Why Bother With Stealth Mode? - <AUTHOR> http://joerussbowman.tumblr.com/post/1020404532/why-bother-with-stealth-mode

<comment><USER2> I think stealth mode is not just for the fear of your idea to get stolen, there are a few good reasons IMHO to start quiet in the first stage:

1) You may significantly change what you are doing once you actually started working. Maybe you start with a backup company and ends with a file transfers for the masses.

2) People eventually start to get bored about hearing just words without the ability to try what you have to offer. Probably at the release there will be less excitement... so the stealth mode is a good idea IMHO until there is yet not some non-vaporware thing to show.

3) In the first strage of a startup you will likely get crazy with a lot of work. Managing the communication is a very time consuming task, it's better to delay this as much as possible, that is, when you are starting to actually have users.

4) Stealth does not mean that people should not be aware at all of your existence. Actually to have the brand, logo, and a very general idea of what you are doing (just the field: databases, social things, ...) can be good and sometimes absolutely required in order to try hiring other programmers and so forth.

Once you have a minimally viable product is definitely time to release it ASAP: users feedbacks and pressure will be invaluable.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think then maybe I did follow the basic model you suggest. I don't think at the first "launch" my product was completely viable. It had a lot of bugs and was pretty ugly. However getting people I didn't know to look at it really drove me through the first point you made. The product and idea changed dramatically through a very organic process driven by feedback.

I am seeing the point you and the other commenter are making about product and market fit though. The other ideas I have are similar scenarios to the one I'm working on now, where the same approach basically fits. So really I may be just be over generalizing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It depends on your market.

If you're entering a competitive space, announcing before launching gives your competitors the option of trying to neutralize you at little or no cost, by announcing that they're going to offer similar features. This clearly does happen sometimes.

It looks like YC has nailed an answer to the "stealth mode" controversy that kind of moots the question: move as fast as you can towards releasing a minimal viable product. The working concept trumps the smoke screen.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I'd say I work in a semi stealth mode. I'm happy to discuss with people I meet and it's not exactly hidden.

But at the same time I'm not plastering it online and listing exact features, no problem competing with bigger competition but if they were to remove any competitive advantage I would have before launch it would make it a lot harder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to be pretty anti-stealth-- in fact, I have a blog post draft attacking the whole idea. Meet the post that turned me around: [http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode- trada%E2%8...](http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode- trada%E2%80%99s-position-on-staying-stealth/)

I think a hybrid approach is best. Talk to as many people as you need to to move the ball forward, but don't start shouting from the rooftops until you're ready.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Talk to enough people to do the customer development and product development needed, otherwise, stay fairly mum about it. If/when you get traction, and you think the upside is greater than the downside, then start making a lot of noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There will almost always be a lot of people thinking about and/or working on the same ideas that one is thinking about. Others working on them might have dedicated certain amount of resources to accomplish a certain pace of progress.

If one makes their plans public, it might inpsire others to bring in more resources to increase their pace and beat you to the market. In such acase all one would be doing is provide free marketing for that product.

Of course, this is just one perspective. Going public also has its advantages, just like going in stealth mode has its disadvantages, one of them being the difficulty of attracting talent.

At the end, what matters is which option one chooses to leverage that option's advantages and what one does or can do to nullify the disadvantages of the same option.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's not about the idea, or being the first, it's all about execution (and luck). FourSquare is killing it right now, but they were about the 5th major player into the geo check-in playing field. Online coupons have been around for a decade prior to Groupon. Facebook was late to the social networking party by about 5 years. There were hundreds of major search engines prior to Google. StackExchange & Quora certainly aren't the inventors of the online answers market.

Stealth mode is silly, because you need competition to validate your business. You need to learn from your competition and get feedback from the public to tweak your product. If you are the only one pursuing something, odds are it isn't worth pursuing.

</comment><comment><USER9> You bother with stealth mode when you have an idea that doesn't require stellar execution to be successful. The concept needs to be pretty simple, but original and useful.

I'll say it time and time again, people who think ideas aren't valuable on their own just haven't come up with any great ideas yet.

</comment><comment><USER10> I agree. Thats what I did. I made spotted.at and just want to get as much feedback as possible. My steath mode = My product sucks and not many people use it. As my product gets better and more people use it I guess im not stealth anymore. LOL

</comment><comment><USER11> I agree with the author. Stealth mode assumes you will deliver a competitive and popular product in your first try. This rarely happens.

</comment><comment><USER12> People think it sounds kinda cool, and if Apple if secretive it must be good, right?</comment>


TechCrunch redesign UX analysis - <AUTHOR> http://blog.usabilla.com/picking-apart-the-techcrunch-redesign-with-a-user-test/

<comment><USER2> I have overall mixed feelings about this "user test." Maybe it's just a problem with what the industry calls "user tests." The demand characteristics of the tasks in this "test" make it difficult to make any real conclusions from the data. It's not measuring real user behaviour.

The tasks were great for identifying some confusing elements, but this was more or less a focus group and barely analyzes true usability issues. User preference or evaluation != usability problems. The only thing I found useful was the feedback regarding the menu structure. I did think the "click where you ____" was a good way to gather feedback, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well at first glance it's interesting to see that the TC logo gets so much attention/clicks.

It's as if people are thinking "it should do something", or "wtf is that?".

All in all though, this redesign must be some kind of prank...

</comment><comment><USER4> Their tasks:

1\. Click on the things that draw your attention the most.

2\. Click on the elements you like on this page.

3\. Mark the things that you think we should improve.

These are the wrong tasks to be asking users to complete. A real user task on TechCrunch would be "Find and read an article that seems interesting to you" or "Find and read the 3 most recent articles about FourSquare" and so on.

This is basically a focus group for "do you like this redesign", not a task- based usability test.

<comment><USER5> +1 - I can't for the life of me figure out what this test hopes to accomplish (other than generate some link bait/traffic from Hacker News). Add in the fact that most of the people who took it are not regular TechCrunch readers and any statistical relevance this test had goes right out the window.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> a lot has been said and done, about this redesign. but i haven't seen a serious panel test yet. this is really interesting...</comment>


Ask HN: Why Y Combinator? Why not Y Combinator? - <AUTHOR> Even though Y Combinator is so famous among the venture capitals, I wouldn't be surprise to hear founders turning down Y Combinator's offer. So why Y Combinator? And why not Y Combinator? <comment><USER2> Among the reasons not to do Ycombinator would be a desire for a business that isn't built on the startup model, where "startup" is used in the specific sense it's used among Venture Capitalists and not the more generic sense of "new business".

Some people want a business that lets them focus performing the service rather than running the business, e.g. a consultancy, a workshop, etc. A chef might open a restaurant so that they can create a menu and stand in front of a stove and talk to diners enjoying the work of their hands. That's different from opening a restaurant in hopes of franchising it so as to become a restaurant industry executive.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well incubators are really cool for a younger person with no family and kind of not good for older people with houses and families. I would be interested in hearing about anyone 35+ with a family and house who made YC work.

So that would be my guess on a large segment of the population that dont persue incubators. And if you dont apply obviously you wont have an offer to accept or reject.

<comment><USER4> I personally know people who have done this in other accelerators, like AngelPad or The Brandery. There are people just like that in precious YC batches too. It's not impossible and definitely involves sacrifices over the short term (~9–12 weeks).

Saying that anyone who has kids or a house couldn't practically do an accelerator is an attitude overgeneralized from the outside. Similar comments were made when Marissa Mayer has a baby. I think you'd be surprised to watch what highly motivated and talented entrepreneurs can pull off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> YC's take: [http://www.ycombinator.com/why/](http://www.ycombinator.com/why/)

Related HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11127804](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11127804)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's good for young people same as college. The value is in credentialing (and notch in belt confidence building). You learn most professional lessons while doing your job which has little to nothing to do with YC per se.

</comment><comment><USER7> Well the right question is why would one pick a different incubator over YC. There's a multitude of great reasons for not going with an incubator at all. Or going with an angel that you really love. I'm sure some might pick NYU over Columbia but it's rather rare. I doubt there's many that turn down YC for another incubator. When they do the reasons are probably pretty specific to the company's/founders' situation.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any incubator or accelerator being the right fit is really dependent on the company.

None are right for every company, and as you may know, incubators and early stage accelerators have exploded in growth over the past couple years (there are so many now, and not all are worth your time).

Vetting that any one has worthwhile resources for you is important. Mainly you're thinking of longterm benefits like the network they provide and not shorter term ones like how much cash they exchange for 3–10% of your company.

The best way to get advice about any accelerator is to talk to founders who have already gone through it about their experience. You can easily find YC companies and early- to mid-stage founders are more likely to reply to your emails. Though a referral from a mutual connection would be best, you can reach any YC co with the founders@ email.

By the way -- this advice is about improving your odds in _applying_ to YC, once you're at the offer stage it's a different question. I don't know many founders that would turn down the YC offer after being accepted.</comment>


Stylish HackerNews - <AUTHOR> http://hnews.betterinternet.me

<comment><USER2> I dislike this for one main reason: Scrolling. HN as it stands now is nice and compact, easy to scan through stories without the need to scroll a page. This breaks that, which creates an obstacle that isn't necessary.

Also, when you select another page, like "new", then the active color of the navigation makes that link invisible.

Overall it just feels like adding white space for the sake of adding white space to try to achieve something that feels modern, but in reality inhibits useability.

<comment><USER3> I think your'e right about the scrolling, although HN definitely deserves a new slicker UI. This link is more about creating a new UI/UX for an existing site and serving it under new URL. It was created using betterinternet.co (as you can see on the bottom right corner when you use this new style HN). Do you think you can create a better design? one that eventually people will use instead of the original?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I prefer the compact view of HN. Style is really just a matter of taste though.</comment>


Front end code reusability with CSS and JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://24ways.org/2009/front-end-code-reusability-with-css-and-javascript

<comment><USER2> not a bad tutorial, but i feel like this is more a demo of jquery's cycle plugin more than a lesson on code reusablility.</comment>


Ask HN: What to do when manager starts forcing people out? - <AUTHOR> I'm at an otherwise stable company.  My impression is that my manager is forcing people out of my team one at a time.  It seems to be all of the remote employees.  From what little I know, there seems to be made-up/B.S. reasons.  Should I start asking questions?  Should I plan to leave proactively?  Should I stay and see how it goes? <comment><USER2> It is hard to answer your question when you give so little details. Are you, too, a remote employee? Exactly what are those made-up reasons?

Generally it is not a good idea to directly question management. You need to work out what the agenda might be: cost-reduction, bringing in cheaper workers, company having cash flow problems, investors pushing for change, manager trying to impress his bosses?

As you probably know, Yahoo changed the policy on remote work. That was largely a need by management to see themselves as having a lot of staff and to be able to lord over them. The mostly hurt morale and things only took turns for the worst over time.

As a very general rule, I would suggest saving as much as you can so that you can weather a sudden dismissal. Keep your ears open and your mouth mostly shut. You don't want to attract a malicious manager's attention. I wouldn't recommend leaving unless you have a better job to go to or can afford to be without income for an extended period of time.</comment>


Why your startup shouldn't fear Google - <AUTHOR> http://blog.clutterme.com/2007/08/why-im-not-losing-any-sleep-over-google.html

<comment><USER2> I have to mention that your blog looks better laid out than your main page. _Unsolicited Advice alert_ "We are like Myspace & Facebook, but with more of the things you want" sounds pretty weak. I suggest you state your value proposition and leave it at that.

<comment><USER3> hey thanks for the feedback</comment></comment>


Show HN: API to add bad words to English texts - <AUTHOR> http://cursingapi.com/

<comment><USER2> Some tech text becomes very amusing: [http://goo.gl/FzVBBv](http://goo.gl/FzVBBv)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd check into the a/an issue ([http://i.imgur.com/ZT7Nf57.png](http://i.imgur.com/ZT7Nf57.png)), at least for the default/example phrase. Pretty funny though!

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a neat tool but I wish it could better parse paragraphs and commas. I also had a few responses with the same curse words three or four times in a block of text making it a fucking boring read.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, our dictionaries for adjectives, adverbs and nouns are tiny at the moment

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty neat. From solely using that the prepopulated example input, my main gripe would be that it doesn't get a/an correct in the "cursed up" version of the sentence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny we didn't notice that!

Yes, that's true. And that's a fairly poorly written example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> this comes nowhere-the-fuck near cursing as dynamically as i can. ;)

<comment><USER7> Gives me an idea for a new kind of Turing test ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was thinking it would be more like readability, but instead of reformatting the html, inserting curse words. How much more fun would cnn.com be?! But a good start!

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of the old dialectizer that would rewrite web pages in specific dialects.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting, which libraries did you use?

<comment><AUTHOR> Natural Language Toolkit ([http://www.nltk.org/](http://www.nltk.org/)) for Python.

The initial code for the "insulter.py", the core, was no more than 150 lines. We'll probably make our repository public at some point so you can check it out.

<comment><USER9> Are the thumbs up/down used to train the system? Looking forward to the code

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. In a very primitive way, at the moment, just updating the weights for adjectives</comment></comment></comment></comment>


You Can Now Pay Your University Tuition With Bitcoins | Wired Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/business/2013/11/bitcoin-university/ <comment><USER2> Both places where it includes the name of the country it spells it incorrectly as "Cyrpus" instead of "Cyprus." I find this quite incredible. Even my browser marks it as a mis-print - how can it find its way into an article like this.

        Ryan Tate is a WIRED senior writer ...

<fx: shakes head in disbelief and despair /></comment>


Don't forget randomness is still just a hypothesis (2006) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/439392d <comment><USER3> When I first started learning QM in undergrad, I was skeptical of the idea of randomness. Many years later after taking QFT in grad school... I'm still skeptical. Non-locality doesn't bother me one bit, but personally speaking, there's something deeply unsettling about the idea of "true" randomness.

First, I think it's important to define what randomness even is, for which I'll use the most universal definition, i.e., Kolmogorov randomness. A string of data is Kolmogorov random if, for a given universal Turing machine, there is no program shorter than the string that produces the string (yes, you can arbitrarily choose _which_ universal Turing machine, but the invariance theorem makes this fact inconsequential for the most part).

So if we repeatedly set up and measure a quantum system that's not in an eigenstate and then apply the probability integral transform to the individual measurement values, we should expect to find a sequence of values drawn from a uniform distribution, and this sequence should not be compressible by any computer program.

This is where it gets interesting though, because it may very well be the case that this sequence of measurement values is incompressible only because we lack external information, i.e., we are looking at the Kolmogorov complexity of the string from our perspective as experimenters, but from the perspective of a hypothetical observer outside the universe, the conditional Kolmogorov complexity (conditioned on some missing information) could indeed be less than the length of the string.

So where could this missing information be stored? My guess is that it's at the boundary of experimenter/experiment (not referring to a spacetime-local boundary here), since you can't represent the overall quantum state of experimenter + experiment as a separable state. That is, the information necessary to perfectly predict the result of a measurement on a quantum system is inaccessible to us precisely because we — the experimenters — are part of the system itself.

In this way, quantum randomness would be truly random _from our perspective_ in the sense that the future is to some degree fundamentally unpredictable by humans, but just because it's genuinely random to us doesn't imply the universe is indeterministic.

I wonder if there's some way you could design an experiment that distinguishes true indeterminism from the merely unpredictable...

<comment><USER4> > Kolmogorov random if, for a given universal Turing machine, there is no > program shorter than the string that produces the string.

That's not a definition of unbiased randomness. A true unbiased random number could be all 0's. Nothing about an unbiased random number demonstrates it's random, otherwise whatever that distinction is would be a bias in it's generation.

Kolmogorov complexity is it's own thing, and sequences that seem very complex can have extremely low complexity. Such as long sequences of hashes of hashes.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what unbiased randomness is. I haven't heard that phrase before. For Kolmogorov randomness, I was using Wikipedia's description of it ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity#Kolmogor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity#Kolmogorov_randomness)), although there are more technical descriptions available.

<comment><USER4> Crypto cares a lot about unbiased randomness. X bits of entropy is kind of a measurement of this.

Anyway, I suggest you reread the end of that paragraph:

"A counting argument is used to show that, for any universal computer, there is at least one algorithmically random string of each length. _Whether any particular string is random, however, depends on the specific universal computer that is chosen._ "

Kolmogorov complexity is really referring to the fact you can't have lossless compression of arbitrary bit strings. You can't encode every possible N+1 bit string using an N bit string. The computer chosen can make an arbitrary 1:1 mapping for any input though. So, it's got nothing to do with randomness in the context of coin flipping as the mapping is predefined.

Just remember, you're choosing the computer and at that point any input can be mapped to any output. But, after that point limits show up.

<comment><USER5> If all "randomness" of the universe rises from a one extremely long bit string which has been created once from the source of true randomness, the bit string could contain unimaginable number of zeros only and it would be still random. For example, Lotto numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 may be completely random.

Kolmogorov complexity works only if we have a big sample of random numbers, but we do not know if we have such in this universe or not.

<comment><USER4> Kolmogorov complexity is only meaningful for a specific architecture.

Without access to the architecture of the machine the universe runs on you can't tell if the initial random string would be one bit or nigh infinite bits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Neither Heisenberg's uncertainty principle nor Bell's inequality exclude the > possibility, however small, that the Universe, including all observers > inhabiting it, is in principle computable by a completely deterministic > computer program...

Either I'm confused (definitely possible) or this is sort of implicitly equivocating between two different senses of "determinism". There are experiments we can perform that appear to demonstrate quantum randomness. Though it may sound superficially plausible that any particular such random outcome is actually the deterministic output of a hidden pseudorandom number generator, that hypothesis _is_ ruled out by Bell's theorem.

What Bell's theorem _can 't_ rule out is the hypothesis that not only any individual quantum measurement, but the sum total of everything that happens in the universe including the experimenters' choices of what actions to take during the experiment, is all part of a single deterministic causal path for the whole universe, that just so happens to play out in such a way that we never see anything that visibly contradicts Bell's theorem. This can't really be empirically falsified, but there are various philosophy-of-science reasons to be a priori skeptical of it (depending on which philosophers of science you ask, of course).

<comment><USER7> Bells theorem rules out only local hidden variables. Quantum mechanics itself works around the issue not because of indeterminism, but because wave function collapses everywhere at once in a non local way.

But perhaps we do not even need to abandon locality, if we modify it a bit. There is no good reason to believe that space at short distances should be similar to Euclidean space, one interesting hypothesis is that space is more like a graph, and entangled particles in addition to the normal long path through the graph are also connected directly, which allows measurement on one of them to change the state of the other.

<comment><USER8> I'm not a theoretical physicist, but I've heard in informal conversations with some that one idea being explored more now is that perhaps space itself is just a statistical emergent property of entanglement.

<comment><USER7> Leonard Susskind has several interesting lectures about it which can be found by searching for ER=EPR, but i hope the final theory would explain more of the strange behaviors of quantum mechanics, something like the theory outlined in [https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/what-is-spacetime- re...](https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/what-is-spacetime-really/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even more so, randomness as people usually use it exists independently of "true physical randomness." If I flip a typical coin in a typical manner, then regardless of whether quantum mechanics is truly random, a sufficiently detailed measurement fed into a sufficiently powerful computer can predict it essentially perfectly. It's a long way of saying a coin flip is close enough to deterministic in practice.

But there's something going on there that I can't predict, and we need a language to talk about it. That language is the same whether "true physical randomness" exists or not. Calling a coin flip "50-50" is just as valid in a deterministic universe as it is in a random one. Probability is a language more than a theory.

Too many people get hung up on "true" randomness, when that's probably not relevant to the the situation they're describing.

<comment><USER10> this isn't true. given a chaotic system with enough degrees of freedom (even a deterministic) there is no computer powerful enough.

<comment><USER9> No. Chaotic systems mean that if you integrate the time horizon out, there'll be a time after which your measurement precision isn't precise enough, and you'll get an unpredictable bifurcation. For a typical you-or-me coin flip, the necessary precision for a hypothetically powerful computer to predict with say 99.99% accuracy is probably well above the quantum-weirdness level of accuracy. And that 99.99% accuracy (or even 90% accuracy) is different from the 50% without the measurement and computer that necessitates a 50% theory or 50% language of coin flipping.

<comment><USER10> >No. Chaotic systems mean that if you integrate the time horizon out, there'll be a time after which your measurement precision isn't precise enough, and you'll get an unpredictable bifurcation.

how is that substantively different from what i said?

>99.99% accuracy is probably well above the quantum-weirdness level of accuracy.

what is quantum-weirdness scale and what is well above? hbar is 34 zeros out.

<comment><USER9> You said it's untrue that you can predict a typical coin flip because it's a chaotic system. I laid out the limitations of chaotic systems and argued they don't apply to a typical coin flip. Are you arguing about predicting "essentially perfectly?" I use that to mean predicting with a couple nines of accuracy.

By quantum weirdness scale, I mean that the accuracy (epsilon) of a necessary measurement includes accurate position and momentum measurements. If epsilon is too small, we might not be able to hypothetically measure both to the necessary precision. I'm guessing that the necessary epsilon for essentially perfect prediction is large enough that you can hypothetically measure both to within that precision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Headline reminds me of this Dilbert cartoon: [https://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25](https://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25)

 _A troll tour guide says, "Over here we have our random number generator." The troll places its hands on a slab of rock and relays the message of "nine nine nine nine nine nine." Dilbert asks, "Are you sure that's random?" The troll responds, "That's the problem with randomness. You can never be sure."_

<comment><USER12> Maybe the message was part of the digits of pi ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_nines_in_pi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_nines_in_pi))?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What sort of actions are truly random? I can understand why a coin flip can be viewed as deterministic, because if a precise robot had all the situational knowledge, it could flip heads every time.

But radioactive decay is supposed to be random. As in, every atom is the the same, but some, randomly, decay. That never made sense to me.

<comment><USER14> I sincerely doubt that anything is truly random, there has to be some type of cosmic drummer behind the scenes biasing certain events. Case in point is the conflict between molecular Darwinism and the numbers associated with the human genome. Approximately one billion nucleotide bases and with four different nucleotide bases in each location == 4^1,000,000,000 combinatorial explosion, a number waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay larger than 10^120 universal complexity limit, 10^80 stable elementary particles in the universe, and the generally accepted age of the universe ~10^40. The monkeys typing Hamlet thing is computationally intractable.

<comment><USER15> The main idea of "molecular Darwinism" is that the initial life for had a very short DNA [1]. While the species evolved, the short DNA evolves and got longer [2].

* For example some genes are repeated, a bad copy may repeat a gene and the DNA get longer. Virus may cause some duplications too.

* Some genes are almost repeated,each copy has a slightly different function, so each one has a variant that is better for each function. The idea is that an error in the copy made two copies of the original gene and then each copy evolved slowly differently.

* Some parts of the DNA are repetitions of a same short pattern many many many times. IIRC these apear near the center and the extremes of the chromosomes, and are useful for structural reasons, not to encode information. The DNA can extend the extreme easily because it's just a repetition of the pattern.

* Some parte are just junk DNA that is not useful, but there is no mechanism to detect that it is junk and can be eliminated, so it is copy form individual to individual, and from specie to specie with random changes. (Some parts of these junk may be useful.)

So the idea is that the initial length was not 1000000000, but that the length increased with time.

Your calculation does not model the theory of "molecular Darwinism". Your calculation is about the probability that is a "human" miraculously apear out of thin air with a completely random genome, it will get the correct one [3].

[1] Or perhaps RNA, or perhaps a few independent strands of RNA that cooperate. The initial steps are far from settle.

[2] It's not strictly increasing, it may increase and decrease the length many times.

[3] Each person has a different genome, so there is not 1 perfect genome. The correct calculation is not 1/4^1000000000 but some-number/4^1000000000 . It's difficult to calculate the number of different genomes that are good enough to be human, but it's much much much smaller than 4^1000000000. So let's ignore this part.

<comment><USER14> Again and irrespective of how much genome information was there initially and what it eventually became, you are still talking about a final optimization problem of 4^1,000,000,000. Even one tenth of that amount of the human genome is an unfathomably large number to randomly iterate to given the generally accepted statistics cited above. The math behind stochastic molecular Darwinism doesn't work out at all.

<comment><USER16> I don't see where you are getting the idea that humans had to be pulled out of a hat of all possible genetic sequences.

They, like, evolved, right? As the GP says, there was a short sequence that worked, a little got built on, a little more...

There was never any time that any creature was generated by random choice.

<comment><USER14> Got math?

<comment><USER14> What in the world are you talking about?

This thread of discussion is about the computationally intractable nature of 4^1,000,000,000

Got math? Maybe post a proof?

<comment><USER16> Tell me why evolution would require all of those combinations to be tried?

Edit: Microsoft Windows 10 is 9GB. It would be impossible to try 8^9000000000 different programs. Yet, Windows exists, and most of us believe it's contained in those 9GB.

<comment><USER14> So per your logic the Windows 10 operating system was created by random iteration of x86 opcodes over a lengthy period of time? Huh?

<comment><USER16> Exactly the opposite. Just because there are so many possibilities doesn't mean that all of them have to be tried or make sense.

You wouldn't code that way and nature doesn't either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> When I shuffle a deck of cards and put it down on the table the top card doesn't change anymore. Yet anybody will consider the first card to be random.

In practice randomness is about lack of knowledge not about actual randomness or processes.

(Edit: Sorry, but this clickbait title redefining randomness as something other than what everybody understands it to be annoyed me.)

<comment><USER18> I'd argue probability is about that (given information at a time), i.e. everything has probability 1 or 0 given perfect information (and computation/inference) about a deterministic universe, but some other number (by a metric) given partial information (and perfect computation/inference).

Randomness is perhaps a description of correlation? Which obviously relates to probability, prediction of uncertain outcomes, but maybe more general?..

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Note that with this definition everything is an hypothesis. Gravity is just an hypothesis. If you tomorrow drop a rock the hypothesis is that it will fall with an acceleration of 9.8m/s^2 = 32.2ft/s^2. [With the usual approximations, like the air density and viscosity is small, it is a rock not an Helium balloon disguised as a rock, the wind is not too high, ...]

We have not proven that if you repeat the experiment tomorrow, you will get the same result, it is only an hypothesis.

The randomness of the QM is not proven, but for now we don't have a better alternative to predict the results of the experiments. Just like gravity that is has not been proven, but for now we don't have a better alternative to predict the results of the experiments.

<comment><USER19> By that logic, the absence of the rabbit hole with the Cheshire Cat in it isn't proven, too.

<comment><USER15> Take a look at: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The equations of quantum mechanics aren't random, only its interpretation, in the form of born's law.

Unitary evolution means there's neither information loss nor gain, and if there was anything random you would at the very least expect to see information gain (as new bits of information are created from the "random" result of an observation).

Randomness in quantum mechanics isn't even a hypothesis, it's an interpretation.

<comment><USER21> Important nitpick: the equations that govern _dynamics_ in quantum mechanics aren't random, and evolution is unitary. However, the process of "measurement" is described by a (obviously non-unitary) projection operator onto one state; the so called "collapse". If you, for example, attempt to answer the very real physical question "given two particles in with some total joined state Psi, one is measured and found to be in state Phi, what state is the other particle in?", you would have to use such an operator. There isn't anything interpretive about this, as such experiments have been done again and again. It's a standard part of the mathematical framework.

Now, whether the underlying physics is truly random, or whether it's deterministic and the projection only represents a sort of Bayesian update of prior information (a la MWI), that is indeed a matter of interpretation. And completely unfalsifiable by definition, and therefore not even really a question for physicists. It's philosophy at best.

<comment><USER22> Cosmology was once considered philosophy and totally untestable. Just saying...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A couple of things are at the heart of the matter here.

Hypercomputation (halting problem) and Infinite memory/storage

Ascribe either of these to nature, and nature can be deterministic and still, the probability of us discerning its RNG's operations is 0.

This is a good video explaining the different intricacies of how "God's dice" might be constructed:

[https://youtu.be/iBHUayT7t6w](https://youtu.be/iBHUayT7t6w)

Many phenomena thought to have been random due to their quantum nature have been found to be based on their initial conditions instead. See spontaneous emission photon phase for example: [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/9/11/41...](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/9/11/413/meta)

</comment><comment><USER24> It's worth mentioning that most cryptographic algorithms are designed to be strong using pseudo random algorithms, so real randomness isn't a requirement (although obviously some unpredictable starting point is required to get the ball rolling).

Well unless you use a one time pad but nobody does (hopefully).

<comment><USER25> > Well unless you use a one time pad but nobody does

Was under the impression intel agencies and militaries use OTP's regularly and the keys are carried in diplomatic pouches around the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> >Neither Heisenberg's uncertainty principle nor Bell's inequality exclude the possibility, however small, that the Universe, including all observers inhabiting it, is in principle computable by a completely deterministic computer program, as first suggested by computer pioneer Konrad Zuse in 1967 (Elektron. Datenverarb. 8, 336–344; 1967).

Leibniz has already proposed essentially the same centuries earlier. And there have probably been people who said the same even earlier.

(Also, mentioning Konrad Zuse made me directly suspect that the author is German. He's Swiss, but close enough.)

</comment><comment><USER27> In terms of the physical universe, all of our models/theories and laws are based on incomplete knowledge and observation. That being saaid, our models and theories provide a means of investigation of the universe. Where we need to be careful is coming to the idea that we "will" be able to "know" what is happening. We do not have "infinite" knowledge (there is always more to learn) and so any models and theories we come with can (and will) be superceded by later data that we collect.

"Randomness" in the small can and does appear to be non-random in the large - we make predictions as to what we will see over large numbers of events when we are unable to determine if any single event will fulfill that prediction. Radioactive decay is a good exampe of this. Two-slit refraction patterns are also another example. Much, if not all of our technology, depends on this, whether this be semiconductor design or manufacturing any material products such as steels or concrete.

What does happen is that we have more and more interesting research areas in which we can investigate the underlying principles that govern our universe. But, we must not make the mistake that we will "know" what those principles will be be. We can and do develop workable and useful models and theories to help us get a handle on understanding this universe we live in. We live on one small planet in an isolated region of our galaxy in an extraordinary and immense universe. We do not kave the ability to explore that universe in any detailed way except by proxy observations. So, instead of getting caught up in being "sure", let us have fun in exploring everywhere we can and continue to gather data and discuss what this data means and develop workable theories and models that we can use.

As a disciple of the living God who created all the that we see and do not see, I consider that the universe has a set of specific rules and laws by which it operates and that we can and should try to understand what those laws are. For me that is an act of worship to investigate and understand the what and how.

For those who are of other belief systems, whether that be Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem, Atheists, etc., there is just as much an incentive to study the universe around us and understand what and how it works. There may be additional questions that might be raised from each viewpoint that is not of concern for any of the other viewpoints like "why".

BUt what it all boils down to, is that we live in a wonderful and extremely interesting universe and there is much to learn about it and have fun while learning about it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Little if any empirical research has been done into the quality of entropy associated with repeatedly observing a quantum state. Pretty easily accomplished using an RTOS (RT_PREEMPT or Xenomai) with GPIO sampling, and with n-dimensional phase space analysis of that dataset to determine if any patterns emerge. There are plenty of tools from the field of chaos theory and nonlinear dynamical systems analysis to prove or disprove the fundamental nature of quantum randomness with.

<comment><USER28> You could probably run something on D-Wave Leap and get actual quantum noise or something if you like

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is one of those questions that ultimately comes down to the exact definitions you use for everything, because the commonly-used interpretations won't cut it. Same bucket as questions like "does free will exist?" (define "free will")

I started writing a longer version of this comment but I think that a core part of the question is whether "randomness" is an epistemological convenience, a statement about "order" or "rules", or something else.

</comment><comment><USER30> What I don't understand about quantum physics is why doesn't everything just become a statistical smudge after a couple iterations? Why is reality so coherent?

My takeaway is that this is the reason some physicists claim 'everything is information' because there is some underlying form that gives the statistical quantum physics a consistent pattern instead of devolving into randomness.

<comment><USER22> Information theory defines information starting from probabilities, so there is no much escaping from that.

<comment><USER30> I think the physicists mean something like mutual information, i.e. some underlying reality describes the global probability distribution better than the individual probabilities themselves. It is this underlying reality that is 'really real' and the quantum fluctuations illustrate it like a flickering TV screen shows a globally consistent picture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Back in 2009 Alex Dragusin hypothesized: "In a finite space there must be a finite number of events, which are strictly related (in a cause-effect chain) to the finite constraints, are therefore not random."

In the absence of high enough computational resolution one would perceive this as randomness. This is also related to the quest for determining if we live in a simulation.

<comment><USER22> "In a finite space there must be a finite number of events" seems to have counterexamples: take events which occur on vanishing small space, then you can fit an infinite number of them in finite space. Think about converging infinite series.

<comment><USER23> I think the author means discrete when they say finite. In that case, they mean Doubly special relativity. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubly_special_relativity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubly_special_relativity) Doubly special relativity - <USER2>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm going to try out my luck here. In not so distant past, I came an article whose content was something along the line of 'theory of randomness' or 'history of randomness'. As what the website looked like, it looked as if written in basic HTML/CSS.

If someone know which site I might be alluring to, please post it here.

</comment><comment><USER33> A pseudo-random noise source may be just as good as the real thing, for producing satisfyingly even-handed results.

But it turns out to be a lot harder to design a really good emulator of randomness than one might guess. Certain Monte Carlo simulations using the Mersenne Twister turned out to be oddly but unmistakeably biased.

<comment><USER28> Can you explain to a layman what's odd about it?

<comment><USER33> Mersenne Twister was maybe the first in a class of random number generators that has lots of state -- an order of magnitude more than previous designs. Each time a number is pulled from it, some of the state is stirred, and the next number comes from mostly other bits, and stirs others. They have to be fast, so you can't touch too many bits per number extracted; taking about the same time for each number is nice, too.

So, one measure of generators is how many numbers you pull before you get the same sequence again. MT's cycle is very long, so in practice you never see a repeat, even if you see the same number many times. (In many simpler generators, seeing 3 then 8 means next time you see 3, the next number will be 8. A great deal of simulation was done with such generators.) The numbers from an MT satisfy many different measures of apparent randomness.

Monte Carlo investigations consume very many numbers. They might use the numbers in a more or less periodic way, so that any match-up between cycles in the problem and cycles in the generator can skew the results. The main MT cycle is very long, so any skewed results probably point to lesser cycles as the bits stirred are later encountered again. But it's hard to imagine a way to detect such cycles deliberately from the bits you get out. Encountering a process that finds them accidentally is amazing.

<comment><USER28> Fascinating, thanks. Not sure I understood it all, but I appreciate the reply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In relation to religion, this is interesting too, the Big-bang that happened 'randomly' could also be explained as a series of cause and effects. On another note, also a miracle according to scripture, could be a series of cause and effects fast-forwarded basically.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's comical that the article suggests we always try to falsify randomness, when the "simple" deterministic explanations (Superdeterminism) at this point are unfalsifiable.</comment>


Ask HN: Rust experts – please advise - <AUTHOR> Hi HackerNews community,
This is my first post here so please forgive me if below looks silly.
A few weeks back I have written a tool in rust. I am on holiday now and have some time to add improvements. Since I'm not expert in this language I'd love to get some feedback on where I can improve the code to make it more idiomatic and generally better. I use this tool on my servers to filter away all logs I know can be ignored so I can focus on logs that potentially require my attention.
https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap <comment><USER2> A few quick things. Posting to users.rust-lang.org will probably get you more comments than here.

Did you run clippy on this code? Rustfmt? those are two easy things.

#![allow(dead_code)] is pretty suspicious...

I would use format! here [https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.r...](https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.rs#L50-L59)

[https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.r...](https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.rs#L90-L93) could be unwrap_or_else

[https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.r...](https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.rs#L101) should just be `log_filters`, no need for the return;

naming functions with `_` like [https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.r...](https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.rs#L104) is not idiomatic. It's already not public, no need for `_`.

lines like [https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.r...](https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/logmap.rs#L117-L118) should be one line, no need for the type ascription there.

the package is already called logmap, so [https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/lib.rs](https://github.com/grzegorzk/logmap/blob/master/src/lib.rs) is just redundant and adds an extra layer, that is, `logmap::logmap::foo` rather than just `logmap::foo`.

This isn't an idiom issue, but you might like structopt over getopts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many thanks for your great feedback Steve!

I had some issues with running unit tests and at the time I figured if I add lib.rs I can make my unit tests to run. I did not like logmap::logmap::foo and definitely need to revisit that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not being a rust programmer myself, my comment should be taken as that:

You commented in your code on some long functions needing to be decomposed, that might be a good start, your own todo. :-)

Other than this as a c programmer i see some opportunity in the _find_best_matching_filter_index function to perhaps apply a macro to the repeating syntax of

let words = tst_utils::_words_vector_from_string("aaa bbb ccc ddd"); assert_eq!(log_filters._find_best_matching_filter_index(&words), 0);

Where in C i would create something so i could type MACRO_NAME("aaa bbb ccc ddd") for example to make that part read more easily and make it easier to add or remove items there.

I see macros are supported, but am because of my lack of rust knowledge unaware if my suggestion is possible at all.

[https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch19-06-macros.html](https://doc.rust- lang.org/book/ch19-06-macros.html) might shed some light on that.

It's not really changing code but would make it much more readable. (macros are great for such things in C for sure if not overdone)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I definitely need to be more DRY in tests.

<comment><USER3> I always feel the same. usually only after i wrote something a million times i'll notice i could have made a macro and end up replacing it all again :D</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think about this startup idea I'm working on? - <AUTHOR> Introducing Repairer - An on demand repair service.
Website: https://hammadn.wixsite.com/repairer
We take your damaged products from you and get it repaired as fast and as cheap as possible and deliver it back once it is repaired!
We'd be taking watches, clocks, smartphones, lamps, spectacles, laptops, modems and other common household products initially.
We've planned to launch in New Delhi, India initially and would be expending to many other cities all over the world pretty soon.
Would love to have your valuable feedback and suggestions. <comment><USER2> Given today's manufacturing, which is manufacture cheap, sell cheap, make it last a short time.

Can you price your service such that you make profit and at the same time it won't be cheaper for the customer to buy a new one?

<comment><AUTHOR> What is your suggestion? How much should be the price?

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure. You tell me. Can you price it high enough to make profit and low enough to make people want to repair and not buy a new one?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think we can. What do you think? Would you mind paying $0.5 extra on a repair amount of $10.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what you mean. Please clarify...

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently we've decided to charge 5% of the repairing fee as the service charge for example if the repairing fee came out to be $10 then we'd take $0.5 as service charge so you'd have to pay $10.5 in total but we haven't finalised on this model and have decided to do experiments with various models we've thought of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Will you offer a "repair warranty" on your services?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice question, reggiepret.

Yes, we'll offer a "repair warranty" under which we'll offer a free repair if the product doesn't get repaired satisfactorily the first time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How will you collect and deliver? Are you going to rely on another service provider? Or are you going to have mobile repair units?

</comment><comment><USER4> Validate it via users.

<comment><USER2> I think that's exactly what he's doing in this thread.

<comment><USER4> By a user I mean person who has used the service to pick up and repair an item. I do not mean people who are using Hacker News.</comment></comment></comment>


For search, even in 2016, link still work - <AUTHOR> http://seoauv.com/link-importance <comment><USER2> While the sites you referenced are doing well (DA 80 actually makes me sick), I would be curious to see how long they can maintain their rankings with such blatant underhanded tactics.

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome read, Nick! Link building is a difficult endeavor for sure, especially when it's hard to give something back in return for someone agreeing to link to you.</comment>


The Great Climate Migration Has Begun - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html <comment><USER2> Was previously posted and then flagged. I fail to see why: the discussion in the thread seems rather amiable to me.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23947594](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23947594)

<comment><USER3> "New projections show high tides subsuming much of Vietnam by 2050 — including most of the Mekong Delta, now home to 18 million people "

One bores with lies like this, but it is true people normally don't care on this topic when lied to, it's more about the dystopian dopamine rush.

Commentary on this ridiculous high tide claim- [https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1191021723644301312](https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1191021723644301312)

<comment><USER4> Is this someone [0] one actually wants to refer to?

From his Wikipedia page [0]:

 _Several of Bjørn Lomborg 's articles in newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and The Telegraph have been checked by Climate Feedback, a worldwide network of scientists who collectively assess the credibility of influential climate change media coverage. The Climate Feedback reviewers assessed that the scientific credibility ranged between "low" and "very low". The Climate Feedback reviewers come to the conclusion that in one case Lomborg "practices cherry-picking", in a second case he "had reached his conclusions through cherry-picking from a small subset of the evidence, misrepresenting the results of existing studies, and relying on flawed reasoning", in a third case "[his] article [is in] blatant disagreement with available scientific evidence, while the author does not offer adequate evidence to support his statements", and, in a fourth case, "The author, Bjorn Lomborg, cherry-picks this specific piece of research and uses it in support of a broad argument against the value of climate policy. He also misrepresents the Paris Agreement to downplay its potential to curb future climate change."_

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg)

<comment><USER3> I'd prefer you referred to the stunningly different map he shows compared to the one NY Times showed. It's not a lie.

If you genuinely want to know more about Bjorn Lomborg watch his really old TED talk [https://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_global_priorities_bi...](https://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_global_priorities_bigger_than_climate_change?language=en)

If you've ever hung out in remote villages and seen crippled children crawling around because of lack of micro-nutrients, you won't have proof he is correct that micro-nutrients are one of the leading issue in this world, but you'd be at least much more empathetic to the idea.

I've never see anyone else actually sit down and rank issue to cost benefit like he has. The Copenhagen Consensus have revised their list of issues since the original old TED talk.

<comment><USER5> How can either map be "a lie?" They're projections.

There's ample groups with solid scientific credentials that Lomborg lacks. Lomborg famous book was found, by a well respected watchdog group, to be "scientifically dishonest," with the addendum that he was unqualified to make the claims he does.

There really is little to be gained from absorbing his work when there's plenty of better sources that don't engage in his well-documented intellectual dishonesty.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Bookshrink.com [Fixed] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bookshrink.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Before anyone says anything, yes this is a repost, but I made significant changes to the website based off of feedback I'd gotten from other HN readers and people i know in the real world. If anyone has any tips or suggestions on how to improve the site, I'd love to hear them!</comment>


EFF, Sen. Anderson Sponsor California License Plate Privacy Legislation - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-sen-anderson-sponsor-california-license-plate-privacy-legislation <comment><USER2> A perfect example of "just because they can, doesn't mean they should" are the private companies driving around with license plate readers just because they can.

"or vehicles operated by private surveillance companies that cruise down streets and in parking lots photographing licenses of parked cars. These companies often offer services such as the ability to predict a driver's movements or to identify a driver's associates based on vehicles regularly found parked near each other. "</comment>


Ripple fully funded every live DonorsChoose classroom project yesterday - <AUTHOR> https://www.donorschoose.org/blog/best-school-day-2018/ <comment><USER2> $29M worth of XRP going to a good cause. Great, cash out and make good use of it.

The cynic in me sees this as a cheap PR move (an SVP of marketing promoting it doesn't help). Associating your token with a good cause gives it credibility in the eyes of the public which in turn leads to an increase in the XRP price in USD. Here's what I understand about ripple:

\- 100 billion XRP was created at inception with 20 billion going to the creators and 80 billion going to Ripple labs.

\- It's supposed to be a payment layer between financial institutions and XRP is the underlying token.

\- Distribution of XRP is arbitrary. Ripple labs can allocate it to whoever they see fit.

Donating $29M worth of XRP costs them nothing since Ripple labs holds 80 billion XRP. Only 40 billion XRP is currently in circulation though and XRP's price is currently $0.5. I don't know, I find Ripple quite ridiculous. But the silver lining is donations such as these.

<comment><USER3> The only reason Ripple is worth anything is because of PR to convince the world that a wholly premined coin that isn't even necessary to use the Ripple network holds any value at all. So... a $29 million PR move to boost a $22 billion PR move?

<comment><USER4> Well so if the coin is totally useless, then at least funding charities with it is about as good as it gets right?

<comment><USER5> I mean it makes me feel less bad about my $5k loss on xrp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I think about large-scale donations I think about Melinda and Bill Gates. They don't just donate large sums of money, they donate their time and talent and take their efforts very seriously. They work hard to see every penny well- spent in an effective manner.

That being said, I would love to witness a super-rich person throw a one-time insanely large lump sum of money at some problem. Like, "Here's 50 billion dollars. Free mammograms to anyone on the planet until the money runs out." It would be nice to see a global respite from some sort of issue.

<comment><USER7> FYI - My wife had her project funded this year by ripple, but last year her projects were funded by Melinda and Bill Gates. In both cases her projects were less than 10k, but make a huge difference to the kids in her classroom.

<comment><USER8> On the one hand, I'm very proud of how much it can help with such a small donation. On the other hand, I'm depressed it has to come from donations. Seriously, what is wrong with adults these days kicking the door closed behind us?

<comment><USER9> Propaganda mostly from the Republican party has convinced a great deal of people that Education is a waste of money. This is obviously stupid and false.

Apologies for getting political, but I come from a family of teachers in two red states (actually three now, thanks Wisconsin, you do love to hate yourself), and we're out of fucks to give.

EDIT: I know we don't like to get political here, but the question was "Why is America bad at education compared to other countries." First of all, it is bad, and it spends more than other countries, somehow. Makes sense when half the country has put their feet down stubbornly into the stand and said "pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" Or some nonsense.

Here's a great analysis of the Republican platform vis a vis education: [https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning- education/2016/07...](https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning- education/2016/07/what-the-republican-platform-says-about-education-215401)

Inevitable disclaimer: obviously not all republicans are opposed to effective, common sense education, and obviously not all democrats support it. But uh... compare the platforms.

<comment><USER10> > Propaganda mostly from the Republican party has convinced a great deal of > people that Education is a waste of money.

That's a misrepresentation. Plenty of them some care very much about fixing education and funding it. Just the kind the find most effective:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Zh96wc01k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Zh96wc01k)

The difference, as the video mentions, is that they always gets attacked as being 'anti-education', depsite intentions and data supporting their efforts, largely by the heavily entrenched people and organizations who have most to gain from keeping the same status-quo systems. Ie, the massive top-heavy administration that controls pubic education, unions, pension funds, etc. They have plenty of political pull.

Ultimately that is very much equally propaganda, is it not?

The right also tends support more state financing and control of education, and funding towards education has increased dramatic in states for decades. The only thing that has stagnated (but hardly declined) is federal spending:

[https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending](https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending)

And percentage of GDP spending for education has hardly dipped under republicans either:

[https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_chart_20.html](https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_chart_20.html)

Words are always valued over actions and the ideology of a few extremists always seem to always take precedence over data and tangible outcomes. Which is why I hate debating this subject.

<comment><USER11> > The difference, as the video mentions, is that they always gets attacked as > being 'anti-education'

That would be partly because it is true [http://www.people- press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisi...](http://www.people- press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisions-in-views-of-national- institutions/) ('Republicans increasingly say colleges have negative impact on U.S.')

And its not helped by the fact that much of the GOP is apparent anti-science, and anti expertise [https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/american-trust- scient...](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/american-trust-scientists- partisan-split-survey_us_590a49dfe4b0bb2d0874fdb6) ('A 54 percent majority of Democrats, compared with just 13 percent of Republicans, say they have "a lot" of trust that what scientists say is accurate and reliable.')

<comment><USER10> Got any more Huffington Post "web based surveys" to educate me on the merits of conservative ideology? That was so enthralling...

I find it hilarious how often US Democrats want to use the lowest common denominator, with their half-baked grasp of politics, economics, science, history, etc, to define their party's credibility (and to be clear I'm far from either American democrat or republican). As if the intelligence of the entire voting base (or whom either group decided to convince to vote for them) defines the merits of the ideology behind 0.0001% of the population who reside in congress, senate, and the white house.

Personally I'd rather seek out the intellectuals from either side (for ex: [1]), but also ideas from outside the two main left/right groups, and also from historical ideologies... and then decide what is best for society from that. And from there try to influence particular parties to adhere to the most rational and ideal ideas.

If /r/politics is any indication, the more people you have the dumber the conversations gets. It went from "somewhat annoying political tribalism" on Reddit to completely unbearable inane echo-chamber debates as it scaled up to millions of people. And these same people STILL think they are superior to 24/7 news media talking heads, which is the channel which most influences the wider population.

Is this the means from which we should determine the merits of particular political ideologies?

But by all means, let the opinions of the lowest common denominator, web surveys, and shamelessly biased 'news' websites like Huffington Post be your guiding voice on what's best. I'd personally rather not...

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers- Left...](https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers- Left/dp/1472935950/)

<comment><USER11> Well that was a bit ranty and doesn't really address the issue. If you don't like YouGov, would you prefer [https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1251&co...](https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1251&context=carsey)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is great for many of the projects but there's a down side to donors choose I wouldn't have realized before taking to some teachers. Anecdote warning: family member works in a public school district where the principal and committees won't even investigate funding requests till the teacher has put something up on donorschoose.

<comment><USER6> It really sucks that American public schools are so poorly funded. But maybe the principal and committees are just "playing the game" appropriately from their perspective. I doubt they have beanbag chairs full of cash that they're hoarding.

I could see a scenario where, sure, the teacher's proposal is great. But what makes their proposal any better than the thousand others that cannot be funded?

<comment><USER13> They aren't poorly funded. I live in a suburban / rural area. The public schools here get ~$15,700 per student. Good private schools here charge ~$10,000 per student, and yet offer much better education with 2/3 the funding.

<comment><USER14> Right. The US spends more per student than most similar countries.

[http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results- US.pd...](http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-US.pdf)

<comment><USER15> How much of that is being spent on things entirely irrelevant to education, such as administration, "school sports" aka baseball/football stadiums and other amenities?

<comment><USER16> As much as I hated my HS principal, you still need administration. Sports, are underutilized and also needed by healthy humans. Sure, some schools disproportionately spend on sports, but they are in the minority, and tend to self fund. Why not kill art, music programs too? Just email assignments and hope for the best...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> That's killer, thanks Ripple! $29MM!

Page isn't loading but this is from the subject of the blog;

#BestSchoolDay 2018: Every Project Funded! MARCH 27, 2018 STEPHEN BURKENEWS

#BestSchoolDay is here! Last night, Ripple fully funded every single live DonorsChoose.org classroom project. That's over 35,000 projects in one enormous $29 million dollar act of generosity. We literally don't have words to express our gratitude, so we had to invent some. We're flabbermazed. Astonified. It blew us away, knocked our socks off... WOW! Here's a message from Ripple and our founder, Charles, talking about why Ripple chose to support our creative community of teachers with this [Read more...]

edit: Someone's going hard on downvoting every comment in here. Do you not like teachers receiving money to help their students?

<comment><USER18> > Do you not like teachers receiving money to help their students?

It's a shame that you need charities for such things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Objectively, here's what this does:

1\. FUND MILLIONS OF STUDENTS (I don't think anyone can overstate how awesome this is)

2\. Give Ripple Labs good press and put them on the front

3\. Increases the supply of XRP which:

      - Means more XRP in the market in the market for more users

      - Drops the value per XRP making transaction costs cheaper

All that aside, let's all give Ripple a virtual high five for funding education. This is amazing!

<comment><USER20> > Increases the supply of XRP which

Wait, it does? I thought one of the unique aspects of ripple was that all of the coins were pre-mined so the supply is finite. Right?

<comment><USER21> They were pre-mined but the supply is infinite, as I understand there is nothing preventing them from creating more at any point.

<comment><USER22> The supply isn't infinite, and they won't create more.

<comment><USER20> Is the reason they won't create more technical or philosophical? I don't know enough about Ripple.

<comment><USER23> Its both. They won't create more for philosophical reasons because the value would plummet. They won't create more for technical reasons because it needs an 80% majority of nodes to approve a change for it to occur.

Some people will tell you they control the validating nodes, but thats only really a half truth. Ripple controls 3 out of 50+ nodes, and also controls the default list of approved validator nodes. There's no reason why you can't deviate from the default list of validators, but its hard to say if anyone actually does in practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> DonorsChoose.org is a fantastic site and project. As someone who has four teachers in the family, I know firsthand how challenging teaching is on multiple levels, and financial is definitely one of them. I'm happy to support the site as best I can and even happier to hear about this!

</comment><comment><USER25> This is great, but since this move added no new _traders_ to the market and instead added a bunch of people that will dump their XRP instantly, doesn't this hurt current holders? I wonder how much this had to do with the 5% price drop today [1]. It seems like what they really did was take traders' $29 million and donate it, except they had no choice in the matter. Not that this is a bad way to spend one's money, but I'm sure at least some holders would have liked a choice in the matter.

Also, for the teachers, what happens if the price falls before they can dump and their projects have a shortfall?

[1] [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/)

<comment><USER26> Wait... people who bought into a currency that is majority-owned by one entity would like some say in how that entity spends it?

<comment><USER27> How that compares to fiat money where the central bank can print more money as it wishes?

<comment><USER28> Real currencies generally exist with a Government that requires taxes are paid in that currency. So there's always a baseline demand. Almost nobody in politically stable countries could _completely_ stop using their currencies tomorrow if they didn't like how the Government sector (Government + central bank) spent money (without moving to another country).

Also, it's different because since currencies have goods and services that you can buy with them, monetary expansion isn't actually inflationary to the price level unless it pushes aggregate demand (spending) above the supply of goods and services available in that currency. Whereas all this Ripple likely is going to straight to be sold off so the recipients can actually buy things...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> When you're printing your own money, it's easy ;-)

Not to take anything away from Ripple: good for them!

</comment><comment><USER30> Beside how great of an effort this is, the main recipients seem to come from the US. Is the US really that poor of a country to need donations for basic school supplies?

</comment><comment><USER31> Many people in this thread criticize this as a bad PR move and Ripple in general.

Still, the utilitarian view on this is only good - it helps a good cause and is better than nothing. donorschoose only gains from this and every pledge that stands behind donorschoose.

People are always quick to scrutinize everything, but what do you do to help the underprivileged?

</comment><comment><USER32> Should schools really have to be donation funded?

</comment><comment><USER33> Am I just being cynical but blindly funding every classroom project without oversight and due diligence may actually be a net-negative in the long term. Universally giving money does not solve problems. It takes the right causes and right people behind the causes to really improve things.

For perspective, Warren Buffett has donated $46 billion and Bill Gates has donated $18 billion to charities since 2000.

</comment><comment><USER34> Fascinating. This seems like a great way to get more currency in circulation without pissing off the miners or current owners. If they just gave it away, they would have inflation. But the PR from this will generate enough demand that it shouldn't hurt the value. In addition every dollar they give will likely circulate rather than be hoarded. And the teachers benefit. Brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER35> That's amazing! Kudos to Ripple!

</comment><comment><USER36> Wonder if they would have gotten more press if they did a rolling donation schedule (1/week, etc).

Either way - good to see good projects get funding.

<comment><USER37> That would take 6 centuries to fund the same amount of projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> That's amazing!

</comment><comment><USER39> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_(company)#Funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_\(company\)#Funding)

Are they profitable? How can this kind of thing be justified to shareholders?

<comment><USER40> Their currency is worth billions

<comment><USER39> Billions of USD in digital coins they themselves created, right? So this $29M came from the shareholders, or from the coin-holders?

<comment><USER4> It comes from whoever will buy the coins, presumably.

<comment><USER39> So the same people who could potentially be victims of fraud will now be recovering their investment from school children. Keeping it classy, crypto.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Dirty and Cheap PR move!

</comment><comment><USER42> I am really happy for these schools, but what if someone is just trying to 'converting a lot of ripple into cash' look like effect from 'charity donation' event?

So that prices don't fall overall while this happens and some people cash out of it.</comment>


All you need for validating emails - <AUTHOR> http://regexlib.com/DisplayPatterns.aspx

<comment><USER2> This is much more complex than it looks. I'd trust either of these before I trust those simpleton attempts, but it looks like some of them may be complete. Too hard to read the site for the longer ones though to actually find out (why is the regular expression in a little 2 line scrollable area? And why are they are not encouraging the use of extended syntax that can be commented?)

<http://www.regular-expressions.info/email.html> [http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Email- Address-1.889/lib/Email/A...](http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Email- Address-1.889/lib/Email/Address.pm)

</comment><comment><USER3> As I've argued everywhere I see this sort of thing, this does not validate email addresses.

If I don't want you to have my email address, you'll get email@example.com and that will fly through any shape validation, domain validation, character checks, any regex you can think of.

It still wont be my email address. If people aren't giving you valid email addresses, reassess your site and consider why instead of throwing technology at the alleged problem.

<comment><USER4> The point is not to check whether or not email@example.com is _your_ address, but that it follows valid syntax. Users make mistakes - I just watched a customer this morning type name@domaincom instead of email@example.com when entering his address. I've even seen users enter their names instead of email addresses when prompted for an email address. This happens all too often and can make database management a hassle. Checking the syntax first can make life a little easier for the DB guys.</comment></comment>


A small C hack - private members in C structures - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/A+small+C+hack

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry, but ew, no, gross! This is a terrible suggestion for several reasons:

1\. It will only work for the last elements of the struct. If the struct is extended to have more elements later, elements that are added after the ifdef block will appear in the same memory location as those inside. Boom!

If you notice this and add to the middle of the struct, anything that depends on specific ordering of the data (packets, files?) will break. (Note: In some cases, extending these kinds of structs with more elements at the end of the struct is acceptable. However, see the paragraph above.)

2\. You're not fooling anyone. Any code that uses this struct will need to include your header. They will be able to see that there is a conditional part of the struct, and will be able to define the appropriate macro to have everything included. (In my opinion, headers are a sort of implicit documentation. If you want to know what you can do with some bit of code, look at the header that is included.)

3\. We already have an idiom for solving this sort of problem, called the opaque structure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, you're right, I just thought it was an interesting usage.

I don't think I would ever use it in code or suggest it to anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This sort of thing will likely cause more problems than it solves. Such a struct can't be moved, copied, or put in an array without potential memory corruption.

I'd suggest doing this:

      typedef struct {
        int a;
        int b;
        /* private */
        int c;
        int d;
      } STYPE;

Sure, other programmers are free to ignore the comment and use the private fields anyway, but that suggests a bigger problem that can't be fixed with a clever pre-processor hack.</comment>


What Makes a Startup Successful – Bill Gross - <AUTHOR> http://vator.tv/news/2014-10-21-top-factors-behind-a-startups-success

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is the video of his presentation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q9iMPj7RGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q9iMPj7RGk)</comment>


Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html <comment><USER2> The data from this study needs to be combined with the data here [0] to get a full picture. This study shows that black boys, even without a father around, do better in communities where there are other fathers around who can act as role models. It also shows that black men and women have a lower marriage rate then their white counterparts, one big reason is due to the disproportionate incarceration rates of black males.

[0]: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missin...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing- black-men.html)</comment>


Pineapple – A standalone front end to IPython for Mac - <AUTHOR> http://nwhitehead.github.io/pineapple/ <comment><USER2> If you prefer a front end that doesn't bundle its own Python version, I made a simple one:

[https://github.com/dpinney/iPythonNotebookServer](https://github.com/dpinney/iPythonNotebookServer)

</comment><comment><USER3> IPython seems really uniquely Python, does a similar "live documentation" tool exist for other languages? I get that Python's usage/culture produces amazing tools like this, but is there anything unique about the language that stops it being ported to JS/Ruby/PHP/C# et al?

<comment><USER4> The IPython team are doing just that, and have renamed the IPython project "Jupyter", refactoring all the Python-specific code away into another repository and allowing it to be ported to many other languages: currently over 40 of them. For obvious reasons, interpreted languages are much easier than mandatorily pre-compiled ones... [http://jupyter.org](http://jupyter.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does it support any text editing features? Compared to anybody's favorite dedicated text editor (vim/emacs/sublime/atom/notepad++) editing in jupyther is quite tedious.

<comment><USER6> Why is that?

<comment><USER7> because there are no key bindings aimed at the text editing areas and I can't even drop into vimium because there are so many potential key binding conflicts.

<comment><USER8> Look under Help > Keyboard shortcuts. Not many but it helps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Check out Escherpad! It is a real-time collaborative iPython notebook client that just came out today. It somehow didn't make it to the front page at all.

Escherpad support Python, Node.js, and has setup tutorials that allows you to setup a npm packages locally.

[http://email@example.com/A-Collaborative- Real-...](http://firstname.lastname@example.com/A-Collaborative-Real-time- iPython-Jupyter-Client-for-Self-hosted-Jupyter-Servers-tcwtda0jqgbb)

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks like an absolutely terrific tool for people learning programming, especially those with numerical interests. I'd also be extremely excited to use it myself.

Are there plans for Pineapple to work with multiple language backends (eg; IJulia, IHaskell, IElixir, etc)? Especially with one-click installs for the languages, it would be such a wonderful way to play around with new languages without having to muck about with installations.

<comment><USER10> Since multiple language backends are exactly the plan for Jupyter, the project that this wraps in the GUI, I suspect that it will be doable! If we're lucky, we might even get official support someday :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very cool. I don't have a Mac to test it out on, but is there an easy way (integrated pip, conda) to install additional packages? IMO a graphical interface for finding and installing packages would add a huge amount of value. Also here's a link to the source repo: [https://github.com/nwhitehead/pineapple](https://github.com/nwhitehead/pineapple)

<comment><USER12> Yes, there is a way to install more packages. Inside the notebook you can do "import pineapple", then "%require NAME" which is just like doing "pip install NAME". There is also a provided pip shell script that should work but it's buried deep inside the Pineapple.app directory and not well tested.

These methods work for pure Python packages. If the package needs compiling then there are more caveats and it may or may not work depending on your system. I'm looking into including conda directly to increase compatibility with prebuilt binaries and make package management easier.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, terrific tool! The ability to just drop a dmg is invaluable when teaching.

Compatibility with more prebuilt binaries would be great indeed (tried to install psycopg2 but it doesn't work)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The GUI is nice, but it does not support an external Python installation. Meaning no conda, limted support for virualenvs etc.

</comment><comment><USER14> How does this compare to feature-wise to jupyter (other than being a native app)?

<comment><USER15> It seems that its just running the Jupyter notebook and loading it in a "WebView"

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nice! Would be good if it was on homebrew.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wish they didn't bundle a python installation with it. I'd rather just try the frontend without potentially messing up my python installation.

<comment><USER18> Given how IPython Notebook has been adopted, bundling is basically the only option. Its popularity is highest in the scientific-Python world, which has been Windows-focused because of the availability and ease-of-use of pre-built single-download stacks of Python plus all the relevant libraries (numpy, scipy, etc.).

Giving those folks the ability to use Macs too is a huge deal (and "just install things yourself" isn't really an option -- it's gotten better, but numpy and scipy have historically been the very devil to manually install on any platform other than Windows).

<comment><USER19> Anaconda/conda has made the scipy and numpy install process pretty pleasant on OSX. 'conda install scipy' just works the way you would expect.

[http://conda.pydata.org/miniconda.html](http://conda.pydata.org/miniconda.html)

<comment><USER7> I would even go a step further and say that probably more than 50% of scientists have a Mac laptop as their personal computer at this point. In DoD, I can't install _anything_ in my office computer. So if I hadn't had iPython up and running on my mac, there's no way I'd have gotten to the point (over years) of going to present a project to the HPC guys on Monday.

Very, very glad Anaconda exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Nested menus look to be having issues

</comment><comment><USER10> Hey vladsanchez: not sure if you'll see this, but your posts appear to have been shadowbanned for 1300 days... :(

(in reference to this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10235320](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10235320), and probably caused by this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3356399](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3356399))

<comment><USER21> Wow! I'm quite surprised by this. I must have ruffled someone with DemiGod status at HN. I'm a huge HN fan and mostly silent observant, and I seldom comment on anything. Notice how old the second comment is (1300+ days ~= over 3.5 yrs)! It's absurd, but I have no control about it. I'd be surprised if my this comment gets even posted. Thanks for the info scott.

<comment><USER10> Looks like your posts have been un-deaded! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hmm.. There is already another project with the same pronunciation. [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/PyNLPl/](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/PyNLPl/)

<comment><USER10> Dunno that anyone is going to get an NLP library confused with an OSX frontend to Jupyter... there's not a lot of overlap. :-)

(Admittedly, you could use PyNLPI within Pineapple, but again, distinct products)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Beautiful indeed!</comment>


How to deal with the everyday injustices of office life - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/c476526c-9185-11e8-b639-7680cedcc421 <comment><USER2> I got paywalled.

Edit: [https://outline.com/MFWtVc](https://outline.com/MFWtVc)</comment>


The Skills Leaders Need - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2019/03/30/the-skills-leaders-need <comment><AUTHOR> [https://outline.com/Sq9mpg](https://outline.com/Sq9mpg)</comment>


Microbes that eat and breathe electricity - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/node/223292/?cmpid=enews012215

<comment><AUTHOR> Still can't wrap my head around this.</comment>


Link in Apply HN is wrong - <AUTHOR> More link at bottom of https://news.ycombinator.com/applyhn is wrong.
https://news.ycombinator.com/apply?p=2
should be
https://news.ycombinator.com/applyhn?p=2 <comment><USER2> Definitely a bug. I just sent Dan an email to point him at this thread. (So there's no need for everybody else to fill his inbox as well.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks! Fixed.

</comment><comment><USER4> I believe you are correct! I was wondering about this too.</comment>