full disc games you haven't yet purchased

\-- rolling video replay of your screen as a core system service

\-- Mobile-style instant system hibernation

\-- continuously streaming your display to remote friends

\-- allowing remote friends to assume control over your currently playing game

All of these are welcome, but "play the full game as a streamed demo" and "preload digital games of likely interest" are brilliant, wiping out so many pain points from digital software purchasing.

(and back to cynicism: every game they showed off was pre-rendered nonsense, their target market is plateauing at best, mobile's strangling them, etc etc etc)

<comment><USER10> All of those features require constant data streams except one.

In a country like Australia where we have data caps, pretty much the ONLY feature above that will actually benefit us, is the feature that involves us turning the console off.

Ironic.

<comment><USER11> The PS4 sounds like a pretty good reason for consumers to demand capless data. Along with services like Netflix this should diminish the market for crippled net access.

<comment><USER12> consumers can demand all they want. it downy doesn't mean they will get anything. the bandwidth problem in Australia is due to the small population, and distance from the rest of the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I read this for a bit, and then did a double take on

"The new system uses a DualShock 4 controller with a touchpad, share button, lightbar and headphone jack."

I know the one thing that I have been missing on all consoles to date is a share button! It doesn't go far enough though, it really should have separate share buttons for each of the online services I use!

<comment><USER14> You joke, but "Record that awesome thing that just happened" is a button video games have been needing for a long, long time.

<comment><USER15> The future does not look like more buttons for increasingly specific functions.

<comment><USER16> The evidence suggests it does. How much of this belief do you base on your ideals and how much is based on reality?

There used to be just game buttons (joystick + one button on Atari, for ex). There there were start and select. Then there was a console-specific power button (the "XBox" button and the "PS3" button on the Xbox controller and DS3 respectively). Now there's a share button. I dunno dude, it looks like the arrow of history is actually pointing the opposite direction from what you said in this comment.

<comment><USER8> The Xbox button and PS buttons are not "specific" since they have several functions - they pop up a menu where you can access a long list of functions. Having a single button for sharing to your network is borderline stupid, since it will flood the social networks with useless crap nobody cares about.

<comment><USER16> twitch.tv and Machinima claim that more than nobody cares about sharing of video game clips.

<comment><USER17> Game streaming is popular because of the personalities and explanations. Without narration, the vast majority of videogame clips are just cold and sterile, and not at all 'social'.

"Look at this cool thing I did" is the go-to example in this kind of demo, but in reality nobody cares. We want a human voice.

<comment><USER16> You don't think they'll capture the mic in multiplayer? That would surprise me.

<comment><USER8> Mic capture and narration is different.

<comment><USER16> ?? Mic capture is all that's needed for the narration like what happens on twitch.tv.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Slow. Golf. Clap.

Sony, you finally showed up to the party with hardware that devs actually know how to use and optimize for. While Cell was cool, it took ages before anyone knew what to do with it. Thank you for going with something more common!

<comment><USER19> I'm a little disappointed to be honest. Easier to approach, easier to optimize for... but since when has console development been an accessible market? Maybe its a naive outsiders view, but it will take more than a commodity instruction set to make console gaming an easy target.

<comment><USER20> Actually, there've been a lot of complaints from developers that it was much easier to develop games for the 360 than for the PS3. Thus, this is an unsurprising move from Sony.

<comment><USER21> Microsoft does dev tools remarkably well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have to wonder if Sony and Mircosoft are dooming themselves to rapid obsolescence by moving to x86 hardware...

In three years it's going to be too easy to compare the specs and quality to the latest and greatest pcs.

EDIT: I'm watching the live stream now: [http://www.gamespot.com/features/playstation- meeting-2013-ps...](http://www.gamespot.com/features/playstation- meeting-2013-ps4-announcement-6403818/?tag=Topslot%3bPlaystationMeeting2013Live%3bWatchThePlaystationMee%3bGoNow)

<comment><USER23> It's PC gaming that's on the way to obsolescence. I tried to help set up a game for my brother in law (he's 12) on my brother's not-too-ancient PC. Steam wouldn't start and we'd lost the activation code for the game (printed on the manual). Which we found out only after we'd spent 30 minutes installing the game. I was minutes worth of patience away from just going out and buying him an XBox.

<comment><USER24> This single troublesome incident does not really say anything about the status of PC gaming, sorry. You could of just as easily experienced a red ring of death with the Xbox 360.

<comment><USER23> I don't think it's true that, statistically, I'd be just as likely to experience the red ring of death than to lose a manual, have to run an installer for a game, or have problems getting software started up. With a console, there would've been a 99.9% probability of just handing the kid the game, starting it up, and leave him to play it.

<comment><USER25> Not so with the Xbox 360, I'll cite Wikipedia on this one:

On February 8, 2008, during the Game Developers Conference 2008, Microsoft announced that the "Failure rate has officially dropped", but without mentioning any specifics.[28] The same month, electronics warranty provider SquareTrade published an examination of 1040 Xbox 360's and said that they suffered from a failure rate of 16.4% (one in six).

Personally I'm on my third Xbox 360 after the first suffered a Red Ring of Death failure and the second had a faulty DVD drive that killed any inserted disk, destroying my copy of Rock Band. It actually convinced me to switch to gaming on the PC, as I refused to trust my Xbox and I didn't want it to fail until I had finished the Mass Effect trilogy.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, the Xbox360 hardware is unreliable at best. I never used my first Xbox360 for long hours nor in extreme conditions and yet in less than one year after purchase it did the RROD thing. It was one of the first models, so this may have improved, but this does not leave a very good image of the product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Remember the Xbox? It was almost exactly an off-the-shelf PC.

Those of you chiding the PS4 for being the same thing seem to forget how well xbox has worked out for microsoft.

The average person playing video games does not care what makes the video games go.

<comment><USER27> And certainly not when that platform makes it easier for more interesting games from indie developers to make appearances on the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> When the PS3 was announced it had a hefty feature set, some of which did _not_ happen on launch, or ever.

Things that didn't happen: Two HDMI ports, three ethernet ports, and six USB ports.

Backwards PS2 compatability, multiple card reader formats, and SACD support were all dropped later on. Ones that do support SACDs still no longer support digital surround output.

I love my PS3, but Sony seems to have quite a history of over-promising and under-delivering with these announcements, and then cutting features that they launched with down the line as well.

<comment><USER29> I'm not really sure that dropping dual-HDMI, tri-Ethernet and hexa-USB is such a big loss for a videogame console.

<comment><USER28> No, but PS2 computability and SACD over digital going away really sucked.

The point is more that Sony sells the systems at these announcements as having everything, and eventually... have less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30>
        "
        There is background uploading and downloading, allowing the console to update game and system items in the background even if the main power is off. [...]

        This is enabled by a secondary processor that allows for background work while the main processor is handling gameplay.
       "

Hopefully one day there will be a time sharing multi user environment, then we will no longer need dedicated hardware for updates.

Aside from this, I am somewhat undecided if the PS4 could be interesting. The Kinect+Move controller sounds good, if it is implemented well ( and the libraries are anywhere close to the Kinect ones). And the hardware seems to me okay, roughly what one would expect from a new console. On the other hand, I do not see anything like the blue ray drive of the PS3, a really compelling reason why I should get a PS4 instead of an xBox ( or an upgrade to the PC that sits next to my TV).

<comment><USER31> Yeah, the secondary processor thing sounds odd to me. Couldn't they reserve one core for background processing? I doubt games will use all 8 cores anyway.

<comment><USER32> The PS3 could do that. Except it didn't work well for a few games. I remember horrible frame drop experience on Assassin's Creed, which was due to a game or demo that was downloading in the background.

Also, think of the power user case. I'd much prefer a 3W processor waking up during the night doing silent updates, instead of the whole 100W monster (or maybe a fifth of that if they do intelligent power-gating).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Sounds great, but I will not be buying one. Sorry Sony, but after what you did to the PS3 I do not think anyone can trust you or your products.

</comment><comment><USER34> You can watch the event on Youtube:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noRJ15T4qb4&list=PLE19672...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noRJ15T4qb4&list=PLE196726F02565118&index=1)

<comment><USER35> IGN appears to be streaming a capture of the official UStream stream complete with buffering animations and stuttering.

<http://www.ustream.tv/playstation>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Our security comes at a high price: our freedom."

"We already live in a culture of fear"

That just got political real fast.

(From the live stream)

<comment><USER36> Yay, hypocritically using currently trendy counter-culture politics to market super-violent video games! It truly is the future!

(Game's no doubt gonna be awesome, though. So I forgive their dumb marketing shenanigans.)

</comment></comment><comment> UK-AL They should just open up the PlayStation store like the app store. Sure you'd have a lot of crap, but the market will sort that out and they won't rise to the top. It will be well worth it if any small studios develop a hit indie game.

That would be far more revolutionary than social integration and some buzzwords.

<comment><USER37> PlayStation Mobile is fairly open at least: <https://psm.playstation.net/portal/en/index.html#register>

Console dev used to take special, expensive development kits, although moving to a more PC like architecture will make a public SDK at an affordable price more likely. Probably the easiest way to do it right now is to just use the multi-platform Unity engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> [http://www.theonion.com/video/sony-releases-new-stupid- piece...](http://www.theonion.com/video/sony-releases-new-stupid-piece-of- shit-that-doesnt,14309/)

Sorry, couldn't resist.

</comment><comment><USER39> So basically a desktop pc with "Social gaming features" and onLive?

<comment><USER33> ...and locked-down so that you cannot run the software you want, and the ability for Sony to remove features whenever they want (and you cannot disable that).

<comment><USER40> That security is going to be disabled so fast it'll make Sony's head spin. x86 is a well known processor with a ton of corner cases, legacy code, and know attacks that should make this a lot easier than the Cell, where no one really knew how to attack an IBM LPAR.

<comment><USER41> All three previous generation consoles were almost perfect in terms of the security of their design, the problems were due to bugs in the software implementations. As such the actual architecture of the processors didn't matter too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The rumor that they would be using Gaikai to run previous games (PS2, PS3) was actually true. This is no where as good as emulation, though, since there will always be a tremendous lag during play, unless you live next door from the big servers and have a flawless, fast connection with almost zero ping. Net, for most people out there, this will be a terrible experience.

<comment><USER42> OnLive has shown there's surprisingly little lag with most above average connections.

We'll see how it goes here, but I'm pretty sure it will be a good experience (that will only get better as internet infrastructure and their servers expand).

<comment><USER8> Well trying to access Onlive from Japan has been a bittersweet experience.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, it will make sense once they expand their servers to cover that area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Sooo..... Standard PC hardware but with a locked down software stack you can't run anything but approved software on.

Why? I can't think of a single reason to buy this... unless there are some really good exclusive games.

<comment><USER44> A single hardware configuration with a single software configuration is infinitely easier to target, test and optimize for than the free, but vast landscape of PC configurations. Here's hoping the SteamBox will give us all the advantages of consoles without being locked down for the more adventurous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> And some great digital distribution features. Finally, a modern console.

Even as a PC gamer, this is incredibly exciting. More powerful hardware means you can do fancy graphics and still have plenty leftover for other features. Every cross-platform title benefits.

<comment><USER45> It's great for PC gaming for say the next 4 years, for the first time in ages all AAA games will make decent use of a graphics card/features (with PCs running higher res + less optimised) . After that it will be dire and stagnated again. That is IF these consoles last as a major force past then.. the traditional advantages of consoles over PC gaming are a thing of the past erroded from both sides; your console has constant required system updates, a web browser, 0 day game updates, meanwhile your PC can now do instant-on, has proper controller support (360), an app store (steam).

<comment><USER21> A proper gaming PC is still way more expensive than a console.

<comment><USER44> More? Probably, although it depends on how you define proper, whether you factor in aftermarket costs and whether you already have prior hardware lying around(very likely with PCs).

But definitely not "way". The 600$ the PS4 is rumored to cost(yes, i know, just a rumor) can get you a decent gaming rig.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Also a stereo camera for depth sensing and an always-on screen recorder that lets you watch your friends' games in real time and save video screenshots from any game.

<comment><USER47> I wish there was screenshot functionality better integrated on the ps3. I want some snapshots of Okami HD.

<comment><USER48> The PS3 does allow screenshots, but the game gets to decide whether or not to let you do it. Press PS button and browse over to the Photos section. There will be a screenshot option if the game OKs it. Sadly, most games don't seem to have it enabled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I don't think the PS4 will save Sony from the mess that they are in. Is it just me? I used to be so excited for new consoles to come out. Now I try to get myself excited about the PS4, but can't.

Actually, I'm very excited about the next XBOX. Microsoft has been onto something with the whole gaming thing.

<comment><USER50> How old were you when the PS3 came out? When the PS2 came out? Now?

<comment><USER49> mid twenties now late teens ps3 early teens ps2

<comment><USER51> mid thirties here and I did have a blink of excitement when I read the word "PS4", like "oh I forgot there was such thing to wait for, yay".

It lasted 4 beautiful seconds. Not sure whether to blame Sony though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'll be more interested when I see actual games running on it. Sony is well known for showning cut scenes of games running "in real time" on the PS<insert number>. I am sure that the PS4 can play pre rendered movies really well in real time but I'd like to see the actual game.

<comment><USER31> There's a guy onstage playing games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> My thought is that no matter what the next generation of gaming platform looks like (Steam Box, PS4, XBox 720, etc.) the network is going to be the weak link. If cable/satellite/telephone companies don't get their head out of their ass we wont be able to take advantage of all this functionality. Sure, downloading games and updates in the background sounds cool, until your 10MB DSL bogs down and your game drops to 5fps. :(

This is another area where Google will blow the doors off of the competition. Or at least get them to upgrade their offerings so that we can actually use these gaming boxes like they are supposed to be used. Yea, right. Oh well, I guess that the Kansas City folks will be happy anyway.

</comment><comment><USER54> This is interesting: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aparad...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aparadox3d.net%2Fblog%2Fdirect3d11-ps4.html&oq=cache%3Aparadox3d.net%2Fblog%2Fdirect3d11-ps4.html&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

> We are pleased to announce that we have ported Paradox Engine and Yebis > Post-Processing Middleware on PS4 last year. In order to successfully > achieve this, we have managed to develop a full compatible > Direct3D11/DXGI/D3DCompiler API on top of PS4 existing graphics API. We plan > to use also this layer to port other middleware developed at our company.

</comment><comment><USER55> Can someone enlighten me - there choice of x86 processor, does this mean it's a 32bit platform? not a 64 bit one? And if so, how does this affect them with the imminent change that's happening on desktop moving towards 64bit?

<comment><USER56> Welcome to 2013, 64-bit took over the world years ago.

There are no 32-bit x86 processors for sale anymore. "x86" means x86_64 as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> There was a study that came out years ago that stated that the closer something comes to looking real without being real, the more it is mentally rejected.

I like the eye candy I've seen in beginning of the PS4 gameplay of Watch Dogs: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PODJJN3fTME>

But I really notice the roughness, like when he slows down after running across the street, and the unrealistic smooth circular pans that don't accelerate and decelerate like a normal panning movie camera would.

And, of course I think the Atari 2600 was the best home gaming console ever invented.

<comment><USER58> I think you're thinking of the uncanny valley: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley>

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Was nothing at all said about _when_ this product will actually be available? Neither the OP nor the five other random PS4 announcement articles seem to have any info on that.

<comment><USER60> Patience, man. The press event isn't even done yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I expect HN to be all over it when this is made to run its first unsigned code, and again when someone has a full Linux distro running on it. Don't let me down, friends.

</comment><comment><USER62> "Kotaku added that there's also a headphone jack but it's unclear whether this will end up on the final product."

Can someone explain to me why this even requires thought from Sony? A headphone port costs like 5p each when mass producing them surely? You get a lot of value added for that 5p. Is this to simplified? Can someone who knows more about factory production elaborate?

<comment><USER63> Sony is probably thinking "Someone will hook this jack up their cassette deck and record our proprietary music and sound effects". Seriously.

<comment><USER64> Instead of just enabling 2ch PCM from the optical audio port and recording perfect output from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> What advantage has the GDDR5 ram from the normal ddr3 in pc? From quick searching gddr5 has more bandwidth and ddr3 has less latency.

<comment><USER66> GDDR is really a requirement when it comes to graphics chipsets when you want to max out fill rate, etc. Now consider that this sports a unified memory architecture for the CPU and GPU.

Armchair programmer speculation: The latency of GDDR5 matters less when you don't have to transfer data back and forth between system memory and GPU memory. In fact, effective latency should be less all things considered compared to a traditional PC architecture.

This might also prove useful as a reference: [http://solidlystated.com/hardware/difference-between-gddr- an...](http://solidlystated.com/hardware/difference-between-gddr-and-ddr/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Meh, not really impressed. Specs are good but they will not look so good in 3 years time. Nothing really new under the hood. This is indeed a machine of the big administrative company known as Sony. This seems more like the common architecture will favor PC gaming and conversions in the end.

<comment><USER23> > Specs are good but they will not look so good in 3 years time.

Are you sure? My brother's got a 3 GHz Core 2/8800 GTX/4GB RAM system. Judging from the release dates of the parts, it would've come out in 2007 (5-6 years ago). That could still probably run some great games if developers continued to optimize for it. 3 years ago would be more like Nehalem core i7 and GeForce 300 graphics. Still very serviceable, again assuming game companies continue to optimize for it.

PC hardware improvements have really slowed dramatically since the 1990's and early 2000's.

<comment><USER8> > PC hardware improvements have really slowed dramatically since the 1990's > and early 2000's.

Well you cannot double frequency anymore on chips if that is what you are referring to. But there are more and more cores, and GPUs is where the innovation is happening (and that's what matters with games). A 2 years old graphic card does not compare well with a new graphic card at the same price nowadays. I usually renew my PC hardware every 2 years or so and I definitely see the difference when I do in games and how well they run on the new config. And I stopped turning on my xbox and PS3 a while ago when I could have full HD games on my PC at great frame rates - playing on console then became slow (loading times) and ugly (certainly not as good as on PC).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these..." ( _No, seriously._ )

This puts peta-scale APU computing into the sub-$500k range. That's affordable by a (funded) startup, and there are certainly interesting things one could do with that kind of supercomputing firepower.

</comment><comment><USER68> Soo.. can it play used games?

<comment><USER69> Looks like it can!

[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-21-sony-tells- euro...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-21-sony-tells-eurogamer- playstation-4-will-not-block-used-games)

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Curious as to the price point. Could make a good cheap computer if cracked...

</comment><comment><USER71> I really don't want any of those networking/social features and I am pretty sure we're doomed to use them. I think I am going to pass on this one.

</comment><comment><USER72> Surprising, they didn't even show the console.

</comment><comment><USER73> This confirms Visual Studio as the de-facto standard for game development. It explain's Microsoft's recent embrace of Git.

<comment><USER74> What do those two things have to do with each other?

<comment><USER73> Git is optimized for large files like game assets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Any ideas on what format the games will come in? I haven't bought a ps3 because there are no pirated copies sold here in Bolivia and 80$ for a game is entirely too expensive for a third world country budget.

I have a 360 because I can buy burned games on a dvd-dl for 3$ a pop.

</comment><comment><USER76> x86_64 CPU/GPU hybrid chip and common DDR5 memory is nice idea (if they have big CPU caches). I would like to run Linux or it.)

</comment><comment><USER77> So when can I install linux on it?

</comment><comment><USER78> This thing would make a great server. Though, I don't think Sony will ever change their stance on Linux support.

<comment><USER79> Why would they want to hand out subsidized consoles to people who aren't going to pay for games to run on them? The only way it would make sense for them to let you run Linux would be if "Linux" was a game they sold for $300 (or whatever the difference is between the hardware cost and the console sale price -- I'm guessing wildly here).

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> So, uh, no backwards compatibility with PS3 games?

This is going to put Sony out of business.

<comment><USER81> It's not like the PS3 had PS2 backwards compatibility for very long - <USER2> support was phased out within a few short months, and software emulated support within a year[1]. I'd say it worked out pretty well for them thus far.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ps3>

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> No price. No release date. No hardware. What is this? A Microsoft product launch?

</comment><comment><USER83> So they built a PC, and branded it.

<comment><USER84> Welcome to every console since the PS2/XBOX generation. Your comment is about as useful as saying "oh, so it's just a computer?"

<comment><USER78> Nintendo still try to be creative when it comes to hardware. The Wii was innovative and the Wii U is... unique.

<comment><USER84> You could say the same about the PS4 though, it has a stereo-optical camera, for example. Ultimately all modern consoles are going to be a bit like a "PC", whether the processor is a Power architecture or an x86 or ARM or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> For such specs it's better to buy a general purpose computer, since it'll be way more useful.

</comment><comment><USER86> I hate to be a Negative Nancy, but I genuinely don't give a shit what Sony does. After their persecution of Geohot for having the audacity to crack their perfect little box, I refused to patronize them at all and a shiny new widget isn't going to change that. Sony is not the kind of company hackers should be patonizing. Please don't let the new toy make you forget what they've done in the past.</comment>


The Mind-Boggling Madness of Social Distancing - <AUTHOR> https://www.fairobserver.com/coronavirus/alexander-coward-covid-19-coronavirus-social-distancing-economic-social-health-consequences-news-19415/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting Rebecca. I wrote this article. Anyone got questions or feedback? Also, does anyone know if people are doing systems-level modeling on this at the moment?

<comment><USER3> i've read a bunch of these articles. usually I roll my eyes and move on but I did read most of yours, it's one of the better ones. there is absolutely merit to considering the damage our response to the virus does as well, but, I have two main criticisms:

a) you lay out a lot of (reasonable) consequences to social distancing. but we can do the _same_ thing for coronavirus still. what if we realize any woman that's caught it (even asymptomatic) produces sterile children 9 months from now? what if it turns out we can't get herd immunity because the virus mutates rapidly, and because we let this thing rip through us too quickly, we now have 12 different strains and oops you can catch multiple strains, each compounding the death rate?

because there is so much yet we still don't know about the virus, it is in our best interest as a populace to limit the spread of the disease until medical experts deems it safe. i am nearly certain they think about the thealth risks of social distancing/an economic downturn vs the health risks the virus poses to us and figure that into their recommendations and plans as well. they are professionals and experts in their field, after all.

b) you totally lost me in your conclusion. i don't think it's at all valid to compare ethnic cleansing with diseases like smallpox or heart disease, which I suspect is why most people do not think of these two different categories as the same scale of tragedy. ethnic cleansing is entirely preventable and morally reprehensible damage we inflected on ourselves, and that's the tragic part.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Home office advice. - <AUTHOR>

In a few weeks I start my first job as a full time telecommuter.  In preparation I'm moving to a new home with an extra bedroom so I can separate my work area from other personal space.<p>Does anyone have other suggestions for finding maximum productivity and focus while working from home? <comment><USER2> The most important productivity tool at home: a closed door. Make it clear to your family/flatmates that when you're working, you're working, and that non- urgent interruptions are not appreciated. Otherwise your productivity will go down the crapper.

Also, treat work-time as you would if you were at work. I.e., don't do household chores during work hours.

<comment><USER3> Also, keep a record of your work environment and your productivity, try to identify associations, good or bad between the environment and your concentration.

I made a list of things that help me concentrate that I can pull out when I'm having trouble concentrating.

For example certain types of music help me immerse; having a clean (uncluttered) desk helps me.

Before lunch is better than after lunch, etc.

Remember your home office is not your office, and you will have to be disciplined to stay productive in the long term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think you've already done the most important thing you could by creating a separate room that delineates home life from office life.

The biggest distraction I've found while working with a remote team is dealing with IM. In practice I've found this can be more distracting than low level banter in the office - you can tune out to this, and it's always obvious if a message is directed at you. Not so with group IM, where unread messages may or may not be directed at you. In short, and assuming your colleagues are happy with it, I recommend going 'Do not disturb' for a few hours every day while you focus on work without distraction.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _"Does anyone have other suggestions for finding maximum productivity and > focus while working from home?"_

Realize that working from home may not be for you.

For example if your peak productivity time is between 4pm and 8pm and staying late at the office was a strategy you used before telecommuting, that's not going to be effective if you are working from home and have a family.

Some people cannot work when there are dirty dishes in the sink or the dogs want a walk or the front door needs a coat of paint.

</comment><comment><USER6> Keep the room tidy. Think of it as business-only when you walk through the door. If it's within your means, use an entirely different computer to read HN, news sites etc (or LeechBlock). Hang a couple motivational quotes.</comment>


Twitters excessive brand display rules - <AUTHOR> https://about.twitter.com/press/brand-assets

<comment><USER2> They aren't that excessive, most is actually required by trademark law so Twitter doesn't lose it.</comment>


x86 Instruction Listings - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_instruction_listings <comment><AUTHOR> I like this Wikipedia page for x86 instructions, because it doesn't just list the instructions -- it also shows the _x86 processor in which the instruction first appeared_.

If the listed processor models were released in different past years, some earlier than others, then think of this list as a tool for virtual "time travel" (well, x86 instruction set-wise!)

</comment><comment><USER2> the opcodes are listed as well so you can look for voids in the set of opcodes and find opcodes that give something other than a crash or exception error, this allows one to sleuth out hidden or redundant operations</comment>


BingoCardCreator - Conversion Optimizer Success Stories - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/adwords/conversionoptimizer/bingocard.html <comment><USER2> When will Google just hire him?

<comment><USER3> How does a small adwords conversion optimizer success story translate into Google needing to hire Patrick?

<comment><USER2> On his blog he has shown tremendous skill with a/b testing. He wrote an excellent Ruby library for it that beats Google's own product in certain areas.</comment></comment></comment>


Gun Violence Spikes in NYC, Intensifying Debate over Policing - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/nyregion/nyc-shootings-surge.html <comment><USER2> "In a recent study, Harvard researchers found that, after investigations of police departments following a viral incident of deadly police force (e.g., in Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Ferguson, and Riverside, Calif.), there was a marked increase in both homicide and total crime. Put plainly, the causal effect of de-policing in these five cities resulted in 893 more homicides than would have been expected with no investigation." [https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/police-reform- ferguso...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/police-reform-ferguson- effect-crime-surge-may-be-on-horizon/)</comment>


Ask HN: Which Freelancer Websites Do You Like? - <AUTHOR> I want to set up a website for my services so I was searching for inspiration. I'd consider myself a full-stack developer, with focus on front-end development and usability engineering.
Sad story is, you only find stuff like LinkedIn, Toptal and Freelancer.com if you search for it.
On these freelancer hubs I always see the people listing keywords to the max, but they seem to be rather mixed.
Like "Software Engineering" and "JavaScript" and "Web Development", which doesn't make much sens to me, like web development is a form of software engineering etc. seems like a never ending story to list this stuff.
Also, is it good to make a feature page, like "Oh I know D3, lets put some D3 stuff on that page" etc.
Would be nice if you could link some freelancer websites you like. <comment><USER2> I freelanced for about 5 years, and honestly almost nobody EVER went to my website. It's a referral driven business; you shine through the projects you build for other people. If clients are satisfied with your work, they'll spread the news about you. I can't think of anyone I know who has ever gotten business from some random person who landed on their website. That's why many freelancer sites just contain contact-info and that's it.

<comment><USER3> I don't quite agree with you. I have personally contacted freelancers randomly whom I found online due to their blogs or specific writings on topics that I needed help with. It is true that this effort does not always pay off but I still think that creating your own online brand is always a good idea for a freelancer.

The thing is that if you just have a website with basic information, it is as good as not having one. You need to put some effort into it by sharing your knowledge online. This is tough for a lot of people as writing and teaching is a skill that not everyone has. But it does help if you do it with a specific focus.

<comment><USER2> I totally see what you're saying; and when I started freelancing I thought the same way. But the longer I played the game, the more I noticed an inverse correlation between the success of freelancers, and their perceived accessibility. It' much like hedge-fund managers, or attorneys, or personal trainers, any other bespoke service provider. The folks with very little information, who are hard to reach, and who will only take a meeting if you're referred by someone in their circle, those are the ones who (in my experience) are making the most money.

It's a bit like perceived scarcity. Building a flashy portfolio website really only says two things: "I have free time on my hands", and "My demand is so low I have to put effort into advertising". Sure, if you're just getting started, that might be the brand you wanna build. But as you gain momentum, having less of a public brand is often better for business than having more.

It's counter-intuitive, I know; and maybe my experience was colored by the freelancers I happened to know at the time. But it convinced me enough that I took down my website while I was freelancing full time, I only put it back up after I quit, (to use as a resume to get full time job.) Removing my online presence did wonders for my business, and that's why I recommend it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Point is, how do you get word around in the first place?

<comment><USER4> Legwork. Find sites that you find you could make better. Make a demo, contact the owner. Do this a hundred times a week. Starting is hard, and you should be willing to do the legwork. Also reach out to folks at your old workplace.

As for portfolio, just go with linkedin and whatever you feel you would like to sign up for. These hubs are the first place people check. A personal site is nice for blog posts and such, but I wouldn't put more effort into it than a wordpress site with contact info and links to things you already made. Stuff you write, if you do at all. See weatherfactory biz for an example

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not wanting to blow my own trumpet but I like to think my business website (see my profile) is pretty good. At least I got some positive feedback on it and it helped me secure a few deals already.

Testimonials are a great way of building trust in you and your ability to deliver. Talk about the benefit you bring to the table. Don't (just) list TLAs. Regularly writing about your area of expertise and publishing source code is great, too.

If you're an expert in something very visual like D3.js, a showcase is an interesting approach as well. Just don't turn your complete website into a showcase.

<comment><AUTHOR> You seem to have the right idea :)

My problem with freelance work was mostly, that I started it when I wanted freedom, but don't lose any safety.

Like, freedom to work where I want and when I want, but the safety of a steady income.

Often this led me to getting permanent contracts with my customers, which started my freelance career, but when they thought now they need a inhouse person for what I do, they simply dropped me. Which was okay, but then I had to search for new customers after years of not doing customer acquisition.

Now I want to do this the right way, but don't know where to start.

<comment><USER5> The 'secret' \- as in almost any business - is to get the word out:

Talk to a lot of people / businesses that might need your help and expertise. Go to conferences and relevant industry meet-ups.

Which ones depends on your niche and focus, your USP if you will. If you don't have a USP already: Find it. Generic Java / C# / JavaScript coders are ten a penny.

Finding either a business niche ("I solve problem X for industry Y"), offering services complementary to mere coding skills (e.g. teaching, coaching, business process analysis) or a very specific technological niche that's in high demand and low supply (beware though, that tends to change rather quickly) is key to differentiating yourself.

If you have personal contacts from businesses in your target market already you'd want to talk to those to see if you can help them with a current problem they're having. Other than that it's really all about continuous and consistent networking.

It can take some time to build a sustainable business so long-term contracts via recruiters might help to make up for occasional dry spells. The trick with these is to negotiate a workload of less than the usual 5 days a week (I'd go for 3 days at the most), so you can take up additional work at any time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds good.

I had the experience, when I talked to the right people, the word got around rather quick, but it's hard to find those "right people".

I'll look that I get this 2-3 days a week stuff fixed the next months and then I'll look further :)

Thanks for your advice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is lots of inspiration, inexpensive starting points here:

[https://themeforest.net/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&term=CV&referr...](https://themeforest.net/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&term=CV&referrer=search&view=grid&sort=&date=&category=site- templates&price_min=&price_max=&sales=&rating_min=)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. This only goes into the UX, but still nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I generally end up on upwork.com if I am looking for hire someone.</comment>


Industries Facing Disruption - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuymeBMFe5I <comment><AUTHOR> Okay, I'm not sure about this one, but I have to say, some of the ideas are interesting here, and it aligns pretty well to people here's predictions about cars, journalism, etc.</comment>


The future of medicine - <AUTHOR> http://scienceroll.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/medical_infographic_final.jpg?w=581&h=1024 <comment><AUTHOR> Original whitepaper download available here: [http://scienceroll.com/2013/10/30/whitepaper/](http://scienceroll.com/2013/10/30/whitepaper/)

</comment><comment><USER2> For those who want the data without the layout:

Already have:

      Digital literacy

      Virtual dissection

      Curated online information

      Smartwatch

      Digestible sensors

      Real-time diagnostics in OR

      Personalized genomics

      Robotic interventions

      Telemedicine

      Inter-disciplinary therapies

      Virtual trials

      AI in medical decision support

In progress: Microchips modeling clinical trials

      DIY biotechnology

      Medical tricorder

      Robotic nurse assistant

      Augmented reality

      Semantic health records

      Embedded sensors

      Wearable e-skins

      Evidence-based mobile health

      Optogenetics

      Customized mobile apps

      Meaningful use of social media (lol)

      Artificial organs

      Adherence control

      3D printed biomaterials and drugs

Still needs time: Full physiological simulation

      Gamification-based wellness

      Holographic data input

      Home diagnostics

      Multi-functional radiology

      Remote touch

      Humanoid robots

      Nanorobots in blood

      Augmenting human capabilities

      VR applications

      Redesigned hospital experience

      Virtual-digital brains

      Recreational cyborgs

~

TL,DR: In the future, it'll be even more awesome to be rich and sick.

</comment><comment><USER3> Should put the descriptions of what the color coding means at the top, as well as the bottom.

Spoiler: green = already available, orange = in progress, red = still needs time.

</comment><comment><USER4> I love how close together "Redesigned Hospital Experience" and "Virtual- digital Brains" are on this infographic.

</comment><comment><USER5> missing: decentralized market-place (where doctors and hospitals auto-compete for patients, driving down cost and improving QoS)

<comment><USER6> I'd argue that it's more important to ensure competition between schools in the medical education pipeline. Competition downstream won't reduce prices unless we get X's boot off the hose feeding into the supply of medical professionals (where X is the AMA, congress, or whoever you believe comes out dirtiest in the "it's not my fault" game). We have 2/3 as many doctors per capita as other comparable countries. No amount of post-education market equilibration will suffice fix the fact that our doctors are (comparatively) overworked and overpriced.

The market is slowly routing around the problem right as we speak by promoting nurses and offering new certification pathways, but it's happening slowly. If the local politics I've observed are any indication, the doctors are fighting tooth and nail while loudly claiming that they aren't. There are policy decisions that could dramatically accelerate the process.</comment></comment>


The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Book Rooted in Buddhism? - <AUTHOR> http://www.rabbitholesummaries.com/subtle-art-fuck/ <comment><USER2> Short dumb article.

"As of this writing, Manson's book is currently Amazon's second best non- fiction most read"

I guess the author gets a kick back for everyone that buys this book based off the link.

It's taken me ten years to realize that amazon.com is nothing but a crappy marketing machine selling you stuff you have no need for. If you want something interesting, buy from a local bookstore (or hardware store or whatever else amazon.com is destroying). It's essentially destroying our ability to exist without it.

N.B. I say this about amazon.com specifically. AWS is great. Provides something that didn't exist before, and great competition for Microsoft, Google, and whomever else is now in that market.

I just don't like how amazon.com killed local.

<comment><USER3> I'll do what I want. Fuck off.

<comment><USER4> How rude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I read a few pages of this book. It reads as though it was written by a 15 year old. I'm shocked by it success - it felt like a collection of youtube comments that had been corrected for punctuation and spelling and ordered into chapters.

<comment><USER6> To play devil's advocate: couldn't simple writing be seen as "good UX?"

I haven't thought about this much, but I'm sure copywriters, (etc.) have.

<comment><USER7> I don't think that the OP meant that it was so nice and simple that it was a breeze to read. I think OP meant that it felt like a bunch of r/im13andthisisdeep posts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sorry but how is this relevant? How does this interest a hacker? I am of the opinion that this submission does not belong on the frontpage of Hacker News. The submission guideline says: "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." The title of the submission satisfies this claim. For me -- and reading the comments for others as well -- that's where it stops.

My issue is with the content. The book is summarized within 2 paragraphs which I personally don't find too interesting, but OK, maybe other people do.

But when I read something like this:

> Buddhism is hardly mainstream in Western culture – most would think of Asian > monks or those who Kung-fu while wearing robes. Buddhism is a lot of things, > but one way of looking at it is to see it as a belief system for > contentment.

And I think of the HN crowd and how many people here have some idea about meditation or Buddhism I just find the article below mediocre at best.

It then gives a very very very -- 1 paragraph or 2 -- short primer on Buddhism and then does 2 other paragraphs tying in how Buddhism corresponds to the book.

Paragraphs like: > What's insightful about Manson's treatment is his ability to tie in the issues with practical psychology, and biology as it relates to survival. This is apparent when he makes the argument that emotions are overrated.

Manson may have written it insightful, but the author of the blog post doesn't show me how it is insightful. Buddhism itself -- especially modern texts -- are in fact already practical psychology, (pseudo-)biology and survival. This is nothing new.

I find that there's very little meat here. If I may suggest a more interesting thing about Buddhism, survival and biology, then read Chade-Meng Tans blog and buy the book Search Inside Yourself. Here is a simple example blog post: [http://chademeng.com/me/how-the-dalai-lama-surprised-me- agai...](http://chademeng.com/me/how-the-dalai-lama-surprised-me-again/)

Note: I'm just voicing my opinion. I'm not asking for the content to be removed, I'd have flagged it otherwise but I respect the submission and the idea that my view of what should or should not be posted on HN differs from other people their views.

P.S. I personally find the blog of the person who submitted it more interesting: [http://www.williamha.com/](http://www.williamha.com/) \-- I mean no harm, I'm just genuinely surprised and maybe I'm venting a little, my apologies.

<comment><USER8> It's on the front page because it got voted there by the audience of readers on hacker news, thus it is relevant. QED.

<comment><USER9> True, that is how it got to the front page. But the guidelines aren't read by everyone and, even if they were, no one is perfect and even the most abiding of HN users will forget the ideals occasionally, especially when drinking alcoholic beverages. If this forum doesn't have constraints, what's the point?

<comment><USER8> This seems well within "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Did anyone notice this submission is from a blog with exactly one article? No author, no additional info on the page.

Hosted on bluehost, amazon affiliate id wilha-20... great that this bubbles up.

Apart from that: I read the book earlier this year and had some good laughs. Nothing new, but really well written. I think this is what people need these days. Better this than have them watch/read another "The Secret".

</comment><comment><USER11> I bought this book, the author became famous after writing 1 famous blog post, about "Giving less f*cks". Now he has turned this into an entire book and it reads more like a self-help therapeutic diary from a troubled soul than anything else.

I don't know why it's getting so much traction, it's really quite poor in content, writing style (and skill) and full with filler material.

It could not be any lamer.

He has a bunch high-level-also-book-publishing-friends, who are helping out with a massive amount of marketing, it seems.

It's a great example of a poor product, marketed the heck out of it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Shameless Plug: For those, who'd like to read summaries I made [https://summarybrew.com](https://summarybrew.com)

If anyone does visit, please let me know of your experience.</comment>


Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_large_numbers_of_college_students_don_t_learn_much#sthash.xiIXcfgd.dpbs <comment><USER2> Standardized assessments are an inadequate way to measure outcomes at the higher ed level; the methodology discussed in the article is terminally flawed.

I propose that you _fundamentally cannot measure what a given person learned or didn 't learn in college from a major-agnostic test_. Learning at this level is far too specialized.

College is _NOT_ and _never should be_ about getting really good at basic skills. These tests treat college as an _iteration on elementary and secondary education_.

For example, I majored in math and now I'm in grad school in a related field. I'm sure I would score about the same -- if not worse -- on a standardized mathematics test now as I did in high school. The tests are generally a combination of calculation/arithmetic and Euclidean geometry. Real mathematics has very little to do with calculation, and I was definitely better at churning out Euclidean-style deductions in high school than I am now (I could trivially recover a lot of the useful clever identities I had internalized in high school, but I haven't looked at that material in years).

To conclude that this means I didn't improve tremendously in mathematics during college is just sloppy.

In fact, I would be highly unsurprised to see a negative correlation between actual outcomes (number of top tier grad school admissions, desirability in the market place, professional success 5, 10, 15 years after graduation) and institutions which score very highly on these standardized assessments. Iterating on high school is an absurd waste of the college years.

edit: computation -> calculation.

<comment><USER3> I'd read up on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA). It addresses the concerns you raised, and it's not aiming to measure some of the things you assert it is measuring. It's not the same thing as the SAT or the GRE. Formative (as opposed to summative) assessments like the CLA are helpful in reforming and improving education. When a high percentage of students are still making the same basic grammatical and writing errors they were as freshmen, that's useful to know. The same thing with mathematical and other skills. It helps convince folks at universities that teaching needs to be reformed, improved to go beyond the standard lecture, homework, and test formula which is ineffective for learning: [http://news.sciencemag.org/education/2014/05/lectures- arent-...](http://news.sciencemag.org/education/2014/05/lectures-arent-just- boring-theyre-ineffective-too-study-finds)

See also concept inventories which are tests which are similarly helping measure and assess student conceptual understanding (and misconceptions) in various disciplines (including computer science and mathematics). There are also surveys of student attitudes and engagement and beliefs which are helping improve student learning and retention (like NSSE - the National Survey of Student Engagemen). Then there are non-standard assessments which are helpful for assessing and improving and demonstrating student learning, such as e-portfolios.

Learning can be measured. It can be assessed. (As can motivation, beliefs, etc.) And there are some skills we try to help students learn that are indeed major-agnostic. The ability to write and communicate effectively. The ability to critically think about and evaluate information. The ability to work with others. The ability to properly use and apply mathematical and computational tools. Even digital humanities folks are using computational tools to assist their work. Employers are complaining about some college graduates having poor communication skills, having poor programming skills or conceptual understanding of fundamentals (fizz buzz test), etc. There are things that can and should be improved at the college level - at all levels.

<comment><USER2> _(this is a living comment until the first reply. Sorry.)_

I have four major points:

1\. You can assess even major-agnostic, general skills in content-specific ways. Such assessments are far less likely to have the negative externalities of more generic tests (e.g. first or last semester "Literature" courses which are basically CLA et al. boosters. These most definitely exist). But even still, I think this is a bad idea and too ripe for abuse.

2\. Generic "Critical Thinking" is _often_ not all it's cracked up to be, and _some experts claim_ it is not statistically correlated with the sort of critical thinking _purported to be mastered_ in science and mathematics courses. (Oh, CLA really likes hedge words. They mean you're smart... I mean... that "you've likely acquired transferable critical thinking skills" [1].)

3\. Higher Ed shouldn't be responsible for filling in gaps in High School and even Elementary education. Also, _grammar_!? I rest my case!

4\. The CLA is computer-graded (no, really, it is [1]).

\--

 _1\. A Problem with Generic Critical Thinking_

Generic "critical thinking" is often nothing more than "the right kind of sophistry". The author of [1] agrees with this sentiment w.r.t the CLA (although, it should be stated, not in general. See the source; what follows are my own opinions, not those of the author of [1]).

In addition to pointing out that any answer along the lines of "IDK" is treated as sufficient, he also notes that the model answers provided for the CLA are full of logical fallacies.

But the author of [1] really hits the nail on the head in this paragraph:

 _This is exactly the kind of instruction and practice students receive in a dedicated critical-thinking or informal logic course. Critical-thinking skills are not statistically significantly enhanced by content-specific courses like introduction to philosophy or chemistry, or by content-independent courses such as symbolic logic._

I argue that the what the CLA measures is not what colleges and universities are or should ever be intended to teach. Instead, it measures a tortured form of "critical thinking" that is somehow not statistically significantly improved even by courses in the hard sciences and mathematics. Not even by courses in formal logic! Only by courses in informal logic. If science and math don't improve "critical thinking", I'm not sure what "critical thinking" is supposed to mean. Except, of course, the right kind of sophistry+.

Ergo, it's likely that if performance on the CLA significantly improves, it will be because colleges and universities are teaching to the test in the guise of "Critical Thinking and Informal Logic" (although I'm sure universities will have better names for their mandatory freshman CLA courses).

I'm very concerned that the true humanities -- one place where actual critical thinking is taught -- will be gutted in order to cover the costs of such instruction (I already know of one instance where this has happened).

 _2\. Higher Education Should Assume the Basics_

As for grammar and mechanics, things are even simpler. Colleges and universities are absolutely not responsible for those sorts of basic skills.

[1] [http://www.assessmentupdate.com/sample-articles/a-fatal- flaw...](http://www.assessmentupdate.com/sample-articles/a-fatal-flaw-in-the- collegiate-learning-assessment-test.aspx)

\+ My use of the word sophistry is definitely intentional. It's worth noting that the sort of persuasion rooted in a combination of informal logic and careful rhetoric ("always use hedge words" is a modern equivalent) is exactly the sort of thing that the Sophists were known for!

Disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of assessment-driven education. I just don't think it's right for institution-level assessment at the higher education level. Not unless it's content-specific.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Before your accept this review at face value, read the book for yourself.

This review, like many, fails to note that the data in question regards first- and second-year students (i.e., the second sample is in the third semester -- only 1 1/2 years after starting college). Many of us will recall that we made our big leaps in our junior and senior years, after declaring a major. In a later study, the authors claim that similar observations can be made regarding older students. Still, I would read this book with some skepticism.

For a more subtle review, try this one from the New Yorker: [http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/06/06/110...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/06/06/110606crat_atlarge_menand?currentPage=all)

<comment><USER5> The link in the story to the book was broken, but this one works: [http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo1032722...](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo10327226.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Comparing my experience in higher education to the constant litany of negative literature on education sends up red flags. I typically write off books/articles in this genre as fear mongering.

I've not read this particular book, but a lot like it. The typical pattern is that engineering majors don't see order-of-magnitude in writing and "critical thinking", and humanities students don't see order-to-magnitude improvements in science and math.

But then the author averages everything together and concludes no body's learning much. Go figure.

Getting a lot of value out of college isn't hard. Attend a state school or reputable private college (read: typically for-profits and online programs are a waste of money; mileage may vary). Once there, major in math, a science, or a core humanity (the latter typically doubled with education or another "practical" major). Meet people and have a good time, but make sure you're spending 30-40 hrs/wk on course work.

</comment><comment><USER6> Q: Why is there so much knowledge in universities?

A: The freshman bring some in, if little; the graduates take away practically nothing; so it naturally accumulates there.

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess I've become an old man. I can't think of a class where reading less than 40 pages of material and 20 pages of writing a semester or equivalent ever happened. Even "Intro to East Asian Cinema" required a grueling schedule of 2-3 movies a week plus multiple papers.

And I attended a mid-tier public university in the 90s!

<comment><USER8> I'd be curious how the study measured 40 pages of reading each week. My guess is that most, if not all of my classes (Computer Engineering student) have > 40 pages of reading associated with the topics taught each week, but for many of them the reading is never assigned, nor is it ever performed.

In my experience, reading only really is necessary when you are really confused on a topic from lecture, miss class, or have a terrible professor.

I'd assume its similar across a lot of STEM disciplines (with respect to not actually reading textbooks much).

<comment><USER9> I don't know anyone who doesn't read the textbooks or at least the "condensed" slides version with some 500+ slides per class. Not in STEM not anywhere else. It is simply impossible to retain that much information just from going to class, you _have_ to re-read it all before exams. Which is when the reading happens, nobody actually does the reading every week. That's just silly.

Man, I wish I went to uni in the US. Every time I hear anything about the US college experience it just sounds like a piece of cake.

<comment><USER10> >I don't know anyone who doesn't read the textbooks >Not in STEM not anywhere else

I would almost never "read" (though I would occasionally reference, page by page) the textbooks in core STEM classes when I was in college. The most important thing was always the notes and making sure you could work through exercises. And this only became more true at advanced levels, when oftentimes there isn't any textbook available. At least in the physicsy/mathy realms I belonged to, the information density of your typical lecture was such that a semester should be easily compressible to a dozen pages of typed notes. But that isn't to say, I don't think, that it wasn't difficult!

>Man, I wish I went to uni in the US. Every time I hear anything about the US college experience it just sounds like a piece of cake.

There is some truth behind what you are hearing, but it is quite far from the whole truth. In contrast to many European university systems (at least the ones I am familiar with) there is a lot of time purposefully built in to take courses in different areas and build up "perspective". So if you want to take it easy you can take some bullshit classes and just coast. Or you can take interesting classes which might be challenging. The variation in student experience can be quite large. If you go to a top school, however, you can expect to be surrounded by a bunch of competitive types who are quite good at what they do, and making good in this environment would certainly not be a piece of cake.

<comment><USER2> > the information density of your typical lecture was such that a semester > should be easily compressible to a dozen pages of typed notes. But that > isn't to say, I don't think, that it wasn't difficult!

Oh how true!

> Or you can take interesting classes which might be challenging.

Yes. With flexibility comes the possibility of abuse. We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.

I had quite a large humanities load in undergrad (majored in STEM fields, but with a BA), and purposefully took in-major, junior and senior level courses in art, English and history. There were pre-reqs but most instructors would waive them because the classes never filled. Others decided to take 100-level communications and business electives to fill the same elective slots. Even after taking graduate-level STEM courses, a junior-level art history course remains the most difficult course I've ever taken. The way the course was taught was a pretty intense combination of "right" and "left" brain thinking.

In retrospect, forcing students to _choose_ to challenge themselves (or not) is probably the single best way to prepare students for the "real world", and probably not a bad predictor at success either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the most important data point here is the average of 12-14 hours spent studying per week, including "academic" socializing. Of course you're not going to accomplish much in that time; most employers would fire someone putting in twice that much time for slacking off.

The rhetoric for as long as I've been alive (I'm college-aged) has been "get a degree, get a degree" and as it turns out getting a degree isn't very hard. We need to either make it harder or somehow change the rhetoric to "learn something."

<comment><USER9> That's usually 12-14 hours of studying _on top of_ 30-40 hours of classes.

At least that's what's expected. What usually ended up happening for me was blowing off 30-40 hours of classes a week, doing some 10-20 hours of studying (including homework and such), and having a near full-time job. Then followed by some 15 hours of studying per day during exams.

But I never graduated. So that probably wasn't the best strategy. Although I did get a bunch of solid work experience in my field.

<comment><USER12> > That's usually 12-14 hours of studying on top of 30-40 hours of classes.

That sounds like an _extremely_ unusual balance of classes vs studying. An 'average' class-load is something like 12-18 credit-hours. That's supposed to mean 12-18 hours of in-class instruction per week. I'm quite curious how you ended up taking 30-40 hours of in-class instruction, and if that was normal compared to your peers.

I was told in orientation (in 2003) to expect 2-3 hours of outside work per classroom hour, and my experience matched that. If these students are facing the same expectations that I faced, then they're getting a 1:1 ratio of classroom:outside hours, which is underworking by a significant factor.

<comment><USER9> I don't remember what I was told in orientation, but most classes ended up having 2-3 hours of lectures and 2-3 hours of tutorials per week. You were expected to take 5 classes per semester. This gives you a minimum of 5 _(2+2) = 20 and a maximum of 5_ (3+3) = 30 hours of classes per week.

Which means my original estimate was wrong, but coupled with holes in schedules, potentially taking extra classes in a semester (I think the max I ever did was 7) you easily ended up spending 30-40 hours a week at school if you were going to all your classes.

That's how it was at my run-of-the-mill European public University. But I did always get the impression studying in the US was much easier.

<comment><USER13> Sounds about the same. You are just including tutorials which aren't usually included in regular credit hours in the US. Those would be in the "2-3 hours per hour in lecture" block.

<comment><USER9> Well when you have mandatory presence at tutorials you tend to count them :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [2011] -- but still interesting.</comment>


On being targeted by the NSA - <AUTHOR> https://blog.torproject.org/blog/being-targeted-nsa <comment><USER2> For a little bit of fun: Try linking to [https://www.torproject.org/download/download- easy.html.en](https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en) on Facebook and marvel at the non-descript error messages. They depend on where you try to post it (timeline, comment). For example "could not be posted because of technical error, try again in a few minutes"...

<comment><USER3> Hi, my name's Alec, I work as a software engineer for Facebook. Apologies for what you observed, it was due to an automatic system miscategorising the Tor download site. We've fixed the issue, given our software a stern talking-to, and are working to ensure that it does not happen again.

<comment><USER4> I sent a message to FB noting the "mis-categorization" on May 26.

How long did it take to fix the issue? Assuming that it is a simple task to fix, then why was it not fixed when I reported it on May 26th nor when I reported it again on June 24th?

<comment><USER3> Hi there; I don't know the answer to that question yet, but I will be investigating the matter next week and will take action accordingly. Thank you for the details and for taking the time to do that, it's appreciated.

<comment><USER5> Are your posts are Turing test? ;)

<comment><USER6> I'm not a bot, but my English teachers always taught me not to put two verbs in one sentence.

<comment><USER7> Good thing you put 3 verbs in your sentence then ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The link times out for me on Verizon, but it works under Tor. For those who cannot access it, here is the text of the page:

We've been thinking of state surveillance for years because of our work in places where journalists are threatened. Tor's anonymity is based on distributed trust, so observing traffic at one place in the Tor network, even a directory authority, isn't enough to break it. Tor has gone mainstream in the past few years, and its wide diversity of users -- from civic-minded individuals and ordinary consumers to activists, law enforcement, and companies -- is part of its security. Just learning that somebody visited the Tor or Tails website doesn't tell you whether that person is a journalist source, someone concerned that her Internet Service Provider will learn about her health conditions, or just someone irked that cat videos are blocked in her location.

Trying to make a list of Tor's millions of daily users certainly counts as widescale collection. Their attack on the bridge address distribution service shows their "collect all the things" mentality -- it's worth emphasizing that we designed bridges for users in countries like China and Iran, and here we are finding out about attacks by our own country. Does reading the contents of those mails violate the wiretap act? Now I understand how the Google engineers felt when they learned about the attacks on their infrastructure.

<comment><USER9> Works fine for me on Verizon.

<comment><USER10> demonstrate with screenshot plz.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The release of this source code does not match Snowden's modus operandi, which is to avoid releasing technical details which would allow other governments to construct similar surveillance systems. Bruce Schneier and Glenn Greenwald believe that there are now multiple NSA leakers [1].

[1] [https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/485081861119832064](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/485081861119832064)

<comment><USER12> I suspect the "second NSA leaker" is just Jacob Appelbaum with the same set of documents that Laura Poitras brought back to Der Spiegel. There's already several people in the infosec community doubting the veracity of some aspects of the Tor article[1][2][3], including from within the Tor developer community itself[4]. Though there's no confirmation, some have suspected that Julian Assange's most likely source for the Afghanistan revelation back in May[5] was Appelbaum[6].

[1] [http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/validating-xkeyscore- code....](http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/validating-xkeyscore-code.html)

[2] [https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/485158875721523200](https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/485158875721523200)

[3] [https://twitter.com/electrospaces/status/485193336912093185](https://twitter.com/electrospaces/status/485193336912093185) (scroll up)

[4] [https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- dev/2014-July/007...](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- dev/2014-July/007085.html)

[5] [http://gawker.com/why-did-wikileaks-name-country-x-when- glen...](http://gawker.com/why-did-wikileaks-name-country-x-when-glenn- greenwald-1580634729)

[6] [http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security- Watch/Backchannels/2...](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security- Watch/Backchannels/2014/0520/Assange-threatens-to-release-Snowden-info-that- Greenwald-says-could-endanger-lives)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't even see this blog. See the screenshot at [http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tmp/tor- mitm.png](http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tmp/tor-mitm.png)

Transcription follows:

\--

Cannot connect to the real torproject.org

Something is currently interfering with your secure connection to torproject.org.

Try to reload this page in a few minutes or after switching to a new network. If you have recently connected to a new Wi-Fi network, finish logging in before reloading.

If you were to visit torproject.org right now, you might share private information with an attacker. To protect your privacy, Chrome will not load the page until it can establish a secure connection to the real torproject.org.

<comment><USER14> You may want to disable your /tmp directory's files listing.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the concern, but no worries -- that's open by design. Which isn't to say it couldn't use a bit of a tidy up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15>  _it 's worth emphasizing that we designed bridges for users in countries like China and Iran, and here we are finding out about attacks by our own country._

We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp- privac...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-privacy- under-attack-nsa-files-revealed-new-threats-democracy)

</comment><comment><USER10> running timewarner cable, all of torproject.org is timing out.

<comment><USER16> For me as well. But using Google DNS server or OpenDNS solves the issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's no reason not to link to the primary source.

[https://blog.torproject.org/blog/being-targeted- nsa](https://blog.torproject.org/blog/being-targeted-nsa)

<comment><USER18> We changed the url to that from [http://betaboston.com/news/2014/07/04/tor- project-responds-t...](http://betaboston.com/news/2014/07/04/tor-project- responds-to-nsas-xkeyscore-tracking-of-visitors/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I found this particularly resonated:

"...we designed bridges for users in countries like China and Iran, and here we are finding out about attacks by our own country."

I don't really know what to say to the NSA/Snowden/etc. stories any more. Intellectually, I understand that each new worst revelation is worse than its predecessor - emotionally though, none of it even surprises me any more.

...come on Fort Meade, I _want_ to be surprised. Drop something _really_ juicy. Something so diabolical that it's actually cool.

<comment><USER20> This isn't for your entertainment. Please set aside your emotions and contribute to stopping this. Are you registered to vote?

<comment><USER21> Who could you vote for in the US to stop this?

<comment><USER20> Well George Miller is my current congressional representative, and he scores an A on the EFF's scorecard, so I vote for him. Also, in a lot of the primaries that I've seen, there's at least one candidate who is anti-mass surveillance.

[https://standagainstspying.org/scorecard/](https://standagainstspying.org/scorecard/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Science Behind Why Working Before 10 Am Is Equivalent to Torture - <AUTHOR> http://themindunleashed.org/2015/10/the-science-behind-why-working-before-10-am-is-equivalent-to-torture.html <comment><USER3> I usually get to work at ~11.30 am, but sometimes I still go to bad very, very late... ^^

<comment><USER4> I go to bed between 2:00 and 4:00 and get up between 11:00 and 14:00

It's pretty good this way, because parties at the weekend don't destroy my rhythm anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bad science (a lot of the idiotic science stories I see seem to come form British universities) and from a cheap excuse of a newspaper (the Telegraph)

It seems the original article (from the Telegraph) implied the scientist extrapolated from studies of adolescents to adults - a lot of studies have shown adolescents do need more sleep, and start later in the day (so school should be shifted). But it shifts again as an adult and even over time - <USER2> wake up at 6am nowadays with no problem. I have finally gotten used to it, but it's vaguely annoying (to get old)

I think someone just need tenure or something, and someone need to fulfill their daily quota of articles.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm most productive at work before lunch. I like to get in before 8 am and leave around 4pm. This leaves a lot of time in the afternoon for whatever.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm most productive from 5 AM to noon/one PM...how about we let people work at the time that suits them best?</comment>