System76 brings Ubuntu to $699 laptop with Kaby Lake chips - <AUTHOR> http://www.cio.com/article/3136394/laptop-computers/system76-brings-ubuntu-to-699-laptop-with-kaby-lake-chips.html <comment><USER2> Really regret having bought a System76. I hardly moved it off my desk but it was completely broken after 2 years of use. Rj45 port broke (everyone at work had the same problem), battery life was poor and stopped charging altogether after a year, keyboard needed to be replaced, screen weren't blurry on the one side. These are very cheaply made laptops from Clevo. If you need a cheap laptop, then you're probably better off buying it directly from them. But way better just to avoid altogether.

A bunch of guys at work bought them and I don't think any of us would again.

<comment><USER3> I must agree with you. I bought from this company a while back and during this time their site said free shipping but deep within FAQ it said they don't include duty taxes.

So, when it crossed the border into Canada the laptop went up another $150. They weren't helpful at all and eventually I told them I was going to refuse the shipment.

They told me I was going to incur a 20% restocking fee, even if it was never received.

Looking back I shouldn't have said anything to them, allowed the shipment to go back and simply did a chargeback on failure of receiving the good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> System76, I wanted to like them! Then I bought one of their systems and discovered their dead pixel policy, firsthand!

Never wasting my money ever again on that garbage.

</comment><comment><USER5> I bought a Lemur in July, but returned it within 30 days. The battery did not last (not any CPU intensive tasks)

Battery in stand by mode (lid closed) would drain within 7-8 hours

In addition the quality felt cheap - screen, touch pad

</comment><comment><USER6> This gets rather pricey fast, but I just cannot get over how cheap and ugly it looks.

</comment><comment><USER7> Recently decided to work on Linux environment instead of OSX and looking for new alternative to Apple. But is there really anything worth looking at? That has decent screen, SSD, 8Gb RAM, good enough touchpad and really works with Linux?

<comment><USER8> I bought the Lenovo Ideapad 700 a little over a month ago, and Linux has been running beautifully on it. I needed was to add a couple of kernel parameters to be able to adjust the backlight, but I had to use similar parameters for my last laptop, so it wasn't a surprise to me. It came with a 128 GB NVMe SSD as well as a 1 TB HDD (which I switched out for a spare SSD I had), 16 GB of RAM, and a 6th-gen i7 quad-core processor. The graphics card it came was with an Optimus setup (i.e. using the discrete Nvidia card for acceleration only and the integrated Intel graphics for everything else), but given that I don't do anything GPU-intensive and I didn't feel like doing an advanced setup like PRIME, I just disabled the discrete GPU in the bios settings. I find the touchpad to be very good quality, and it works beautifully with the defaults provided by the synaptics driver (I tried to use the newer libinput driver, but I couldn't find a way to turn off middle-click paste, so I switched back to synaptics). The screen is only 1080p, so it might seem a little low-res if you're used to Retina displays, although I honestly don't care enough to find it very noticeable. The only complain I have is that the computer beeps kind of loudly when you press the function shortcut to open the boot menu (e.g. in order to boot from USB), but given how infrequently I need to do that, it's not a huge deal to me.

If you're interested, I got it through the link below for a pretty good price (the 'emailprice' querystring parameter seems to reduce the price by about $250, which is nice).

[http://www.adorama.com/le80ru00fsus.html?emailprice=t](http://www.adorama.com/le80ru00fsus.html?emailprice=t)

EDIT: If you have any specific questions about the laptop, I'd be happy to answer them! I'm extremely happy with it

<comment><USER9> I'd second the Ideapad. Not sure about recent versions, but I've had the Z510 for >2 years and it is great. I took out the CD drive and have an SSD + 1TB HD and it runs fedora with almost no issues (wifi drivers on some kernel upgrades). Only downside is the battery which was never great and after 2 years is down to about an hour.

Cost me about $700 2 years ago and other than the battery is perfect.

<comment><USER8> You're right, I completely forgot to mention the battery life! Mine is around 2-3 hours currently, and it will probably go down as it gets older. My last laptop had similar specs and similar battery life, so my current thinking is that most high-spec 15" laptops just have crappy battery life (although I've never owned a 15" Macbook, so if they have similar battery life to the 13" ones, they wouldn't fit this hypothesis). Of course, I have extremely few points of data for this, so if someone has had a different experience with a similar laptop, I'd love to hear about it!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some "must see" documentaries? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I loved Vernon, Florida. It's the first documentary I saw by Errol Morris, saw it completely by accident on TV & was so captivated I had to look up what it was and who directed it. I also loved Gates Of Heaven & The Unknown Known, but I think Vernon, Florida is still my favorite.

</comment><comment><USER3> Must see is a hard term to qualify, does this mean enjoyable documentaries or only the ones that educate. I really enjoyed The King of Kong last week. It's a documentary about the best arcade Donkey Kong players in the world and their battles.

</comment><comment><USER4> "When We Left Earth" It's a great documentary TV miniseries about american spaceflight. Must-watch for every space fan.

</comment><comment><USER5> King Corn. The Yes Men. The Corporation.

The Cove. Born Into Brothels. Inside Job.

</comment><comment><USER6> Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States

</comment><comment><USER7> Earthlings.

<comment><USER8> The most eye-opening documentary IMO</comment></comment>


Facebook Video Chat v. Google Hangouts: It's No Contest - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/facebook-video-chat-google-hangouts/ <comment><USER2> > _If you want to have a one on one video chat, and your friend list is hosted > at Facebook, the new Facebook video chat is a near perfect product._

Michael seems to be ignoring the fact that GTalk has better video chat than skype (and has for years).

<comment><USER3> Yes, but I also have quite a number of friends who do not use Gmail for one reason or another, so FB's video chat is a welcomed.

I also don't understand what's with all the hate towards FB because they are implementing something other services have.

<comment><USER4> I've been able to video chat with EVERY contact I have through a range of services (Gtalk/Gmail, Skype, MSN Messenger, iChat and even my Nokia N95) for years now, and I still don't feel the incentive to do it - so that's why I'm not too excited about the announcements from FB today.

Group video chat, however, is another beast. You can hangout with multiple friends together or do team meetings with your colleague from home. I can see that work.

So, for now, G+ has the advantage here. I'm still waiting for Skype to drop it's ridiculous pricing.

<comment><USER3> I definitely understand that, but I think that's only one use case. The case I am most familiar with is mine. I moved to Canada 4 years ago, right at the beginning of high school, and right at the beginning of FB going big mainstream. This meant that I met a lot of people since then, and since it was the period when FB was getting big, I would just friend people on Facebook. Before FB chat came out, if I needed to chat with them afterwards, I would get their email from their profile, or if it wasn't listed I'd ask around. When Chat came out, I stopped doing that and I would just chat with the people I didn't have on MSN/Gtalk on FB. I'm sure there's tons of people in the same/similar situation that I had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm wondering if it's the Skype technology itself has a problem. I haven't looked into it too extensively, but through experience, group calls (without video) in Skype tend to be choppy, and filled with problems (people dropping off, etc).

In comparison, I've paid for a 200 slot Ventrilo server for the last 3 years. While this is centralized, it's on a shared server, and I doubt the majority of NA/Euro connections wouldn't rival at least a 20-slot Ventrilo server in terms of hardware and bandwidth. Ventrilo GSM 6.1 44khz codex transmits _amazing_ quality, regardless of whether I'm speaking to 1 other person, or 199 other people.

Does anyone actually know the reason for this?

<comment><USER6> Skype one-to-one is peer-to-peer. Your video data goes straight to the other person.

Skype group video chat is run through their servers. The aggregate the video sources on their side and send those back out to each participant. So, there's an inherent cost of that much data (n*(n-1), I believe) and the server itself that Skype needs to pay for.

Audio group chat is easier because the resulting audio streams can be overlaid on top of each other for everyone in the same group. So, if 3 people are talking in a 10 person chat, it's 3 inbound streams and just 10 outbound streams, not 30 outbound. Video can't be overlaid like that (at least not without it looking weird :P)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The conclusion is that there is no overlap? To paraphrase "A Princess Bride":

You keep saying "It's No Contest." I don't think it means what you think it means.

</comment><comment><USER8> But once again, all my friends who I'd ever want to video chat have Facebook, and I still can't get my + invite to work. For a majority of users, Facebook will have done it first, even if + really did.

</comment><comment><USER9> If there is no group chat on FB then I think they are loosing by a point. People don't use Skype's because it is not free while for example iChat allows you to do video chat for free (for limited number of people). Now Google will allow it for free, and my expectation is that people will start using it. This may be one big plus for Google+, and a way for them to attract more people.

</comment><comment><USER10> With Facebook and Google racing to beat each others free products, could this mean Microsoft may have just wasted $8.5 billion?

This is a real question, I don't really use video chat much at all.

edit: Or at least massively devalue their investment.

<comment><USER11> Giggles's just angry about losing the Nortel patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The pairing between Microsoft and Facebook is getting tighter.

<comment><USER13> Microsoft - the dominant tech behemoth who everyone loves to hate & Facebook - the worlds current social network crack that everyone hates to love.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So...how long has Facebook been withholding video chat from their users? Sad and sorry. Thank you Google for giving everyone a superior product. Keep it up!

<comment><USER15> Not sure why that's a fair assumption. I'd have an easier time believing that they've been working on this and rushed it out the door because of Google+, but even that's just conjecture. You don't drum up a partnership and integration like this in two or three weeks.</comment></comment>


Powerset: Advanced Modelling Spreadsheets to answer "What would happen if we actually launched?" - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/14/powerset-releases-growth-spreadsheet-models/ <comment><AUTHOR> It looks like they're so ready to be the next Google they're just going to skip right past hard work and reality. Why have actual growth charts that might be depressing, when you can just make up your own and be happy?

They've put more effort into their modeling tool than some startups put into their successful products. If they were an agile little startup it might be really smart to turn the company into a Growth Forecasting service.

<comment><USER2> I think they've read Cryptonomicon one too many times.

<http://ask.metafilter.com/47531/What-would-be-a-good-way-to-calculate- fuckyou-money>

 _This is an allusion to a Randy/Avi conversation of two years ago wherein Avi actually calculated a specific numerical value for "fuck-you money." It was not a fixed constant, however, but rather a cell in a spreadsheet linked to any number of continually fluctuating economic indicators. Sometimes when Avi is working at his computer he will leave the spreadsheet running in a tiny window in the corner so that he can see the current value of "fuck-you money" at a glance._

I would say it's only depressing if you don't plan on working hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Recipe for selling your company to google:

1) Hire a bunch of very smart people. Now go let them play ping pong and stuff.

2) Pay a graphic designer to make screenshots of a prototype that solves a particularly difficult problem (i.e. Natural language search perhaps?)

3) Egg Google on with a spreadsheet predicting how much market you will take from them

4) Wait for the phone call

Seriously, Google has to be weighing the odds right now - would it be better to buy the tech before it launches, wait and be perceived as the evil villain who swoops in and buys a superior technology?

</comment><comment><USER4> Funny,

I've been thinking about a startup that would hold several gigs of data per user (the first set of data would live on S3.)

First thing I did was write a simple monte-carlo code to determine the average and +- 1\sigma cost per user. Proud of myself, I showed my analysis to some business types who told me I was wasting my time when I should be building a product instead :)

Nevertheless, I believe the exercise was useful. I now have a fairly clear picture of how much it directly costs to serve a user.

</comment><comment><USER5> I sorta care about the spreadsheet modeling, but I'm really interested in the Flash frontend to the spreadsheet, which would really come in handy at my day job...</comment>


Facelette: On TechCrunch in Three Hours and $0 - <AUTHOR> http://zachholman.com/2010/10/facelette-on-techcrunch-in-three-hours-and-zero-dollars/

<comment><USER2> I like this quote best -

 _I've also come to loathe this mentality, at times. It's the same mentality where someone whips up a two-page website and asks people to "review their startup!" I think startup is a phrase that's been abused. You've made a project, or a mashup, or a hack, not a startup.

And that's cool! Embrace that. More people need to do stupid shit. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Don't do it to make money. Don't even do it to learn hip new technology X. Do it for the sake of doing something stupid_

<comment><USER3> "I think startup is a phrase that's been abused. You've made a project, or a mashup, or a hack, not a startup" brings up a good point. at what point can we separate the real startups from the hacks?

in general, the best startups are not started because of money. you'll lose track of the essence of what you're doing as money clouds your perspective.

as guy kawasaki likes to say, "if you create meaning, you'll often create money"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not to take away from Facelette, but for others who want to be on TechCrunch: make something with any new Apple product this week and the next.

The first guy who makes a Mac Book Air case-mod WILL be on TC.

Mark my words.

</comment><comment><USER5> _I've also come to loathe this mentality, at times. It's the same mentality where someone whips up a two-page website and asks people to "review their startup!" I think startup is a phrase that's been abused. You've made a project, or a mashup, or a hack, not a startup._

I think this is so true. A startup seems to imply that it will at least in theory become a business at some point. I bet that Facebook didn't even call itsself a "web startup" when it started out at Harvard until it started to spread and raised some real money.

To call every little project that someone hacks together in a weekend a startup is a misnomer, similar to the tendency for founders to give themselves C-Level titles in their startup companies which consist of nothing more than a prototye and a pitch, rather than just calling themselves 'founders'.

<comment><USER6> Maybe we need a new word in the vocabulary for this employment category.

It's hard to explain to people who ask me, "What do you do?" Well, I don't have a job exactly. I quit that in order to work full-time on something that I hope will make money someday. There is no legally incorporated business... yet. So it's not really a startup, but it's not what you think of as unemployment either. If I tell people, "I'm doing a tech startup," they go, "Oh! That's cool." And I count that as a successful social encounter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _I happened to come upon a novel idea_

A derivative idea. Not that this takes away anything from the service. Most ideas and successful implementations aren't of the kind we've never seen before.

<comment><USER8> Since we're being pedantic...

What the human race perceives as creativity is largely mashup of what others have done in a new way. Mozart? Derivative of music played by instruments. Van Gogh? Derivative of people painting on canvases.

Once you start being too picky about _what_ an idea is, you start to lose sight of what makes the idea awesome or why creation is so much fun in the first place.

Highly relevant to this: <http://www.everythingisaremix.info/>

<comment><USER9> Surely we can draw a distinction between chatroulette and facelette in terms of originality.

<comment><USER10> Everything has degrees of originality. Google didn't invent the search engine but they came up with a great way to monetise it (oh and some algorithm too).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _We're in the most ridiculous industry on earth. You can whip something up in a few hours and before you know it, people around the world will be using it._

Oh how I love this field! Its exhilarating!

</comment><comment><USER12> The awesome thing about holman, is that he did this app just for fun and the love of "the hack". In my opinion he will gain much more than a chunk of ad revenue. A very well-respected reputation. This to me seems much more valuable than even $5k ad revenue. I don't feel like we would be talking about him near as much if facelette.com was some spammy looking "made for adwords" app.

When you go to the site it is just so pure and honest, it doesn't make you question what you are doing, or who is doing what with your information.

<comment><USER13> The core of it is 11 lines of code. The speed of shipping apps like this, the acceleration, is what impresses me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's funny that the HN crowd talked about something like this 4 months ago, and it took holman just a few hours to ship. Only goes to show that ideas are cheap :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472597>

<comment><USER15> This shows that not only are ideas cheap, implementation is now cheap too. Just monetization left...

<comment><USER16> Only efforts to self-train and be competent to carry out the implementation are not so cheap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Don't be afraid to build things for the sake of building them"

Completely agree here. Plus, it's only after you actually build out an idea that it really has any transferable value. There are definitely going to be ideas you have that seem a little off or even stupid, but don't let that stop you. Otherwise we would live in a pretty dull world of gray color and political correctness.

Push yourself a little. Always Be building.

</comment><comment><USER18> What you are witnessing is the predictions of Alvin Toffler comming about. From WP,

<quote>The gap between producer and consumer is bridged by technology using a so called configuration system. "Prosumers" can fill their own needs (see open source, assembly kit, freelance work). This was the notion that new technologies are enabling the radical fusion of the producer and consumer into the prosumer. In some cases prosuming entails a "third job" where the corporation "outsources" its labor not to other countries, but to the unpaid consumer, such as when we do our own banking through an ATM instead of a teller that the bank must employ, or trace our own postal packages on the internet instead of relying on a paid clerk.</quote>

As more internet users become Prosumers, the idea of a 'startup' becomes trite. Instead, everyone is a business or two on their own.

</comment><comment><USER19> Cool how he recommended iWantMyName.com Has anyone else used it?

Have been looking for a good domain registrar to move my domains from GoDaddy for a while.

<comment><USER20> I totally agree with you. I started a new thread here asking this question. I dislike their marketing among other things. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1817537>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have often thought many of the review my startup postings are not startups but projects. I am happy that someone was brave enough to write this.

</comment><comment><USER22> I tried it on my mbp with facetime beta, connected with couple of people in spain, US, it was fun initially. we gave small intros, asked where they were from etc

but the later group was not interested even to talk, they wanted chatroulette style, you would see empty walls, close up eyes and nose, they all disconnected under 5 seconds probably they wanted a girl on their screen

</comment><comment><USER23> So where's the code? I don't see it on GitHub?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, why not.

<http://github.com/holman/facelette>

<comment><USER23> Thanks... although I'm not really sure how this code does facelette :-)

I really should do a more non-trivial RoR project, so I can more easily read other peoples RoR code.

<comment><USER24> The real meat of it appears to be based around the new (to me, anyway) facetime:// protocol, which I'm assuming FaceTime.app handles. Take a look at the sessions/queue view for more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup. That's basically the whole reason behind why I made it, once I saw facetime://. Otherwise everything else would be unbearably cumbersome. With that snippet of knowledge, anyone could make a clone (and I encourage it!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How's chatroulette doing anyway? They were the media darling just a few months ago. Nice work whipping up this project.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why did the registrar give you a refund?

<comment><AUTHOR> They were just happy to support a new project like this.

<comment><USER26> Cool, that's awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> my facelette style stupid project project for the week: catmapper.com

<comment><USER28> Aww, I was totally expecting something a la padmapper.com but with cats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> what happens if I submit someone else's phone number?

<comment><USER30> Nothing. I submitted "foobar" and was then privvy to an endless stream of email addresses. A spammer's dream :)

<comment><AUTHOR> By "endless", you mean the 5-6 concurrent users likely on at the same time as you. Also, there's an _extremely_ high chance that all the email addresses are throwaway accounts. It's not nearly as big of a deal as many have mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Congrats.

</comment><comment><USER32> Stop and consider this for a second then move on with your day:

Does this speak of Facelette's product quality or TechCrunch's editorial quality?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it speaks to the fact that today's technology lets you quickly make products that people want to talk about. I don't think it's necessarily a condemnation of TechCrunch or that Facelette is impressive (the latter of which is definitely untrue).

<comment><USER33> Is it that we really want to talk about it or that the TC/Valley echo-chamber makes us feel like we want to talk about it?</comment></comment></comment>


New Pingdom API enters public beta - <AUTHOR> http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/03/22/new-pingdom-api-enters-public-beta/

<comment><USER2> I wrote a Python lib for this: <https://github.com/EA2D/pingdom-python>

It just supports checks for now, but the framework is there for other resources to be quickly added.

<comment><USER3> So are you looking for help on extending it?

<comment><USER2> It does what I need for now, but I certainly wouldn't turn down a pull request! I'm happy to answer questions or help if someone wants to contribute.</comment></comment></comment>


Colombia fines Uber more than $629k for obstructing regulatory visit - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-colombia/colombia-fines-uber-more-than-629000-for-obstructing-regulatory-visit-idUSKCN1V21RO <comment><USER2> Although most people will read this and think, oh more shenanigans from UBER, the reality is (and as a Colombian I know), that the government has failed for years to regulate this industry, which is regarded by all consumers as incredibly positive, and continuously has fought against this platforms in an effort to keep the taxi mafia content.

Yet, taxis in Colombia are incredibly dangerous. As a passenger you are exposed to express kidnappings, drivers that are aggressive, adultered fares systems and drive unsafely in cars that don't meet any security guidelines (a large number of passengers have died on rear-collisions given that the most common Bogota taxi has no rear-reinforcement). For decades the taxi mafia's have provided an unsafe & horrible service, when Uber & other platforms arrived, users flocked, yet by means of aggressive protests where they pretty much block the city, the taxi's have forced some parts of the government to try to curve Uber.

Uber however has fought to continue providing the service that the consumers demand, and has otherwise tried to complied with every law. This fine comes from the industry of commerce regulators, who have tried to convince the technology ministry to shut Uber down, with them refusing. I hope Uber continues to operate in Colombia and use their legal means to fight this regulators who are not operating from a consumer benefit standpoint, but rather a political fight to protect a mafia that needs to be dismantled.

<comment><USER3> The one thing that I found positive about Colombian taxis is that they are very cheap. In this regard, I don't see how Uber could compete.

On the other hand, the cars are falling to bits and the drivers are rather aggressive (although it seemed to me that drivers were careless in general).

<comment><USER4> Uber rides are incredibly cheap in Colombia, too. A 20 minute uberX ride across Medellin probably costs around $4.

<comment><USER5> How do they pay for gas? Is it subsidized or something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I was in Colombia every time I took an Uber the driver asked me to sit in the front seat. I thought it was a bit odd but figured it was a local thing. It wasn't until my way to the airport that my last Uber driver told me the app was illegal in the country so they ask passengers to sit up front to look like they're just driving a friend.

It really ticked me off that Uber let me open the app and order a car, knowing full well I would be breaking the law, and gave me no warning or indication of the risk I would be taking whatsoever. As a young woman with only the most basic of Spanish skills traveling alone, breaking Colombian law isn't a risk I would have been willing to take.

<comment><USER7> I don't believe there are laws against taking it in Colombia. The law seems to be against driving one and the consequence for the driver is getting the car confiscated and having to pay a fine and losing their license if caught multiple times. Uber is liable for providing the platform for this unauthorized service.

Uber isn't the only black market ride-hailing app that's been competing at scale in Colombia either. There's also Didi Chuxing and some others. However, I don't understand how the legal department in a company like Uber permits such a brazen disregard of local laws. Yes, this is a case of regulatory capture and there is hardly any subtlety in the way the Transportation Minister has worked to maintain a monopoly on legal taxi services for Taxis Libres, but I don't understand how you just ignore the fact that your service in entire countries is illegal when you are a large multinational publicly traded company.

<comment><USER8> US tech firms are often happy to ignore local laws because they kinda have the backing of the US government, and they also have the option of just withdrawing from the country.

For example, most US firms abroad give their receptionists a button to press when a police raid is happening. Pressing the button triggers all computers to lock and credentials of all local employees to be disabled, and someone from the US is needed to unlock them. The whole thing is to prevent local police raids getting anything except whatever legal decides they can have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The country has not specifically regulated transport services like Uber, but > has said it will suspend for 25 years the licenses of drivers caught working > for the platform.

> The fine from the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce says Uber urges > employees not to give information to regulators and to block access to > company computers.

Call me crazy, but I wonder if they were trying to get a list of drivers, for the purposes of pulling licenses.

<comment><USER10> Probably just as easy to have a team in Colombia (edit: typo corrected) request Uber rides and have regulators pull licenses on the spot of whomever shows up.

<comment><USER11> They did that in Madison WI when Uber first showed up. The police would call an Uber, complete a trip, and issue them a citation when the trip was complete.

<comment><USER12> Is that related to the software that detected whether a user worked for a government agency?

<comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyball)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > The country has not specifically regulated transport services like Uber, but > has said it will suspend for 25 years the licenses of drivers caught working > for the platform.

I really wish things defaulted to "legal if not specifically prohibited", not "illegal unless specifically allowed" like this implies. (probably just a case of overly broad taxi legislation, though)

<comment><USER14> Why?

<comment><USER15> Because doing something new shouldn't be illegal by default.

<comment><USER16> _stares at camera in zombie-apocalypse virus_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> for those outside Colombia: there are periodic taxi strikes, some severe and lasting for hours (blocking important highways that everyone uses etc.), so for those wondering about the small fine or whatever, it could just be to placate taxi drivers in order reduce the frequency of striking across the country

</comment><comment><USER18> I've always wondered in situations like this: Is this a fine uber will actually pay? Does the US have any treaties with Colombia which put teeth in this fine inside US jurisdiction? Or would they pay it simply out of a desire to, possibly, one day, operate legally in the country and not want to start out on the wrong foot?

And more specifically, the three people who were fined directly; are they really going to get out their checkbooks (or would Uber just cover it)?

I've always wondered this; you hear about these multi-billion dollar fines Google/Facebook get from the EU, and obviously they want to continue doing legal business there, plus the EU is a great friend of the US, so they pay them. But with smaller countries that are, traditionally, not on a great political footing with the first world, what do businesses do? Especially in this case where they are operating illegally anyway? Pay up? Throw the letter in the trash and laugh over an $800 bottle of bourbon like a supervillain?

</comment><comment><USER19> > The fine also cites three Uber staffers by name, individually fining them > between $1,469 and $7,344.

Those numbers are so specific that it seems like they're the actual fines. At that point why even omit the third one?

<comment><USER20> In COP (Colombian Pesos) those are roughly $5,000,000COP and $25,000,000COP, so it makes more sense when in its original currencies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So, Colombia fines Uber <nothing>.

<comment><USER22> Exactly. Uber lost $5.24bn last quarter. With this new fine that loss would have been ... $5.24bn because I'm sure that's rounded anyway.

<comment><USER23> Yup. Around 15 minutes' worth of losses.

<comment><USER24> Bet they wont pay it tho.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 629k? A rounding error in their tax report</comment>


Oracle doesn't want to deal with easy-to-fix Java vulnerability till Feb 13 - <AUTHOR> http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Oct/155

<comment><USER2> Author doesn't seem to have any clue as to how software gets delivered. Oracle obviously needs to perform regression testing. The fact that this bug affects multiple versions, means the testing effort is enormous.

Author seems ignorant to think it's a matter of editing the fix and doing a build. BTW, Integration tests != regression tests.

I see nothing wrong with Oracle's decision. You have to release something at some point. There will always be 'one more bug/feature' in the wings, and if you let the author have his way, nothing would ever get delivered.</comment>


Music to Listen to While Coding Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://zach-adams.com/2015/01/music-listen-coding-part-2/

<comment><USER2> Usually I don't actually listen to music. I found letting myself focus without anything taking my focus away actually makes me more productive. I am a heavy rap/hiphop listener so for me it was a major distraction.

I have nothing against music with no vocals though and have found plenty of happiness from Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. It's a timeless piece of art. A more contemporary artist whose music doesn't take anything away whilst coding would be The Weeknd for me.</comment>


Beijing HN Meetup 9/10 - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys,<p>Since I'm back in Beijing for the next few weeks I figured I'd organize another Beijing HN meetup.  The last one was really excellent (~40 people showed up, lots of interesting projects being discussed) so if you are around you should definitely attend! <comment><AUTHOR> The meetup will start at 8:30PM, directions in this post

Format will be the same as last time (so, informal hangout) but we will have a projector for anyone interested in showing off interesting projects. If you plan to attend, please RSVP by replying to this email! Of course please feel free to bring as many friends as you like.

For those of you who forgot, here are directions to Wainwain:

Address: Room 3512, Buillding A, SOHO New Town, 88 Jianguo Lu; Wainwain's phone: 10-8589-4383

-If you're coming by taxi, just tell the driver "SOHO现代城" or "大望路地铁站" (soho xiandaicheng / dawanglu ditie zhan)

-If you're coming from the DaWangLu subway station: Take the B exit, make a right upon exiting and walk to the corner, make another right at the first entrance (you're essentially just walking around the back of the same building the subway exit is in.) Go in the first building, take the elevator to the 35th floor, WainWain is on the northwest corner of the bldg.

If you have any questions, get in touch at firstname.lastname@example.com :)</comment>


Canva Clone in Javascript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/atashbahar/ecardcanvas <comment><USER2> Not exactly a Canva clone. :-) But a decent start to a eCard app.

I've done some similar work at [https://www.easele.com/](https://www.easele.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Glad to see there is an opensource photo editor based on Javascript. Projects like this are few and far between. Would be really cool to see more open source projects like this.</comment>


Ask HN: Second order effects of Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> What do you think the down stream impacts could be?<p>E.g. Economic recession, central
banks run out of ideas to stimulate economy, virus mutates and becomes worse/better, greater or worse global communication, healthcare fails in some regions, supply chain fails, regulatory intervention on food pricing, mass working from home.... <comment><USER2> Many many SMBs close</comment>


AWS Becomes "A-Cloud", an Independent Entity (PR/FAQ by Tim Bray) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/timbray/a-cloud-prfaq <comment><USER2> This really should be presented with a disclaimer that this is a work of fiction. Even the author's profile suggests he is working " _on AWS Messaging_ " rather than " _with_ " it.

The fact that it is polished and well thought out makes it even more misleading.</comment>


Top 6 web frameworks for Go as of 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.usejournal.com/top-6-web-frameworks-for-go-as-of-2017-23270e059c4b <comment><AUTHOR> I posted this because I'm starting to learn Go to do my web projects with, and wanted to see what people thought of the authors comparison charts, which overwhelmingly favor Iris.

I'm predominantly a Swift developer, but have used Node.js/Javascript for building web applications. Go seems like the better fit for me, so trying to figure out a good toolkit to start with</comment>


Ask HN: How do you build software for government agencies? - <AUTHOR>

Hello fellow HNer's!
I'm a software guy of some skill with a history of building systems at software startups and more recently non-profits. I would like to try my hand and building things for local and/or state organizations (police departments, constituent services, etc).
The biggest problem I think I have, however, is that I'm uncertain who I should be talking to. Should I be aiming for decision makers in such orgs? Will these people be the ones actually using such software? Is it even possible to get into the government sector without a pre-existing network of contacts?
Information and advice would be much appreciated. <comment><USER2> If you just want to contract with them, it is easy and you are just a contractor. If you want to be a vendor then below is my experience & opinion.

We have been successful in breaking into the EMS/Fire and more limited in Law, but it took a long time and also I do have contacts in the industries.

As MalcolmDiggs already pointed out, most times these deals are awarded to the lowest bidder and take time, 6-12 month sales cycles are not abnormal, 3 months is considered quick. Additionally the RFP is usually a multistage process, not just submitting a quote and response. Many times you have to appear at minimum to one Q&A session, plus submit your RFP and prove your bonafides. Depending on the agency as well, if the value exceeds $5k or $10k (or whatever their threshold is) then you will have to be bonded, prove you carry all the proper insurance for the state, blah blah blah.

Where this can get a little easier is if you have developed a product that one of the agencies wants to acquire then it is usually a longer sales cycle but you get out of the RFP process a lot of times. They will sole source things, or many times write the RFP/RFQ so specialized that only one product fits it.

In general though, once you get 1-2 of these deals they are easier to get, because there is a certain amount of the safety in the fact you have been trusted before so the next time it gets easier.

Our last Response to an RFP took us the better part of 30 days and 2 people (over 3 months) to properly write, assemble, document, respond to Q&A and get everything sent in. Plus we had to provide financials, resumes of principles, bond, proof of all relevant insurances etc. Luckily since we have done these before a lot of that is just refreshing documents but it still takes time to make sure it is all in order. One we responded to claimed to have rejected our proposal because we put two sections out of order in our response, a stupid mistake that didn't materially change anything, but it wasn't in the specific stapled order they required.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is all awesome feedback, thanks!

Follow up question: what is it like building products for acquisition by such organizations? Is this anything like building B2B or B2C enterprise software? What common requirements do orgs put on software or services they want to acquire?

<comment><USER2> Your welcome.

From our experience building products is much like building for enterprise companies. The sales cycle is still longer than private businesses but it is better than trying to win custom work through RFP's usually.

They will still require some additional vetting usually, like we have had to provide financials a couple of times for larger product sales > $25k so that the County could feel good that we were a solid company and not going out of business the next week. But we even got a deal where we had horrid financials (in the red), we just explained we were still investing in product development etc. Sometimes I think it is more about them checking boxes than someone really evaluating all the points.

It is also not uncommon for them to ask for the software (even a SaaS) to be put into source code escrow so that upon any insolvency (or other triggers) they get a copy of the code. And while you have to arrange it, they all pay for it and pay for the extra time it takes you to manage that process so it isn't a big deal.

Lastly, pricing is really key on these types of products and services. If you can get within credit card purchasing limits for a product or service then the approval process is just getting someone with the card to say yes. For example, say you have a service for $39 a month, that is well within the purchasing card limits monthly for most small County departments. One time purchases are generally set around 249, 499, 999, 2499 because you will find the managers will have a purchase authority up to $250, $500 etc, where it doesn't require any review. This is really the key on how to sell into them without having to be vetted or go through an RFP etc.

Hopefully that helps you some, good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You're entering the realm of RFPs. Government agencies issue Request For Proposals when they need something tech-related done, you prepare a fairly hefty proposal and send it in. Then you wait and wait and hopefully hear something at some point.

It's potentially lucrative but it's a long sales cycle and those kinds of contracts tend to be lowest-bidder kind of things (so your opportunity to turn a profit is based on your ability to outsource the work very cheaply).

Check online for RFP listings services to get a taste of what that system is like.

<comment><USER4> Also, I don't know how it's done in the U.S., but here (Uruguay), state agencies prioritize companies that have done work for the state in the past, so the only way to enter the "system" is to underbid on a low-budget project and hope to win, then do well and have a good reference under your belt (or pay a bribe, but let's not get into that).

And RFP equivalents are a pain to write, it's usually a valuable skill to have people who have done it in the past.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing!

What is it like competing for such RFPs? Sounds like it's not for the faint of heart. Have you managed to make a pleasant/sustainable career out of this sort of work?

<comment><USER5> Competing is a pain in the ass, since at the end of the day lowest bidder basically always wins. So it really ends up a race to the bottom and I've seen more than one contract to go bidders offering to do projects basically at a loss.

There is another way however. Many places have a lower limit, where projects under that don't have to go out for bids. Find out what that limit is and keep your project under that limit. This does require you to get to know people in decision making positions, developing an understanding of what problems they face and sell proposals directly to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something to keep in mind when dealing with goverment agencies: _they don 't care about saving money the way a business would_. This was an eye opener for me when I discovered this.

If you told a business that your product would save them $50K a year they would love it.

If your product saves a government agency $50K this year, they may have their budget reduced by $50K next year as a result. Any money you save them doesn't necessarily help _them_ (the agency) in the same way it would for a business.</comment>


Ask HN: Does your prospects ask about your freelance portfolio? - <AUTHOR>

How often do you get clients or prospects looking through your portfolio ask for references about particular projects?
What if some of the projects you did while you were hired as a developer years ago at a company, could you put include it in your portfolio?
Should you only have the ones where you were the full stack developer and had created the project start to finish? <comment><USER2> "Do"</comment>


UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2016/10/18/uk-government-proposes-issuing.html <comment><USER2> > "all the porn sites operating in Britain"

So... only .co.uk, or full 3/4 of the internet, including Tumblr?

This is, of course, is a question for what counts as "operating in Britain". A site that is running on servers in Britain? A site that is owned by a British company? A site that happens to be available on the greater internet?

Gosh, countries and borders became relics when the internet got spread wide enough.

<comment><USER3> In this case, every site they can identify.

Broadly, UK law is restricted to UK companies for material which is illegal to _post_. So libelous sites hosted outside the country aren't censored, because the libel isn't 'located' in the UK (yes, this is a tortured analysis).

But the UK has more recently established a China-style firewall that restricts access to sites hosted anywhere, based on where you _view_ from. Originally, it was implemented to block access to torrent sites. And of course, at the time everyone swore "it's just the torrent sites, there will never be a slippery slope!"

But now it would age-gate pornography viewed from any UK IP address. Well, the content they can _find_ anyway - they'll have to either run a blacklist (catching only large, paid sites) or a blocking filter with a whitelist (blocking all kinds of legitimate content - usually this ends up blocking sexual health sites). And yes, Tumblr is hopeless, there's really no way to know what a given page will have on it.

So it's the authoritarian, cut-off-access bit, but it still won't work.

<comment><USER4> Point of fact: the UK's internet filter was originally implemented about a decade ago, to block child pornography. And (to borrow your turn of phrase) at the time, everyone swore "it's just the child pornography, there will never be a slippery slope!"

... then, as of a couple of years ago, they started using it to block torrent sites. So it goes.

<comment><USER5> It's really sad to see a country famous for its liberal traditions, sleepwalk back into the sort of draconian censorship that we thought was a relic from darker times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Government's entitlement over human life is staggering. It's patently obvious they are going to use the data to shame, blackmail and accuse dissidents at will. ' _Think of the children_ ' is not going to suffice.

If past behaviour is any predictor of future behaviour, your data is going to be exploited by private citizens as well. What could go wrong?

 _«The case exposed inadequate safeguards against abuse, including warnings to staff not to use the databases created to house these vast collections of data to search for and /or access information 'about other members of staff, neighbours, friends, acquaintances, family members and public figures'. Internal oversight failed, with highly sensitive databases treated like Facebook to check on birthdays, and very worryingly on family members for 'personal reasons'.»_ – [https://medium.com/privacy-international/press- release-new-c...](https://medium.com/privacy-international/press-release-new- court-judgment-finds-uk-surveillance-agencies-collected- everyones-e3f037a0b901#.bh5cibx3u)

</comment><comment><USER7> <dons flameproof suit>

Something has to be done. It's not just about porn or violence of NSFL etc... but there is a serious problem on the internet, that is always lambasted with the "Won't somebody think of the children" memes.

When society has reached a point that anybody with internet access can, simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life, without any safeguards in place, there is something wrong.

Whilst there are privacy concerns regarding any ID situation, nobody seems to be trying to solve the problem in other ways, short of limiting internet access (which causes other outcries).

I'm all for a better solution, but nobody seems to be proposing one.

(For the moment, as a parent, my young daughter doesn't get any unaccompanied internet access - I am thinking of my child)

How _do_ we solve this problem ?

Edit: It's interesting to note diminishing points for a post that asks how to solve a problem. Obviously some people feel very strongly that even questioning the situation is wrong.

<comment><USER8> > simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery

Is that a real problem though? You did quote the accidentally after all. Both kids and adults have access to things they seek - whether that's going to be internet, magazine brought to school, or some other means. If they don't seek such content, they won't see much more than what's already available to everyone in the daily mail. I think the internet just made people aware of what's already been going on.

My questions would be "does porn prohibition create more good than the very likely government/school punishment for kids who will seek it regardless". (Once it's tracked and officially acted on, it's going to be a sex offender case like sexting became, right?)

(Also from my experience, things other kids did/said at school was likely more damaging and plain evil than anything I've seen on the internet so far. Kids have unrestricted imagination and are brutal. And I get the impression lots of parents forget what really happened.)

If you want to block porn at home, there are thousands of solutions for that. And they do work pretty well. If you're thinking of a global solution, I think it's just too dangerous.

<comment><USER9> > Is that a real problem though?

Yes. I search for children's content on Youtube. Youtube returns children's content. We click to play, and I get a pre-roll ad for a horror film, or alcohol, or gambling.

An iOS app advertises itself as suitable for ages 4+. It contains ads. Those ads are sometimes for gambling, or alcohol services. I'd say that app isn't suitable for children, and the uk regulator is looking at that.

<comment><USER10> Wait, but is that related to the proposal? Not my native language and all, but I thought this is basically age-gating .. porn sites.

If you have a random app (unrelated, not a porn site) showing ads (unrelated unless a porn site) of alcohol services (not sure what that is, but .. unrelated/not porn), how does this apply?

How would you age-gate ads? Wouldn't that require a new X-KID-PRESENT: 1 http header so that each and every ad network can suppress ~questionable~ content? In fact: That's a great thought experiment: Is a site that serves ads that might contain 'adult' ads at times a porn site according to the British government and would need to verify that the visitor is of age?

<comment><USER9> > How would you age-gate ads?

They currently are age-gated. The age gating clearly isn't working. Advertisers in the UK are not allowed to target children with alcohol or gambling ads.

I don't care how it happens, but showing alcohol ads to children in apps for children because the parent has a credit card and owns the phone is sub- optimal.

<comment><USER10> Maybe, yeah. But is it neglect on the part of the developer (What are the consequences? You installed the app, no?), on the part of the parent not supervising (I'm kinda defending this position in this thread) or a reason to fix this with a generic law?

I'm not trying to be difficult, I really think that it's the parents' responsibility. And if ads are considered harmful in your household, don't use ad based apps / use an ad blocker? That should solve the problem on a local level.

Edit: It just came to my mind that ad supported apps are often/usually free.. Is that the case here? Because I seriously dislike the idea of blaming a developer of a free application for different ideas about morality or a bad choice ('copy/paste some ad integration code' \- stupidity vs malice?) in implementing a way to make some money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not sure of the (technical) feasibility of this, but I have some social observations.

It seems the motivating factor, ostensibly, is to protect children. However, the primary concern of those who don't like this seems to be with leaks and possible ensuing shaming. So, if the stigma attached to watching (non illegal) porn is done away with, the fear of leak becomes irrelevant. If protecting children is paramount then society must do away with silly witch hunts and being so anal (no pun intended).

While we are at it, why restrict to porn and why not extend to all things abusive to kids, including violence, racism, stupid stunts and pranks etc referenced by many other posters? Seems porn gets targeted almost always! imagine if porn were a person in the west, they would have sued the heck out of everyone.

<comment><USER12> The telecoms already have that type of data that could be leaked to an extent. In 2013 British Telecom enabled porn filtering [1] that was on by default, so when setting up your account you'd have to opt out.

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet- security/1052...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet- security/10520537/BT-forces-porn-filter-choice.html)

<comment><USER2> This was present on mobile networks for a long while. The honest and real reason I had it disabled was when it listed the ThinkPad knowledge collector [http://thinkwiki.org/](http://thinkwiki.org/) as adult site... ( I'm not joking. ) - this is probably also a prime example lists like this are complete and utter jokes.

<comment><USER13> But do they have a record of the reason you disabled it or did they just change a flag and lump you in with everyone else?

A bit more paranoid. If they do this tracking for porn, maybe in the future they add other types of content they want to track. I know it sounds silly but it's not like the data is going to go away and likely will only ever increase the amount of tracking. Sadly I know many people who see no issue with this.

<comment><USER2> It's not silly and it's not paranoid, the Great Firewall of the UK is a troublesome thing already. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kingdom)

At that time, I was probably listed as requested access to mature content; reasons were not required but a few years ago they were already asking for identification, eg. passports.

What's frightening is how silent everyone is about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> The more I think about it the more I'm starting to think that this is how you make an army of generic hackers. Want $X? Learn to circumvent the system!

</comment><comment><USER14> The puritans are back. Here is a better idea, implement a vote-id so responsible adults can dismiss such inane ideas and recall offending MPs without delay so matters of the state can be attended to.

There only way we can realistically rehash the debate on pornography and entertain the idea that sufficient controls don't exist and are in some cases not practical or reasonable is by being intentionally obtuse and disingenious.

The idea that we can even consider implementing an adult-id for an entire population before considering its use for more effective democracy is telling of our current priorities and the complete reduction of the enlightenment of western democracy to a crude form of corporatocracy and control systems.

</comment><comment><USER15> Government, this is VPN. VPN, meet government. You guys aren't going to get along but I thought you should know about each other.

<comment><USER16> VPN hosting country, these are drones. Drones, meet the VPN host country...

Or heck, just strong-arm them into adopting think-of-the-children laws one way or another.

<comment><USER17> So, drones meet China?

How many would you send?

<comment><USER16> The Great Firewall blocks porn so China probably isn't the country parent would use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Every time I think about the insanity going on here in the US, I just remind myself that the insanity in the UK is worse.

<comment><USER19> Really depends which insanity you're referring to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why don't UK government leave that responsibility to the _parents_ which are to decide what their children are allowed to watch or not. In the old Soviet the communists very much wanted government to replace both parents and God - seems like that idea has gotten new fuel in the UK.

<comment><USER21> Indeed the move to remove accountability from parents and burden everybody else is lamentable. Be that the sugar tax on soft drinks coming about just as a way to cut obese children as well as many other measures. Perish the thought they made the parents accountable.

But certainly a trend and perhaps an excuse to tax and track people more. Still without such laws we would not of got a beer like this: [https://www.brewdog.com/item/61/BrewDog/Nanny- State.html](https://www.brewdog.com/item/61/BrewDog/Nanny-State.html)

Which sums things up about as well as any.

<comment><USER22> +1 for the Nanny State reference. In typical UK surveillance state fashion they pander to base fears and unforgivably overlook how bad censorship is in places like China. Where it not for censorship I think the thrill of surfing the Open Web would be dampened, just like when drugs instantly become more exciting when they are outlawed and regulated.

I am certain outlawing base primal urges, like the right to ingest what one desires into one's own body makes such primal urges even more favorable, often to the point of detriment to the State who then have to feverishly invent something inverse to people's actual needs like Alcohol, or bromides like Sugar to pacify their citizenry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is quite disturbing to say the least. Seems like everyone learns from china and starts build great internet walls!

</comment><comment><USER24> I find it impressive that the UK people trust their government so much even to the point where they are happy to leave the EU to give it more power. That seems questionable.

<comment><USER7> That's more about mistrust of the EU 'government'.

<comment><USER25> It's not about 'trust' at all. The typical brexit supporter doesn't 'trust' any of these people any farther than they can throw some ministry building. The brexit supporters are convinced they'll have more influence over a sovereign UK government that answers to UK votes, whereas they have learned through long experience that they have next to no influence over Brussels, by design.

This straw man the_mitsuhiko setup with brexit dunderheads that "trust their [UK] government so much" is a fiction that exists inside his/her head; a sad self-delusion people indulge to demean things they don't like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Parents are not responsible?

<comment><USER7> They should be. As should everybody else, in a society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> First they came for the Socialists...

</comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone have any ideas how likely this will actually become law? Crazy laws get proposed here in America all the time. From what I've seen by watching the Prime Minister's questions every now and then, lots of far- fetched proposals are made across the pond as well. But they never get far, and not worth getting bothered about.

<comment><USER29> "The government" in a parliamentary system, in this context, refers to what we would call "the administration" in the US, i.e. the Prime Minister and his ministers. And almost by definition, the government controls a majority in parliament ("almost" because it is possible to have a minority government) and has a high likelihood of passing its agenda. But the proposed laws do change a lot as they go through consultations and committees, and intra-party negotiations. There is a sizable libertarian wing of the Conservative Party.

<comment><USER7> And we have the House of Lords, which ... well, let's just say it's not really like anything else.

<comment><USER29> As archaic as it sounds on paper, it's the best functioning upper house in the world. It provides actual substantive research into government policy, and a temporary restraint on changing long-time status quo, being able to delay legislation but not stop it altogether. I really hope you guys don't change it any more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Suddenly, 007 takes on a whole new meaning.

</comment><comment><USER31> Will it replace driving licences or passports?

<comment> martin-adams I have to watch porn to drive or travel abroad?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> this didnt work for germany, wont work for the UK either. most of the "porn" companies in the UK are only there to make use of tax advantages and billing, they are just shells that allow the parent company to move money through the UK to tax havens and mitigate risks. very very few porn companies are truly based in the UK, which means none will follow the rules.

</comment><comment><USER33> way to criminalise porn and make it go underground.

<comment><USER7> I believe it's already there - that's often a very different problem though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Shouldn't we restrict/control the consumption of violent movies and video games first?

<comment><USER21> Well Religious books have yielded more violent actions than all the movies and video games ever, if you want to take that approach.

Certainly puts things into context don't you think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> New and modern instant messengers download and show preview of websites automatically. Any ideas if this can be somehow abused?

[https://theantisocialengineer.com/imessage-preview- problems/](https://theantisocialengineer.com/imessage-preview-problems/)

</comment><comment><USER35> Download as much as you can now and put it on an encrypted harddisk. Or move.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have long thought it would be a great idea to force all pornographic material into a porn TLD, say .xxx

To access .xxx, you would submit your name, address, proof of age to whomever runs the regime and be given access. Sharing pornography should be a crime, especially if shared with minors. In a perfect world... Since we don't live in a perf3ct world, I'd be happy to see a forced TLD. Violators lose rights to any and all domains in perpetuity and are forbidden to start new ones. A 1M fine should suffice.

It's a proven fact pornography harms everyone involved. Men who are chronic users suffer impotence issues with real women. Pornography demeans women and lowers them to the status of sex machines, there only for the enjoyment of men. Women that are lured into the industry suffer horrendous self-esteem issues, die young, suffer from diseases, some fatal, and are reviled if/when they escape the industry. Not a good scene no matter how you slice it.

<comment><USER37> Or maybe people could get off their high horse and not impose their moral values on everyone else?

I'm all for regulating the industry if and when practices get distorted, same as any other industry dealing with humans. But if we ban porn for being generally harmful to its actors we should also ban:

-American football

-Boxing

-Extreme Sports

-..

And feel free to eventually add in everything someone doesn't like, as anything can be shown to be harmful in some extent.</comment></comment>


A python software to display the current day's Anime shows you're watching - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Fawers/anime-list <comment><AUTHOR> Fawers...</comment>


The mystery of WiFi channel 14 - <AUTHOR> http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/features/report/8051/the-mystery-of-wifi-channel-14/ <comment><USER2>
        However, with some modification and performance enhancement it may well be
        possible to adjust the frequencies available to wireless routers and laptops
        so the wider frequencies can be accessed. In fact with some expert programming
        and enhancements the 'X' band is not out of reach.

In much the same way that "with some expert engineering and enhancements" the speed of sound is reachable with a standard car.

Not to say that it's impossible to use X band - packet radio enthusiasts have been using 10GHz links for decades. But expecting that "performance enhancement" is going to magically turn a highly-specialized 2.4/5GHz radio stack into one that works at 10GHz is some movie-style "ENHANCE" nonsense.</comment>


The best way to learn iOS Programming... well its working for me - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/114373064968292928213/posts/52UL2K2DSQK <comment><USER2> To the OP, if you're there: Are you using XCode 3 or XCode 4? You referenced the TBNR guide book, but from what I read, it doesn't handle the new changes for Xcode. Did that cause any difficulties? (I was on the fence about buying the book last night because it's the older version, but after the OP's recommendation, I just bought it on Amazon).

I'm doing the same thing as the OP, starting around the same time, except I quit my job to take a break. And admittedly I'm spreading myself out pretty thin because I'm also trying to learn and get pretty knowledgable in Javascript and Python.

I have to say that learning iOS programming is _very_ hard for me, mainly because I have almost no GUI experience. I did a bit of Win32 MFC programming about 15 years ago, so some of the concepts aren't completely foreign, but they might as well should be in some cases.

XCode is a terrible IDE and the error messages I've encountered are amongst the worst I've come across. I figure it will take time to internalize this stuff, but I can tell you it is fairly painful at the beginning stages!

<comment><USER3> Haha, I also set learning iOS as one of my 2012 resolutions AND I also bought TBNR after reading good reviews in Amazon. The 2nd edition covers Xcode 4 and iOS 4 (a bit outdated, but my target market is iOS 4+ anyway).

The shameful thing is, I haven't read the book yet, and instead go with Titanium since I'm more familiar with JavaScript (not really, but better than zero experience with Objective-C). It's been a couple of days, and things are doing good (but debugging sucks).

I eventually will learn iOS/Objective-C, but since I come from Java, and I don't like Xcode (I've played around a bit) I will most likely use AppCode from JetBrains.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really think you should stick it out and learn XCode. I am not a huge fan wither, would rather use TextMate or BBEdit, but once you stick with it, you will get there.

If we do the things we have to do long enough, the day will come when we will get to do the things we want to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For me delegations was fairly easy to understand, in a nutshell, you "borrow" events from a class to be implemented and triggered by your own class.

For me, the worse part of Objective-C was memory management, the rules are simple if you alloc you must dealloc, but memory leaking was always a problem, but now we have ARC and it free us from this.

What I would really like to know, and I've never seen it in a book/tutorial explaining in detail, is, how do you skin or create costume buttons for your interface.

How do you create/code an interface like <http://dayoneapp.com/> ? I don't mean the graphics, but how to implement a template or design.

If any of you know, it would be awesome ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> A book I heard about via Matt Gemmell is "Learning iPad Programming" (Kirby Turner, Tom Harrington) - it's really an excellent overview, explained by programming a real-life iPad app step by step. Massive coverage of tons of major topics. <http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0321750403>

Also, as others mention, the Stanford lectures are awesome, especially combined with the iTunesU iPad app.

And finally, for me the breakthrough into iOS programming came when I went to a hackathon and pair programmed with a total iOS pro, I learned WAY more in a few hours than I did reading a bunch of tutorials.

</comment><comment><USER6> Good job! The goal is here is to keep pushing yourself. What will happen is that the next app will build on the skills you learn in the current app and so on.

Once you finish your first app, I'd look into some open source projects and see how they are built and learn from them. It accelerates your learning, but you need the basics first.

TBNR and the iOS Docs are a great place to start, but there's nothing like just jumping right in. :)

Also a word of advice: Making the app is only 50% of the work if you are expecting to make significant income from the app.

<comment><USER7> Having released my first app at the end of October, I can confirm building the app is at the highest "only 50%". Having had very little interest for it. (less than 10 buys) I now fully understand marketing has a much larger role than a developer like me would have liked. 2012, I will learn iOS, yet I will also learn marketing. My first app was created with Titanium too, yet I feel it is important to learn iOS.

<comment><USER8> Maybe you could tell us what your app is? I tried looking to your blog without success. If I'd have found it you might have made another sale.

<comment><USER7> The name is "wordpoke". <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordpoke/id471756627>

I use the app every day as I built it for me first, the internet second.

A blog post is in draft, waiting the "first update" as its all part of the learning curve I wanted to cover in my journey into iOS development.

A new update to the app will be arriving within 10 days, Apple willing. ( It was interesting to learn how to tackle upgrades to the database. )

Issues can be reported and progress can be viewed: <https://github.com/freshteapot/wordpoke/issues>

New features are not on that list.

The webpage for "wordpoke" is <http://wordpoke.me>

On the way to work, I realised I should and now will add it to my profile.

<comment><USER5> Just a thought - the screenshots look really great, but you will definitely want to write a much longer app description. I would NEVER buy the app based on that description alone since it is $3 and I don't even fully understand what it's for. Why would I want to be reminded of certain words? Is it like a flashcard app?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just can't break through delegation. Any suggestions? I do have many years of programming experience (C, Perl, some JS), but can't quite grasp delegation.

<comment><USER10> It's an event system, what you would use function pointers for in C. I think its clearer to be specific and call delegates 'an implementation of the observer design pattern', rather than a design pattern in itself. Other implementations include the class GoF way with subclassing, or typesafe callback abstractions like libsigc or boost::signals in C++. In dynamic languages you'd just store an array with strings of function names to call, or object/method name pairs of methods to call.

<comment><USER11> Well said. Observer is how I got my head around it also.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great Job OP. I left my full-time job last year to become an iOS Developer. Best decision I have ever made. IOS Programming Version 2 is the best book out there, so you are on the right track.

I would also highly recommend the Stanford iTunes U Courses. [http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/ipad-iphone- application-...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/ipad-iphone-application- development/id473757255)

If you are using Xcode 4.2 the differences from the iOS Programming book are kinda tricky. I plan on posting the updated steps in the coming weeks. In the mean time, feel free to reach out to me at Steve @ Bixbyapps.com.

Thanks OP and Congrats.

</comment><comment><USER13> I completely agree with the premise that once you get past the initial scare, it really is very easy(assuming a programming background). I also set myself a goal of submitting an app by a deadline. I got to the day of the deadline, panicked because I hadn't submitted anything and wrote an app which totalled < 100 lines and took about 1.5 hours to write. 170k downloads later I'm thoroughly proud of the truly awful app I've made. Really worth the time investment both financially and emotionally

</comment><comment><USER14> In your experience, does the BNR guide translate well into iOS 5 and Xcode 4.2's ARC?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great Question.

Yes it does!

But I am not using Storyboards.

<comment><USER15> I'm using the same book too, the next edition should come out sometime in march and they also made a book about cocoa programming that follows the same approach (it covers lion too).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The real problem is not learning iOS, the real problem is unlearning all the java you know lol.

After you are done try learning C pointers first.

Sorry but I have to vent out my frustration of reading and fixing pathetic Objective C written by java programmers!

</comment><comment><USER17> Good luck! And check out <http://cocoacontrols.com/> (shameless plug alert, etc)

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the link. I found some interesting controls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm a long-time Hacker News reader who signed up, finally, to post this comment: What's this worthless post doing wasting my attention on Hacker News?

<comment><USER20> iOS-specific tips aside, I found the post helpful for anybody looking to start side-projects out of their comfort zone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Two Years, Four Nanodegree Programs, and a New Career - gabor-meszaros https://blog.udacity.com/2018/11/two-years-four-nanodegree-programs-and-a-new-career.html <comment><AUTHOR> Great job Ricardo!

I took the 9-month Self-Driving Car Nanodegree and managed to find a job in the AV industry right before graduating.

I found the ND worth every penny because they broke down really dense topics that you'd usually need to be in a MS program at CMU or Stanford to undertake. Now I'm leading AV development at my current employer!

Like any course or degree, they can't cover everything. That's ok though, because you've learned enough to continue learning by reading current academic papers. You must be motivated though.

There's a lot of nay-sayers on HN. I'd encourage you to ignore their excuses for not completing their ND. Usually these people don't have enough grit or motivation to do something hard. If you really want it...you'll work hard and persevere to get it.

<comment><USER2> I did the Android nanodegree, and have never had so much as an interview. I think people's success after Udacity is largely determined by their educational background before Udacity. For example, the article is ambiguous about whether the student finished his computer engineering degree at university or not. I have a non-STEM degree.

On the other hand, seeing comments from people who dropped out of nanodegrees makes me consider that maybe it's a little more difficult than it seems. Moreover, the job market for mobile is just bad. It's either six figure rockstar, or unemployment. I think doing one of the javascript ones might have produced better job prospects.

At this point, I'm resigned to indie development while I work a part time non- tech non-profit job to make rent. Currently working on a MacOS desktop app that might make a few bucks, but probably not.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to do mobile development. You need a strong portfolio to compete. I had made around 6 apps (some my ideas and some for clients) when I got my first mobile job. Consider making some _novel_ apps without any expectation of being paid. Nothing guarantees you a job. If you're not hearing back...there's got to be a logical reason. Be honest with yourself and come up with a list of 25 things that will give you an edge and start doing them. Just don't give up!

Regarding the education comment...I'm going to disagree with you there. Employers don't care where you went to school. They care about what you've done in the past (doesn't matter if it's at work or on the side) and what you can bring to the table. I had to compete with people with PhDs for my current AV job but I got the job because of the whole package of skills that I bring rather than theoretical knowledge in a single niche topic.

<comment><USER3> > Employers don't care where you went to school.

This depends on the employer. Google is notorious for not only caring about your school, but your GPA. Also as someone who has looked at hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes over the years - the reality is you very quickly start to look for any sort of signal and schools are definitely something some (I would guess most) consider.

Do I think it's unfair? Sure. But recruiters simply do not have the time to look into every applicant with any sort of detail.

<comment><USER4> I'm not so sure anymore. I've worked at a couple FANGs and I have never looked at a candidates resume beyond their last job or two. I only look at their degree to calculate years of experience in my head. But ultimately we put faith in our interview process more than a resume. I would totally hire someone who has relevant experience than what their degrees were (or any), as long as they passed the normal interview gauntlet that everyone takes.

<comment><USER5> Engineers typically don't care so much about school, but the first filter is recruiters who do. A recruiter has <10s to read your resume and has no technical knowledge, so a good school or FANG on your resume helps you pass their screen.

<comment><USER6> years of mostly pointless assignments, lectures and pre-test cramming coupled with thousands of hard earned dollars spent on getting <10s of attention from a recruiter. Feels harsh, strange and unproductive enough to be true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I tried doing a nanodegree but quit after a month. The two main reasons:

\- the videos are not lectures; they're short, scripted segments. While the production is polished, I found the format irritating. I much prefer actual recorded lectures like the many wonderful (and free) ones available from MIT

\- the programming assignments were not challenging. I didn't really feel like I gained anything from them.

<comment><USER2> I think the point of Udacity, or at least why I did Udacity, is to get some kind of credential to get past HR gatekeepers (which did not work). I didn't do it to learn. I already taught myself Swift and iOS, and I'm sure I could have taught myself Android too, but I wanted some kind of credential, and I can't afford to get another degree.

You know all of those videos are optional? You can just skip the intermediary assignments if they are too easy, and go right to the final project in each section, which is the only part that is graded anyways. Also, the last project is a portfolio piece of your own design, so you can make it as hard as you want as long as it meets certain criteria.

<comment><USER8> >get past HR gatekeepers (which did not work)

Were you able to switch jobs/careers at all eventually?

<comment><USER2> No.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Of the people who start a nanodegree, how many finish? Of the people who finish, how many accomplish the expected career goal? I'm asking because Udacity is starting to feel a lot like it's replicating the gym industry's business model.

<comment><USER10> I think that the prestigious college model of only letting in people who they know have a 90+% chance of making it is damaging to socioeconomic mobility; there's a lot of us who have, maybe, closer to a 50% chance, who know this and would be happy to buy the lottery ticket in question, but it's not available for sale.

I understand the need to prevent people from spending money they can't afford on a degree they can't get, but personally think a weeder class would be a much more fair way to go about doing that filtering.. make me pass a few really hard classes before signing up for the degree program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have no particular insight to add, but simply wanted to say this is an absolutely wonderful story. A person with poor economic prospects took control and changed their life. Beautiful.

<comment><USER12> Agreed! It's so impressive how hard he worked and what he accomplished by keeping with it for two whole years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is it just me, or is someone else seeing posts like these pop up everywhere, and all reference Udacity's nanodegrees?

I know this one is in the Udacity site itself, but I've seen similar posts in other websites. Maybe they're actively advertising it via viral blog posts?

<comment><USER14> Have you hired a marketing firm recently?

They all offer to generate fluff pieces in fluff piece blogs (also without official branding) and SEO the heck out of them.

<comment><USER13> I'm as far from marketing as I can be, but good to know that. Didn't know it was something they offered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Woah! Two years of education changes someone's life!

...if only community colleges and branch campuses of state universities had VC marketing cash, we would hear these uplifting stories on the daily.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've always found udacity courses to be well designed. I wish the nanodegrees didn't have those fixed start times though, and I wish it was pay by course rather than pay by month. Still, very good experiences.

<comment><USER17> > I wish it was pay by course rather than pay by month.

Udacity is pay by nanodegree. Coursera is pay by month.

<comment><USER18> If you don't finish a Udacity nanodegree on time you lose access to the material and you have to pay again. It's certainly pay per month.

<comment><USER17> no its not. You have option to pay mothly with affirm but I don't think thats what u r referring to

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm really proud of how capable he was to succeed in life without having too much. A guy like him deserves more opportunities

</comment><comment><USER20> I want to do a 12 year gigadegree that is structured from undergrad to doctoral program to postdoc(s)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a hell of a victory, great job ricardo, more good things are comming!

</comment><comment><USER22> absolutely amazing! I don't see transformations like this very often. I hope he receive as much opportunities as he deserves, so he can achieve his goals. Well done</comment>


Wearing a Suit Makes People Think Differently - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/wearing-a-suit-makes-people-think-differently/391802/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> This is making me consider the purchase a few suits, for use when I have meeting with upper management. I've noticed a similar causal link in my own life, but I've never had a comfortable suit, so...

Meta: I really appreciate how the Atlantic wrote up this article on a research paper. It calls out the details of the research, identifies the potential shortfalls of the research, and the actual (non-exaggerated) results - "a causal link" \- all within a well written narrative. Bravo, Atlantic. Bravo.

</comment><comment><USER3> I always think people in suits look like salesmen, and I treat them with more suspicion. I know, it is not correct to be prejudiced, but so is wearing a suit in order to change how people think about you.

<comment><USER4> You don't really know why I'm wearing a suit, though; maybe I like it.

<comment><USER5> Nevertheless, you will be subjected to distrust.

<comment><USER6> By some people. But that goes for when you're wearing you cool hoodie too. People are different! Now here's Tom with the weather.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Putting on formal clothes makes us feel powerful, and that changes the basic way we see the world,...

There are occasions when putting on formal clothes makes me feel more, well "formal", such as weddings and funerals. The rest of the time they make me feel constrained, confined, not empowered, and just another cog in the machine, i.e. _not powerful_.

>Rutchick and his co-authors found that wearing clothing that's more formal than usual makes people think more broadly and holistically, rather than narrowly and about fine-grained details.

I've certainly never experienced this; I've experienced quite the opposite, in fact!

So I suspect that there are some important confounding factors involved!

> A suit is a uniform. > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9476661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9476661) > Yes, but unlike a uniform, when wearing a suit I don't experience any sense > of community pride[1].

[1] For me, it was never about "ho ra - go USA"-type, nationalistic pride, rather it was pride in myself and the people around me for helping to defend and serve our countrymen and others, worldwide, who were in need.

<comment><USER8>
      > > Rutchick and his co-authors found that wearing clothing that's more
      > > formal than usual makes people think more broadly and holistically,
      > > rather than narrowly and about fine-grained details.
      >
      >  I've certainly never experienced this; I've experienced quite the opposite, in fact!
      >
      > So I suspect that there are some important confounding factors involved!

Numbers aren't available in the abstract, but I _suspect_ that Rutchick et al's sample set was sufficiently large - at least compared to your sample size (of one). There may be confounding factors, but more data, less anecdote, would be required to substantiate the counter-claim.

<comment><USER7> > So I ___suspect_ __that there are some important confounding factors > involved!

Hence, I only "suspect" that there are confounding factors, I do not in fact "claim" that there are confounding factors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I work from home, and I've toyed with the idea of dressing up (even just a collared shirt) for exactly this reason - putting on formal attire helps me get into the proper mental state for work. I've used the same trick (suiting up every day) to keep myself productive in absolutely miserable working conditions. Sure, it'd be nice if I had the self-discipline necessary to keep myself focused, etc. regardless of what I wore---but sometimes I don't, so thankfully formal wear is another tool I can apply in those situations where I need it.

<comment><USER10> It definitely makes a sharp difference. Pair that with a very clean and uncluttered desk, office, and you are golden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's the paper: [http://www.columbia.edu/~ms4992/Publications/2015_Slepian- Fe...](http://www.columbia.edu/~ms4992/Publications/2015_Slepian-Ferber-Gold- Rutchick_Clothing-Formality_SPPS.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> Of more interest to me is the fact that it makes others treat me differently. Thats useful if say going to a shop to dispute a cellphone bill.

<comment><USER13> I recently went to a furniture store dressed like a 'cholo'. No sales-person would talk to me, to the point of struggling to get a brochure.

Returned to the same shop in a collared shirt. The salesman wouldn't leave me alone.

Next time I return, It'll be back in my scruffy attire, ready to make a purchase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's a video somewhere on the behind the scenes of the movie "Master and Commander" and one of the things they talk about is how the officer's period uniforms caused the cast to instantly stand upright and at attention and start to behave the way the director wanted them to. They attributed it to the oversized, stiff, collars forcing the actors heads up.

Did this make them think different? I don't know, but it gives them an "in charge" effect during the movie that must send subtle signals back and forth between officers and crew.

As somebody with an 18" neck and short arms, one thing I've incredibly happy about is the near death of the tie. It's finally become acceptable (and stylish) to wear a suit without a tie. Finding shirts that fit my frame is nearly impossible and the number of collar burns I've come home with from keeping the top button closed and a tie on is something I hope I never have to deal with again.

<comment><USER15> I highly recommend getting custom made shirts. There has been a resurgence of custom tailors with competitive pricing. Sacramento has a great shop:

[http://www.rdouglas.net/](http://www.rdouglas.net/)

Properly tailored clothing will change your life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Disdain for the suit is a counterculture (aka American mainstream culture) touchstone and as such is just as much an example of group membership as wearing a suit is for a different group of people. This is why you frequently hear stories on here of people not getting hired because the candidate wore a suit.

</comment><comment><USER17> Clothing also alters the way people treat you, obviously. That changes the way you perceive the world, even if you're mindful of the effect.

I've never been one who minded rolling my sleeves up when needed, but I can recall several instances of both: Why it is an advantage to be dressed "nicely" and, why it isn't.

Working in a field service position (attendance at the office was required) at a medium-sized company where much of the manufacturing was done in-house, I noticed that if you were the nicest dressed technician, that you would rarely be recruited for any dirty jobs that came up.

Working in the engineering dep't for the same company, if you dressed well and kept your work area neat, salespeople would often parade clients through your area, disturbing you.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think that the conversation covers lots of knowns and unsurprising actions on both the suit wearer's and the suit observer's side of perception. The real conversation should be how to rid the world of formality? I personally feel ill every time I have to wear anything that others consider formal business wear. I was a technical project manager (forgive me) for a few years and I felt like a traitor every time I sat with a group of engineers who all were wearing what makes us comfortable: GNU hacker t-shirts, jeans and Dr. Martens (or variations thereof).

When I see suits, I think of keywords like "deceit" and "materialism" and "shallow". I also feel like people in suits are being subjugated, no matter how high up the totem pole they think they are. I grew up painfully poor, so I assume much of my opinion and reaction to seeing a suit comes from feeling the vast economic divide between me and people in suits, much the way I feel a sickness and anger when I see people in cars like Mercedes, BMW and Jaguar.

Suits make people think differently. But for the right reasons? I will never "suit up", personally, by choice.

<comment><USER8> Interesting viewpoint.

Up until the keyword association, you were in a moderately defensible position. But deceit, materialism and shallow -- associating those sensations with what some people wear is some regrettable kind of -ism. How do you feel, in a group of engineers, if someone choose to not wear Dr Martens (or something comparably expensive)? If a collared shirt is worn, something casual and comfortable say, have they also abandoned everything you think they should hold dear about being an engineer?

<comment><USER19> So we should only accept the intended signaling of people's clothing choices, and never think any deeper about _why_ they made signaling clothing choices?

There's a wide range of choices between wearing clothes that are well suited to what you'll physically be doing in them, and wearing clothes suited to signaling something about yourself, and where clothing falls in that range _does_ say something about the wearer.

<comment><USER18> I think we should all take a second look at what clothes "mean". I maintain my distaste for expensive and overly formal clothing, since it flies in the face of poverty and those who have little in America. But I concede that it helps nobody to attack a person or front-load judgement of them based solely on their appearance...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would guess that natural differences between individuals in thinking style would heavily outweigh any differences caused by wearing a suit or not.

<comment><USER21> That would be the idealistic view of individuality et al, but the thing is people are more alike than they think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's strange how suits became a standard for government officials, big business and everyone that want's to look "serious" in all countries over the world, it shows how the western culture conquered the entire world.

<comment><USER23> Maybe there's something about suits that looks universally serious?

<comment><USER24> Fashion seems too changeable over time for that to be likely.

<comment><USER25> Yet the basic form of suits have hardly changed in over two centuries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is anybody really surprised by this research? I doubt it. Humans love to form exclusive groups. A suit is nearly non-functional and mostly symbolic: I have a job where I am "important" (and I make money). A uniform on a police officer or a doctor or a firefighter? It helps people to distinguish them from the rest of the crowd. A suit on the other hand is a generic line drawn in the sand between people, I feel.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is interesting in itself, but is it the next logical version of "the suit is back!" as described in Graham's PR article? [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> I took a psych class in high school and one of our assignments was to dress up on Fridays for 6 weeks and record how we thought about ourselves on those days and how others treated us.

All I remember about it now is getting a lot of compliments when I wore a tie.

</comment><comment><USER29> Gandhi didn't have to wear a suit. He grew up being told to wear one though. And that suit didn't help when he got thrown of the train.

<comment><USER30> Gandhi didn't wear a suit, but he did wear a uniform of sorts (his white tunic).

<comment><USER31> He most certainly did in the first half of his life as a lawyer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "Suit up!!"</comment>