Ask HN: Can I sign a waiver to not sue and know why I was rejected? - <AUTHOR>

in an interview <comment><USER2> Very very unlikely.

Realize that an interview is not a standardized test. It's a date. Most candidates make the mistake of thinking that it's a test, which leads to a lot of agony.

When you dig deeper, you'll likely realize that an interview outcome is just a fuzzy function of multiple interviewer's subjective preferences, very much like a date. And when you get reject a date (or someone rejects you), it's often not possible to put a finger on a crisp reason, more than "it didn't feel right".

What is in your hands, is just preparation. Once you have done comprehensive preparation, then you have to leave it to luck. Hope that you get seasoned interviewers who can evaluate you objectively in that hour.

[about me: [http://InterviewKickstart.com](http://InterviewKickstart.com)]

</comment><comment><USER3> As an employer, no I would never sign this and share as there are just way too many liabilities attached even if we had done all the right things.

However, I have had people that interviewed with me and didn't get the job send me an email and thank me for the opportunity to interview and ask me what I feel they could do to improve, work on etc. I won't reply to all of these, but if someone asks a specific question I will more likely reply. For example, I had one guy that wrote something to the affect the he knew he flubbed part of our algorithm questions but he was really interested in that work and was curious what I thought he could work on to better his skills.

I replied to him and told him things he could work on, and really very little of it had to do with what he flubbed. In his case, I suggested he work on his communication skills and reminding him that an interview is a sales process, he is there to sell himself to the interviewer. I also explained that his algorithm flub wasn't a big deal as it is more about ability to learn than always knowing the right answer. In this way, I gave him valid, constructive feedback without putting us at great risk. Although I know some employers wouldn't allow a hiring manager or team member to respond, but finding that person on LinkedIn etc outside of his work role and learning how you can improve might work.

Also, find a couple of friends and do a post mortem on your interview to the best of your recollection and see if they can give you any hints or ideas.

</comment><comment><USER4> No. A company has nothing to gain in telling you. Doing so would only open itself to risk.

</comment><comment><USER5> Since interviewing is very subjective, a company might not even be able to give you a clear reason why you were rejected. You may have been interviewed by six people, each of whom gave you a 9 out of 10 rating. You thought the interview went very well, and so did they. But then those people interviewed someone else, whom five interviewers gave a 9 out of 10 rating but one gave a 10 out of 10 rating. So they chose the second person instead of you. But there may not have been a clearly expressible reason why - just one interviewer's gut instinct.

Also, they may have rejected you for a stupid reason, like "the CEO didn't like your blue hair and nose piercing", which they may not feel comfortable sharing with you even though it's perfectly legal (under U.S. law, these are not legally protected attributes).

</comment><comment><USER6> If you sign and they advise you that you were rejected for an illegal reason, they can be charged for that crime, and if they are guilty, you can sue for $$. If you sign and they give a rational and reasonable reason, like you only received 15 points on their rating system, and they chose only prospective employees who received 25+ points on that rating system, then you agreed to not sue if they revealed and you can not.

That said, there are many nuances in this, however, any company would be a fool to codify illegal acts - if they have their own lawyer, so you might not get anywhere.

I would say, sign and get the details, and if they can not be changed by extra study, get going and improve your score. A lot of people never get criticisms on which to base self improvement.

</comment><comment><USER7> So, nothing from the corporation.

But you might get lucky "befriendling" an interviewer and asking him for advice on how to improve your interviewing and employability.</comment>


How Obama used behavioral economics to win the election, and how he's using it to govern - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1889153,00.html

<comment><USER2> This is a peeve of mine: It's not "behavioral economics". It's social and organizational psychology. Virtually all the research has been done by psychologists. For example, Daniel Kahneman, Economics Nobel Laureate, is a _Psychologist_.

"Smart" people and the media have been obsessed with "rationality", (pseudo-)math and quantitative research, until it finally emerged in the economistic world view that people are - surprise, surprise - not that rational; something that psychologists have known for ages.

Right now, economics is sort assimilating a lot of psychological insights, which is good for humanity, but it's not economics, the original creativity stems from psychology.

<comment><USER3> you're working off the strawman version of rationality. people are are perfectly rational...from the perspective of small hunter gatherer tribes inconstant conflict for status and resources.

<comment><USER4> I totally agree with you.

We were evolved to be rational, but only in the environment that we evolved from. The environment we have now is far from small hunter-gatherer tribes, yet we are still equipped with the same rationale mechanisms. Hence, it's not working out perfectly.

Maybe if we restructure our society to simulate what it once was or at least some parts of it, we can better utilize our rationale mechanisms.

<comment><USER3> I shouldn't say we evolved to be _perfectly_ rational of course. it's more that we evolved to approximate rationality in a manner more efficient than actually calculating everything. see "how outfielders catch fly balls" as an example of a rationality shortcut.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's like they respect science and the notion of evidence-based decision making or something.

<comment><USER4> More than they used to, so that's a step up.

Still, I'd rather see these resource being spent on educating the public on behavioral economics as suppose to using the knowledge to manipulate the public.

It's true that in most situations, indirect persuasion is more effective at influencing someone's behavior than direct preaching. However, at some point, the public needs "grow up" too, and always treating us like five year olds certainly won't stimulate this process.

I hope these guys see that.

<comment><USER6> "However, at some point, the public needs "grow up" too, and always treating us like five year olds certainly won't stimulate this process."

The public always has the ability to "grow up" as you put it but they do not want to. People are not motivated to take action if there isn't an immediate risk to their own personal well being. Risk has been taken out of many things that we do so now we can make ignorant choices without immediate consequences.

We keep falling off the bike, but instead of scraping our knee and learning not to fall, we have a security net there to save us over and over again.

I don't blame the government for treating us like 5 year olds when that is how a majority of people act.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you completely.

But I also think it is possible to train yourself to manage your emotions better despite how strong our instinctual wiring is. This is evident in the long history of meditation practices.

So, it's good that the government is nursing us. And it will be even better if, in addition to that, they integrate meditation, behavior economics, entrepreneurial training courses, etc, into our education system. However, the current education system is far from that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Summary: people are irrational and make stupid decisions. The government knows better. Typical Time Magazine.

<comment><USER8> Is this what normal people read all the time? I mean, they make statements like this with no clarification at all:

"Our emissions are boiling the planet, and most of our energy use is unnecessary."

What's "unnecessary"? Energy drives modern technology, from your desk to your home to your doctor's office. Sure, if you don't care about quality of life, then energy use is unnecessary.

And while most scientists think our emissions are going to cause an increase in mean global temperatures over the next few centuries, "boiling the planet" is a long way off.

That's just one example out of a dozen. Is Time an editorial magazine, or is it supposed to be some sort of objective journalism?

That's not entirely a rhetorical question, I honestly don't follow dead tree media and never got into it much as a kid.

<comment><USER9> _"Our emissions are boiling the planet, and most of our energy use is unnecessary."_

 _What's "unnecessary"? Energy drives modern technology, from your desk to your home to your doctor's office. Sure, if you don't care about quality of life, then energy use is unnecessary._

Really? This is your complaint? By 'unnecessary,' we can reasonably presume that the author means 'needlessly inefficient.' That much is evident to any sincere reader of the article who cares enough about the pursuit of knowledge to abide by the principle of charity: Put the best face on the argument before you refute it, otherwise you are not contributing.

The straw-man argument, "Sure, if you don't care about quality of life, then energy use is unnecessary," is wholly beside the point.

 _And while most scientists think our emissions are going to cause an increase in mean global temperatures over the next few centuries, "boiling the planet" is a long way off._

Again, this cannot be a serious complaint. The phrase 'boiling the planet' is clearly a metaphor. A surface reading would be that we're just raising the temperature of the planet to an unhealthy extreme. A more nuanced reading reveals that the author means that we are raising the temperature of the planet to such a high temperature that we are going to cause irreversible change, such as when one boils food and finds that no amount of refrigeration will bring it back to it's former state. More simply, we are doing something analogous to sterilizing the planet, though to a lesser degree, in that many species may ultimately be made extinct.

 _That's not entirely a rhetorical question, I honestly don't follow dead tree media and never got into it much as a kid._

This is evident from the shallowness of your misguided critique. More practice at reading, dead-tree media or otherwise, might have made you a skillful enough reader to have been able to follow the plot here.

<comment><USER8> There's no need to be so aggressive. And I think I made it clear that the example I excerpted was only one of many offending sentences. I could easily pull others, if I were motivated to use my time in such a way. The piece in question made a quantity of assumptions that I normally only associate with activist literature, and not supposedly objective journalism. I don't consider that to be a hallmark of quality news.

<comment><USER10> He is reacting to a perceived attack on global warming.

There is no need attack the language as activist, which you do even in this post.

The goal of the green movement, at its heart, is greater efficiency in all walks of life. I think we all agree that efficiency is good.

So why does word choice matter if motivates us to become more efficient?

<comment><USER11> > The goal of the green movement, at its heart, is greater efficiency in all > walks of life.

Except that it's not about efficiency. It's often about a suggested lifestyle. (Hint - efficiency doesn't imply minimal.)

And, the "efficiency" arguments are often false and or irrational. (Nuclear power anyone?)

<comment><USER12> > Nuclear power anyone?

Yes please. You can build the plant in my backyard, I'll donate the land.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Often when I'm confronted with a policy suggestion I think, "I can't possibly know enough about the ecosystem that policy impacts to say whether the policy would succeed." Not being a domain expert in most issues, I reserve judgement on them. In this case, though, I don't.

As someone who obsesses about product design, usability etc., I just think accounting for real world factors of human behavior is always a good idea. I'm very happy to read this, and if you've ever noticed the difference between two layouts for conversions on your site (or any small detail that makes a huge behavioral difference), you should find this heartening too. Unless, of course, you oppose the goals of the policy or policymaker.

</comment><comment><USER14> And here I thought they were all just incredibly stupid.

But this is worse, they've ejected rational thought entirely from the policy- making process.

We. Are. Doomed.

</comment><comment><USER15> Sort of fitting that a man who taught at the University of Chicago and who has Larry Summers for an advisor would use economics for more than just balancing a national budget.

<comment> patrickg-zill Wow, the Hopeychange flavored Kool-Aid hasn't run out yet!

<comment><USER16> I agree, people want change but they hardly know what they're in for, especially with universal healthcare "reform"... Some other recent notable changes...

\- push to eliminate US nuclear weapons

\- encouraging an international currency and removing the US dollar from a position of power

\- spending $3.55 trillion for 2010 ($400bn over '09), when we've already committed $12.8 trillion to the recession

\- increasing the marginal tax rate to the highest levels since Clinton

\- letting North Korea get away with launching missiles over Japan

\- taking over private businesses and forcing out their CEOs

I guess you always need a Carter to usher in a Reagan.

...And bring on the drive-by downmods with no responses.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, here's a response:

> push to eliminate US nuclear weapons

I have seen no evidence of anyone in the administration suggesting any such thing.

> encouraging an international currency and removing the US dollar from a > position of power

Ditto.

> spending $3.55 trillion for 2010 ($400bn over '09), when we've already > committed $12.8 trillion to the recession

What's the problem with that? Be specific.

> increasing the marginal tax rate to the highest levels since Clinton

'to the highest levels since Clinton' means 'to a higher level than after Bush's tax cuts.' Was the economy, and the federal treasury, in better shape in 2000 (when Clinton left office) or eight years later?

> letting North Korea get away with launching missiles over Japan

Given that this happened two days ago, it's a little early to assess the administration's response.

<comment><USER17> > > push to eliminate US nuclear weapons

> I have seen no evidence of anyone in the administration suggesting any such > thing.

Really? What about: "Obama Calls for Nuclear Free World, Says U.S. Will Lead" ([http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200904/200904060...](http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200904/200904060004.html))

Search Google news for US nuclear weapons.

> > spending $3.55 trillion for 2010 ($400bn over '09), when we've already > committed $12.8 trillion to the recession

> What's the problem with that? Be specific.

Uhm... Spending huge amounts of money that the USA doesn't have isn't such a good idea?

> > increasing the marginal tax rate to the highest levels since Clinton

> 'to the highest levels since Clinton' means 'to a higher level than after > Bush's tax cuts.' Was the economy, and the federal treasury, in better shape > in 2000 (when Clinton left office) or eight years later?

When Clinton left office there was a recession (in 2000 and 2001). It was called the dot com bubble.

Oh. Also take into account that the Democrats controlled Congress the past few years. So maybe it is the Democrat's fault for the current mess?

> > letting North Korea get away with launching missiles over Japan

> Given that this happened two days ago, it's a little early to assess the > administration's response.

Didn't Obama want to cut ballistic missile defence?

<comment><USER18> There is a lot of parroting of talking points to unpack here. First, you assume that drawing down our nuclear program is a priori bad. This is clearly not so. Consider that the greatest threat of terrorists gaining access to nuclear weapons comes from so-called looses nukes in ex-Soviet states. If eliminating some of our weapons will induce them to do the same, this would seem to lessen the chance that apocalyptic weapons will fall into the hands of people who would use them. We could eliminate 9000 nukes and still have more than enough to kill all life on the planet several times over. If the Russians and other ex-Soviet states eliminate a commensurate number of weapons, I think that'd be a good trade.

As for $3.55 trillion for 2010 - unfortunately, I think it's probably necessary. Global manufacturing and trade are falling at rates faster than any seen during the Great Depression. Debt levels are higher now than back then. Deleveraging will take quite awhile. And while some have claimed Japan's deficit spending during its lost decade failed, since growth petered out at 1%, Richard Koo of Nomura makes a fairly convincing case that this was actually a success: they averted a full-scale depression, after all. ([http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/04/richard_koo_on.htm...](http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/04/richard_koo_on.html))

Saying that Obama has increased marginal tax rates to the highest level since Clinton is a cheap rhetorical trick. I don't think top rates going from 36% to 39.6% represents the tipping point between capitalism and socialism. And lower top marginal tax rates under Bush certainly didn't create a booming economy. This is the worst economy in 80 years. Also, remember that under Eisenhower, top rates were as high as 90%. However, those top rates only applied to individuals with incomes around $75 million in today's dollars. I think there's a convincing argument to be made for introducing more brackets at the top of the tax bracket - lumping in people making 300k with people raking in several million a year makes little sense. Nate Silver made this case a few weeks ago. ([http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/missing-1000000-tax-b...](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/missing-1000000-tax- bracket.html))

Forgive me if I'm not scared about Obama firing CEOs of bailed out firms. Like it or not, certain companies are judged to be too economically, socially, and politically important to fail. If we're going to bail out these firms, getting rid of the incompetents who brought them onto the dole seems like the obvious first step. I wish Obama would get rid of Ken Lewis and the other banking geniuses who played such a large role in bringing on this collapse.

Letting North Korea "get away with firing a missile over Japan." This is disingenuous on so many levels. First, it was a dud, not a missile. Second, it's not as if George W. Bush or Clinton was able to deter North Korea either. Kim Jong Il is determined to starve his people to develop weapons. Short of going to war - which would devastate Seoul and kill millions - there are no good options aside from pressing the Chinese to press North Korea more forcefully.

And finally, you are aware that ballistic missile defense does not actually exist, and likely won't exist in the near future, right? It's something Reagan made up and threw untold billions of dollars into to scare the Soviets. What's the point of pouring money into a nonexistent technology - especially when we are going bankrupt? Ballistic missile defense might be a bigger scam than Bernie Madoff.

<comment><USER11> > Forgive me if I'm not scared about Obama firing CEOs of bailed out firms. > ... If we're going to bail out these firms, getting rid of the incompetents > who brought them onto the dole seems like the obvious first step.

Getting rid of incompetents sounds like a great idea. Too bad that Obama isn't interested.

We're still waiting for the politcal class to take a hit. (Barney Frank anyone?)

Heck - we're still waiting for Obama to fire advisors who ran Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the ground.

> What's the point of pouring money into a nonexistent technology

It's unclear how being able to hit and destroy ballistic missles in certain cases is "nonexistent technology".

Nope - it's not deployed, but ....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> ha I tricked Obama.. I had our accounted take out extra money so I will get my tax rebate in one big chunk when I file taxes.</comment>


11 Charged in Theft of 41 Million Card Number - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/business/06theft.html

<comment><AUTHOR> the other kind of "Hackers"</comment>


Network Solutions suck Dont ever use - <AUTHOR> I just wanted to point out, if yall ever hosting a website or anything, dont use ns. They're UI is a nightmare and their customer service is insanely technically-incompetent, EVEN THEIR SUPPORT PEOPLE. One reason i decided to use ns was automated services such as 301 redirects. As soon as i call in to complain, they keep saying they dont know whats going on, it looks all good on their end and i mustve done something in other settings. My common logic tells me to edit a records and believe it or not, it worked. Me as a guy who never codes, makes websites, or anything computer program related somehow found out the key to something that FOUR different network solutions technical support people couldnt. Its insane. Rant over. <comment><USER2> I didn't realize anyone used Network Solutions for anything anymore.</comment>


Online Payments Suck - <AUTHOR> http://adii.me/2011/08/online-payments-suck/

<comment><USER2> Lame tactic to advertise your new site</comment>


Show HN: Drywall Job Material Calculator - <AUTHOR> https://realbuildpro.com/tools <comment><USER2> A couple of notes: since there were no units on the form, I used metric and then it gave out some crazy lbs numbers.

One can only do rectangular rooms with no sloping ceiling, nor can you specify if you want particular wall to be double-boarded.

It's also common to use steel structural profiles around here (U/C/D profiles), so estimating those would be even more valuable (I know it is common to use wooden structure).

With all that, I am sorry to say that this can be only useful to someone unable to do a couple of multiplications for area. I hope those people are not trying to install drywall for anyone.

For beginners, you might want to give a couple common board sizes (Knauf is most popular around here with 250cmx125cm boards, others have 240cmx120cm boards iirc, but I am sure US is different).

Interesting things you do have is an estimation of weight (useful for arranging transport and ensuring the structure can carry it) and number of screws, but it is otherwise very limited to have any practical application.

If it is simply you practicing some basic web programming, this is very basic, but keep at it.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if the ability to "add a wall" and total the calculations on a per wall basis might prove more useful? This would allow you to "turn a corner" essentially, letting you go from room to room, working your way around a house until you're back to the starting position. Obviously this does not solve for a vaulted ceiling or double-boarded walls. Also, by double-boarded, are you referring to simply layering the drywall, for example, to create a better sound barrier or provide more insulation? I don't know that I've ever seen anyone double insulate a wall personally. I'm sure it's been done though. If so, and if you did things on a per wall basis, he could probably add a simple check to double the calculation of that particular wall?

Also, where are you that there is steel framing, I'm curious?! Here in the US most residential housing is wooden (as far as I am aware...)

<comment><USER2> I am in Serbia, where (in the last 50 years, since some devastatong earthquakes in 1970s) houses are usually "framed" with reinforced concrete (pillars, floor bases), and walls are usually done with red hollow bricks.

Drywall is commonly used for adaptations (esp of attic, or splitting off a room into two), and board producers also make steel frame parts (eg. [https://www.knauf.co.uk/systems-and- products/systems/drywall...](https://www.knauf.co.uk/systems-and- products/systems/drywall-systems/partition-systems/knauf-isolator) where you've also got mention of double plastering).

Doubling boards increases strength (eg. if you want to hang heavy stuff like bathroom sinks) and acoustic isolation, so if you are splitting off a bedroom, you might do it only on those walls.</comment></comment></comment>


Design to fight Ebola - <AUTHOR> https://openideo.com/content/fighting-ebola

<comment><AUTHOR> The folks over at IDEO have launched a challenge in partnership with USAID to invited designers to develop ideas to stop EBOLA</comment>


Ask HN: How much do you sleep at night? - <AUTHOR> How many hours of sleep do you average a night? How do you feel it affects your work life, non-work life, and everything else? <comment><USER3> <http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/sleepless.html>

Stanford University Center of Excellence for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Sleep Disorders

Each of us has a specific daily sleep requirement. The average sleep requirement for college students is well over eight hours, and the majority of students would fall within the range of this value plus or minus one hour. If this amount is not obtained, a sleep debt is created. All lost sleep accumulates progressively as a larger and larger sleep indebtedness. Furthermore, your sleep debt does not go away or spontaneously decrease. The only way to reduce your individual sleep debt is by obtaining extra sleep over and above your daily requirement.

The powerful brain mechanism that regulates the daily amount of sleep is called the sleep homeostat. By increasing the tendency to fall asleep progressively in direct proportion to the increasing size of the sleep debt, this homeostatic process ensures that most people will get the amount of sleep they need, or close to it. The elevated sleep tendency together with the associated drowsiness and an intense desire for sleep would ordinarily prevent most people from becoming dangerously sleep deprived because they would go to bed early, or sleep late, when such excessive daytime sleepiness occurred.

However, in our society we are prone to ignore or resist nature's signal that we need more sleep, and we often resist far too long. At this point, we cannot resist falling asleep. Depending on when and where this happens, falling asleep can be tragic, or merely inconvenient. As far as is currently known, nothing can change an individual's fundamental daily sleep requirement.

<comment><USER4> "Does not go away" makes it sound permanent, but I read about an experiment to measure sleep debt that found it's sort of a decaying average over the last two weeks. There's no reason to think my body remembers exactly how many all- nighters I pulled in college.

<comment><USER5> Well, the idea is that you'll be tired enough that you'll almost always pay it back pretty promptly. So your body doesn't have to remember for a really long time because you don't keep a balance for that long.

For example, after you turned in the papers/took the exams from the all- nighters in college, you probably crashed and took a long nap or slept 12 hours that night or something.

It's not exact, obviously. I have found that you kinda get a "discount" when you get enough into sleep-debt. I slept about 15 hours over 6 nights once, and after basically sleeping for 24 hours straight, I was totally fine. So that was only like 16 hours of extra sleep (because 8 of the 24 have to count towards that night), which means with that the initial sleep + the paid back sleep was only ~31 hours for 6 nights, which is still only 5 hrs/night.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you are not getting 7 to 8 hours, you are just fooling yourself into thinking you are a hero. You shall pay for those hours with your health.

<comment><USER7> Please post some studies showing how you get ill with less than this magical 7-8 hours sleep.

Say you sleep 2 hours less than "the norm". That means you get an extra 30 _DAYS_ a year of 'awake' time. Over 50 years, that 2 hours has added up to an extra 4 years of useful awake time.

Would you rather have more time while you're young, and able to do stuff, or just live a bit longer when you're old and stuck in a home? (Assuming you're correct, and lack of sleep makes you die younger).

Everything in moderation - don't take things to extremes, but I'd say 5 hours is probably still healthy enough.

Having kids certainly helps with training yourself to not need much sleep.

<comment><USER8> A lot happens while your asleep. It's not just your brain repairing itself, although you'd think this would be important enough. In college, at the end of a few hours of study, I'd have some vague understanding of the material. After a full night of sleep, the next day, the information was sometimes clear as day.

Additionally, I'm convinced that your dreams, whether you remember them or not, influence your consciousness. That great idea you had may be a derivative of some really strange thoughts that went through your head while you were asleep.

The point is that sleeping isn't wasted time. There's really important things going on and the ones sleeping those 30 more days a year are probably going to get more out of their sleep than those staying awake for that time.

<comment><USER7> I agree. I often solve problems when asleep, and wake up with an answer. But picking _any_ arbitrary number and saying people should sleep that much is a bad idea. One size doesn't fit all.

<comment><USER8> Definitely. The way I read his post, though, it was more to point out that you should get a full night of sleep and if you're bragging about only sleeping a few hours a night to be productive, you're not impressing anybody.

<comment><USER7> Fair enough... I wouldn't objected if he hadn't included the magic 7-8 hour figure. I agree, some people are sleeping too little trying to be a hero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 5 or 6 before getting laid off. 8 or 9 now and loving every minute of it. I can't tell you how much better I feel. I can take power naps on the couch and often solve the prolem I've been working on all morning, just after waking up. I work the entire day with breaks whenever I want and actually end up working 9 or more hours.

It's also great to work on my startup full time. My office is now the patio table if it's sunny or the back porch if it's raining. It's amazing how hard you'll "work" to not have to go back to "work".

</comment><comment><USER10> There was a poll a while back: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=328901>

</comment><comment><USER11> Words to live by from George III:

"Six hours' sleep is enough for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool."

Of course, he was... well, mad.

</comment><comment><USER12> The IDF foobar'd my sleep forever, or so I thought. When you're in the army the first few months is boot-camp -- they give you exactly six hours a day, that's including the time it takes for you to fall asleep. Teaches you submission or something along these lines.

Thing is, I really like sleeping. I love it.

So after a few years that this was done with, I tried to recover the joy I used to find in downtime. You know -- getting the rest, seeing the lucid dreams, waking up renewed and refreshed -- that sort of thing.

Turns out my "natural cycle" was permanently shortened by the way we were being worked, or so I feel. I can't go 18/6 or 16/8, and even 14/10 doesn't feel any more refreshing.

So I started doing 12/6. That's twelve hours to do what you've got to be doing and six to sleep, not including the time to fall asleep. If you stop consuming and producing information about an hour before you go to sleep you can fall asleep real fast, under 10 minutes.

The downside is that you'll have to be self-employed, or it won't work for you (sometimes your sleep will fall during the day).

Even if I feel it works for me, it _does not necessarily_ mean you should do it. Try it for a week, and see.

</comment><comment><USER13> About an hour less than I'd like to.

<comment><USER14> Through chronic undersleeping I've trained myself to undersleep, which leaves me groggy and vulnerable to minor colds and such. Some days I'm so tired I avoid talking to people because I know I sound mentally defective. Every once in a while this culminates in sleeping until noon, and having to call in sick and apologize to my boss.

I'm developing the discipline to avoid caffeine after 6pm and go to bed "early" (which right now means midnight or 1am) but sometimes it's just impossible to get enough sleep. Last night I set my alarm for 8:30 and went to bed at 1am, but I woke up at 7:30. Tired. ARRRGH! This happens more often than not. It looks like regaining my ability to sleep is going to require a long period of diet-level discipline. My recommendation to anyone who doesn't get enough sleep: fix your lifestyle before it becomes ingrained in your psychology and physiology.

<comment><USER15> If you want to sleep better, cut out caffeine after noon. It's got a much longer half-life than you think.

Also, rather than forcing yourself to try to sleep at a certain time, create consistency in when you wake up.

<comment><USER14> I did have to moderate my caffeine intake to avoid lying awake at night. I still drink several strong cups of coffee before noon, but after that I limit myself to three diet sodas. If I drink the last before 6pm, I don't have any problem going to sleep.

When I was younger I'd drink caffeine all day and then be too wired to sleep, but when I finally went to sleep, I'd sleep as long as I needed to. My biggest problem was that if I drank coffee I would stay up late and then sleep through my alarm in the morning. Now my problem is not sleeping long enough even when I have the chance.

<comment><USER16> Why not switch to decaf?

<comment><USER14> Mostly because I like caffeine. I've thought about kicking it entirely, but I hope that isn't necessary. Also, the decaf selection is pretty limited where I shop, and none of my favorite kinds of coffee are ever available as decaf. Usually the only light-roast decafs available are Central American coffees, which aren't my cup of tea, so to speak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Personally on a normal week night I sleep for roughly 5 hours, and then on Saturdays and Sundays I usually sleep for 8-9 hours, so my overall average is around 6 hours a night.

I frequently wish I could sleep more and feel tired long before I go to bed most nights, but I do not take it to such an extreme that I believe it truly reduces my effectiveness. Of course, that is my subjective thought and I have not tried to precisely test it.

<comment><USER18> This describes me as well. I need those late night hours after the kids have gone to bed to code. I make it up on the weekend, but it's easy to get behind. Saturday and Sunday recovery sleep is sometimes interrupted, throwing the whole next week into a tailspin.

Sometimes, when I am way behind on rest, I go through a reset period. Normally this is marked by more sleeping hours and less interest in hacking... also less interest in social interaction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've having a particularly bad time right now (big and manifold responsibilities, not enough time) and only getting 3-5 hours / night on weeknights. This has been going on for months now (with some regular 7-8 hour sleeping nights once in a while).

Results I've found: Mornings _really_ suck. I'm putting on weight. I also feel terribly unhealthy. I'm not as sharp as I am at full power (though this is subjective and very hard to discern). I can fall asleep in minutes if given a place to lay down. Also, I get sick much more often than usual (which was hardly at all). Subjective opinion: it feels like I'm prematurely aging myself.

Trying to "make up" the sleep on weekends doesn't work for me. Oversleeping just leads to bad headaches.

When I _do_ get a solid 8 hours I feel like Superman the next day.

I'm hoping that I'm not doing any long-term damage to myself, but there's really no way out right now. :( The current job ends very soon (2 weeks!), and then I'll be able to resume normal sleeping habits (7-8 hrs/night).

<comment><USER14> Ditto on putting on weight, ditto on the unpleasant effects of oversleeping to catch up, and ditto on not being sharp. The thing to keep in mind is that you're well beyond the point of diminishing returns. If you aren't achieving maximum output in somewhere between 6 and 10 working hours per day, then you're suffering from distractions -- something else is sucking up your productivity.

See my other post for my difficulty with undoing the habit of undersleeping. Even though I no longer experience any external pressure to undersleep, I still don't get enough sleep and suffer the consequences for it. It's hard to stop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I get anywhere from 12+ to 5 hours of sleep, depending.

I'm 14 and I go to bed when I'm tired. I wake at 7:30 on weekdays for school and sleep for as long as I like on the weekends. The reason for my fluctuation of sleep is that I think most clearly during the night, which is when I get most of my hacking done. So I like living a night life when life is centered around the day and that screws up your sleeping.

There's nothing quite like being alone in a quiet house at 3 am in a room with nothing but a linux terminal.

Anyways, my sleeping habits don't affect my school learning(the days we actually learn stuff), nor my social life.

</comment><comment><USER21> "You can't steal time from your sleep schedule, you can only borrow it. Eventually you have to pay it back. With interest. Yes, you _have_ to get XYZ done by yesterday, or... or... Well, _something_ really bad will happen. Take a minute to consider most deadlines you've had. Is the deliverable going to ship the day after the deadline? Of course not, this is just the regular monthly deliverable. By the time the shipping deliverable rolls around you'll be paying back your sleep debt, with interest. "

\- bram cohen

</comment><comment><USER22> The way I figure it is, some days you work harder and need more sleep, some days you need less. So I try to be like a machine: I'll wake up at 7am and go to sleep when I'm tired.

This results in me getting about 6-8 hours sleep a night - and no sleeping in on weekends! It throws my pattern completely out of whack.

As a previous poster said, the most productive hours for a hacker are the wee hours of the morning, when the wife/neightbours/kids piss off and let you code - but I think it's important to keep your waking hours as closely tied to sunrise/sunset as possible - it's all a compromise and one size doesn't fit all.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've found recently that at crunch time on uni work/ freelance work I seem to just omit the having a life part of my day to maintain a similar amount of sleep.

Also the sleep moves from say midnight -1 to 10-11 to about 5-6 to 12-2

<comment><USER24> My sleeping pattern moves round the clock. Right now waking up around 5 pm. Wouldn't actually be much of a problem if there wouldn't be a society out there which prefers different sleeping patterns. I like coding at night (partly because it's rather noisy around here at day), but finding time for shopping can be difficult sometimes.

And I need 8-9 hours of sleep, anything below that and my productivity drops like a stone.

<comment><USER25> This is because researchers found out, that there are two tyes of persons regarding the "inner clock": for some the day lasts 23 hours for others 25 hours. Unless you regulate yourself with alarm-clock you will go cycles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Between 6 and 7 hours on weeknights, probably between 8 and 9 on weekends. I don't think it's working for me that well, though. I usually go to sleep at midnight or 1, then get woken up by my alarm at 7:00, but snooze until 7:30 or 7:45 and it's really time to get going. I feel like it'd be a much better idea to just consistently go to sleep at 11 PM on weeknights, but I never really feel tired at that point. Also, I tend to stay up reading in bed.

</comment><comment><USER27> Currently unemployed, so like 10.

</comment><comment><USER28> Funny to see this post here today, as last day was actually one of those work- round-the-clock days (1h powernap), I usually try to aim for at least 6 hours. Less than that just makes me less efficient at work and I start skipping sports for the day ;). I usually have one day per week where I sleep really a lot, like 10 hours or so, which feels like it sort of recharges me for the week.

</comment><comment><USER29> With spring/summer allergies I get really tired. I wish I could sleep an extra REM period. But I get 7 hours each night.

The theory that it is best to wake up during soft-sleeping between REM sleep interests me. As others have mentioned, sleeping too much can make you sleepy all day as well.

Anyone got one of those alarm clocks that wake you up when you sleep softly between REMs?

</comment><comment><USER30> 6-7. I don't use an alarm clock, but that's the amount of time my body feels like it needs. When I'm under a crunch, it will sometimes drop to 5, but I don't do that for very long. I regularly only got about 4 hours / night during college and I'm sure it negatively impacted my grades.

</comment><comment><USER31> Usually 6.5 - <USER2>

Get up, go to the gym, nice cool morning air after the gym and shower, and to work before everyone gets in.

</comment><comment><USER32> When I was a student, I used to go to bed at 7:00-8:00 and wake up at 12:00-13:00, so that's about 5 hours. When saturday came, I visited my parents, went to bed at 12:00, saturday noon and woke up at 16:00, sunday afternoon. I really miss those days.

<comment><USER33> Sounds about the same as me for my first two semesters. Only difference is instead of going home on the weekends I would take an hour nap before my early Friday class then go back to sleep until Saturday after the class was over. Glad I'm not doing that anymore :)

Off topic: Are you the kaitnieks that created Autorune and SCAR?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> 5-6 hours during the night, if the kids are sleeping well. If I have to get up in the night, I often take a 20-45 min nap the next afternoon. Even if no child wakes me up, I virtually never sleep more than 8 hours.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think it's also important not only how many hours, but when. If you have a daily work, well you must sleep at night. But if you are a Freelancer for example? Do you sleep at 3am? 6am? 10am?

</comment><comment><USER36> About 5 hours. I fall asleep at ~2, I get up at 7 to get the kids to school. I sleep in on Saturday and doze Sunday morning until the kids force me to make the weekly pancakes at around 11a.

</comment><comment><USER37> I go to sleep between 1 to 2AM and get to my computer about 10-10:30AM. But I usually lay in bed for a little while as I regain consciousness.

</comment><comment><USER38> Around 9. But just a number doesn't say enough by far. I've been through about one year with only 7 hours and have been perfectly fine - I used to wake up by myself because I had something exciting to do. Most of the time though waking up an hour earlier will cost me a full day of drowsiness.

Also this, about 2-3 hours. But freelancing, so it's ok. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome>

</comment><comment><USER39> 7-8, tend to feel better when I sleep 7 instead of 8 btw. Btw I get this sleep in a strange range... from 02:00am to 10:00am

<comment><USER30> I'm the same way. If I sleep 8 hours I'm wiped out for most of the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Five or six hours nightly during the week, generally some more on the weekends. Pretty typical for 22 years old I'd assume.

</comment><comment><USER41> 10 hours. I like down-time.

</comment><comment><USER42> 8-9

</comment><comment><USER43> 6 with occasional 10 minute naps in the office chair.

</comment><comment><USER44> Lately, not enough but usually at least 7 hours.

</comment><comment><USER45> Who sleeps at night?

</comment><comment> Gertm<USER2>
</comment><comment><USER25> As far as I am informed, the amount of sleep one needs varies from person to person. I am no expert but I did read some stuff about it. Also on the whole there is not done that much research about sleep.

I did test it out for myself. Without caffeine-intake my body regulates to a 7,5 hours sleep patern, no alarm-clock needed. With caffeine (2 cups of coffee + a tea) and alcohol (2 beers or so) intake I need ~10 hours sleep per night.

</comment><comment><USER47> As much as necessary, and no hour longer.

It's not hours that count, but quality. You have to prepare your sleep time, really shutting down as much as possible.</comment>


Ask HN: A question for those who went to MIT/Stanford/CMU - <AUTHOR> I am wondering what's the learning environment and what behavior makes folks at these and alike school smart. They don't get hung up on new Javascript framework or new language. My observation is that top performers from this school are focused on solving problems. I have met quite a few who are very smart folks but they are not chasing new Java/Scala/GO language feature. Heck, some even don't know Java programming.
Despite this, these folks solve hard problems and often solve it better than anyone else.
I am curious about distinction between chasing new language/technology/language vs solving problems. How do you see yourself after graduating from these schools? <comment><USER2> I think that focusing on undergraduate credentials as a measure of engineering ability is largely unproductive, and phrases like "they don't get hung up on new Javascript framework" are stereotypes, and you will meet many counterexamples. To be clear, these schools turn out plenty of mediocre engineers.

Usually, the selection process of which you're seeing the results is that kids who are very good at engineering will choose to go to one of these schools to maximize the chances of meeting like-minded people.

These people were already budding great engineers in beforehand. The schools they attend do not apply some kind of Midas' touch that turns an ordinary person into a great engineer or scientist.

So, I think your proposition has its causality inverted. Potential great engineers often _end up_ at MIT/Stanford/etc., and they continue being great engineers. It is not the case that MIT/Stanford produce great engineers by having some magic classes that the other top-20 schools don't.

<comment><USER3> I would assert that, given that great engineers end up at these top unis, they are able to widen their gap with others by a) accelerating their skills/knowledge by associating with like-minded individuals, and b) being stretched by their respective colleges.

My observation is that top colleges tend to lump more work of greater breadth and depth in their students.

It's like joining a great sports academy where you develop faster by constantly being in competition with your peers and by also training harder.

<comment><USER4> /second, came here to say this too. The top schools give their students much more, harder problem sets, exams, etc. than others. Some grade on a curve too, meaning that if everyone scores between 90-100, they don't all get A's, rather the bottom third gets C's, the mid 90s get B's, and the top third get A's. Creates an extremely competitive environment that pushes folks with raw talent to really work hard to hone it. Finally, most of the work is focused on learning problem solving methodologies, rather than learning the syntax and grammar of particular languages.

<comment><USER5> Yes. Competition is a powerful motivator. I recall at CMU one day when they gathered all us ECE students together in an auditorium and said "There are an order of magnitude (base 2) too many of you here - we will have to fail half of you out. Look to your left. Look to your right. Those two students may soon be gone." Swear to God a true story. Any fellow classmates ('88) can vouch for the meeting. Meant that a "C" was a great grade since you got to stay. Was terrible for one's GPA however.

<comment><USER6> its a common engineering thing. In my Dad's EE class in the mid 60s they did the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's rather simple: A proper CS education, one that has all that "useless" theory that a number of HNers love to deride, equips its bearer to understand how anything in the software world is implemented. You don't have to study as hard to pick up a new technology or stack because you will know roughly what the underlying implementation has to look like and can simply poke around to identify the components and interfaces that you know have to be there.

Or, as a recent blog posting that made HN succinctly put it "'How' ages faster than 'Why'" ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13500883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13500883)). Knowing the "why" of CS means you never have to chase the "how" of the latest flavor of the month stack or framework.

<comment><USER8> This seems a bit like saying a physicist is more capable of understanding how satellites work than an engineer who designs satellites because he knows the underlying theory better. It's kind of true in some sense but doesn't really capture the context or nuance that goes into a non-trivial engineering effort, or the more general case asserted by the topic author.

<comment><USER7> That's not a very good analogy. Most would agree, I think, that the separation between CS, as taught in most programs, and professional software development is far, far smaller than the separation between physics and aerospace engineering.

<comment><USER8> Well, that's another discussion altogether. I'm of the view that the closeness of professional software development to academic CS is one of the biggest problems in the industry from the perspective of regarding it as an engineering discipline.

<comment><USER3> I think that's just a function of how much money is in the field - more people end up in industry than academia AND industry has an even bigger interest in pushing the boundaries. This leads to blurring between the lines of industry and academia.

I'm sure if there were more money in subatomic physics we'd observe the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's going to be difficult to draw a generalization because I have mostly my experience from MIT, but I can't tell how that's the same/different as others from MIT or other schools.

For me, MIT taught me how to think more than it taught me anything specific. Sure, I learned a bunch of engineering, but mostly, I learned to be skeptical, to think through and quickly identify the key aspects of a design, a business, or a model and zero my efforts in on the sensitive areas and ignore (or minimize investment in) the routine parts. (Part of it is you get this secondarily from having such a firehose of work and interesting opportunities around you.)

In industry, it has made me skeptical of the framework flavor of the week, but I also don't want to be forever stuck in K&R C, so there's a balance to be struck.

I also wouldn't be overly impressed with an MIT grad just based on that fact. Getting into MIT is hard. Getting out of MIT mostly takes determination.

<comment><USER10> I would add to that MIT taught me how to learn new topics very quickly without much handholding at all. That's the skill that makes one not so prone to obsess on one framework versus the other, because if necessary you can learn both.

Back in the day (perhaps still the case today?) there was not a single "learn to code" in some specific language anywhere in MIT's EECS department. There was Sussman's SICP class which taught scheme more or less in the first week. Barbara Liskov's class taught her research language named CLU more or less the same way. As a short diversion before getting to the meat of the course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> CMU grad here, working on a PhD.

First, don't put too much emphasis on school. Great programmers can come from anywhere.

Many other commenters are emphasizing the role of selection effect: top-tier schools select good students, rather than teaching well. I think the effect of good teaching shouldn't be undervalued. Although, again, good teachers and courses can come from anywhere, here are some things CMU does or did in the way of pedagogy:

1\. Focus on concepts and skills, not specific technologies. Many of CMU's intro courses are taught in Standard ML, a language used by basically nobody. This levels the playing field, forcing people who think they already know everything to learn things from a different perspective. It puts the focus on how to design and reason about programs, rather than the minutiae of popular languages.

2\. Have project-based courses. The star example here is CMU's operating systems course, which is a thing of beauty and terror. At many schools OS courses teach you trivia about hardware. CMU's OS course involves some of that, but is mostly about (a) working with a partner (b) time management (c) designing concurrent programs. The compilers course is of similar quality.

3\. Teach math-as-problem-solving. CMU has a course, 15-251, which is notoriously difficult, because it introduces you to a lot of discrete math very quickly. This is partly because discrete math is the core of CS theory; most programs will never need this, but when you _do_ need it, knowing a bit of theory can save you days or months. But the other goal is to simply practice solving difficult conceptual problems.

</comment><comment><USER12> I went to one of these schools. I know the basics of java but pray to the spaghetti monster I never have to actually work with it.

Most people I knew at school were a lot smarter than me. And the thing I noticed about them was that they saw things more abstractly. It wasn't about semi colons, or the latest frameworks; but a desire to see things a little more generally so that their understanding could apply to large classes of languages.

Beyond languages, another thing this helped with was being able to use mathematics, computer science and logic to model parts of the world with some level of mathematical rigor. In other words, answering an under defined question systematically by first formulating it rigorously.

One more thing abstract thinking seems to help with is that it makes learning new concepts a little easier. And so, being at these schools probably also teaches people how to learn, which can be useful throughout life.

<comment><USER13> "It wasn't about semi colons, or the latest frameworks; but a desire to see things a little more generally that could apply to large classes of languages."

This is the number one most important lesson a software developer can learn. Strive to understand the underlying abstractions and patterns, make sure to have a _broad_ experience base so you can see many different ways these abstractions and patterns are applied in different languages and frameworks. You will be far more useful as your career progresses, quicker to learn things, able to spot the good and bad in the latest buzzwords.

I did not go to one of the 3 named schools but my observation over the last 20 or so years has been that while not a perfect correlation, better CS programs tend to do a better job instilling this sentiment into students.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just by their admission standards, these top tier schools are going to have a higher percentage of very smart students who are fundamentally prepared for college and have learned how to learn. At the university, they also have an advantage of learning from and interacting with a faculty who are themselves, leaders in their respective fields. Thus, there are opportunities to participate in cutting edge research that isn't offered at other schools.

A computer language is simply a tool to get things done. Education isn't about learning the latest and greatest tool but applying what you know with what you have in an effective and productive manner. To wit, Fortran, that old-timey language from the 60s, is still being used in modern research in physics, electronics, and other technical disciplines.

</comment><comment><USER15> I went to one of these schools. I disagree with fellow HNers who say that the students are great engineering minds or have the right motivations from before hand.

These institutions do a damn good job at making you very very strong on your foundations of CS and problem solving and architecture. They deserve a ton of credit. They focus much lesser on teaching you cool and trendy stuff, and much more on grounded understanding of everything that forms the foundational basis of computing technology, especially in the first 2 years of the 4 year programs.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've spent a lot of time around Stanford and Berkeley CS grads. The main difference I would say is not that they are particularly more intelligent than anyone else, but that they are filled with an incredible amount of motivation. They tend to be extremely driven, focused people who are capable of putting in tons of work to "get shit done". They also tend to have a million different things going on at once (clubs, side projects, jobs, etc.) and have every moment of their lives scheduled out.

<comment><USER11> CMU grad here, currently working on a PhD. All I can say is, this description doesn't apply to me. I'm definitely of the "work smart, not hard" persuasion. Persistence, I guess I have; but not an unbounded work ethic, or the focus to work on ten things at a time. Persistence for me means finding a new way to attack a problem, not pushing as hard as possible, John Henry style.

<comment><USER17> PhD student here, and I'm exactly the same. I procrastinate a lot (not good!), but I've been able to get things done. My current goal is to figure the optimal way to minimize procrastination...

<comment><USER18> I've recently made pretty good gains at minimizing procrastination.

First, I simply eliminated working on anything I didn't really need and/or want to do. I don't need to think about doing stuff I don't plan on doing!

Second, anything that needed to get done, I scheduled it. For simple tasks, I just created morning and evening blocks of time for home and work. The repetitive stuff I do first, and then I work on one off stuff until I don't feel like doing it anymore. It just gets done in the next block. For example, scanning N tax documents is lame, so I scanned maybe a dozen in one block, and just did the rest the rest in the next block. For important things, I schedule a single purpose appointment, and do my best to just make it happen.

Lastly, I bought a wall calendar, and nailed it to... aait for it... my wall. I "x" out every day I feel like I attended to the stuff I said I was gonna do. If I don't feel a "x" has been earned, it is usually for a specific reason, and I try to address that reason. I choose not to care about the "x" streak, days in in a row. I simply use the calendar to gauge whether I'm being as consistent as I'd like to be.

I've gone made pretty good gains on transitioning from Professor Procrastinator to Captain Consistent. Will always be a work in progress :)

<comment><USER17> Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER18> This morning I wrote a note to myself that I didn't earn the "X". I've been trying to wake up at 7a, and go thru a start of day checklist. I want the "X" damn it. Tomorrow, maybe I'll read the checklist. Still, I got way more done this morning before heading into the office than I would have if there was no concept of a plan :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yeah man coming from CMU there is an intense focus on not getting lost in microtrends and "new" ideas which are simply rehashing what's already been done. You want to avoid poisoning your mind by learning say functional programming in Rambda.js instead of going straight to the source. Before CMU I would pour over blog posts by amateur developers arguing that Ruby on Rails is always better than PHP or some other trite overdetermined point like that. After school I will actually look at their background to see if they are someone worth listening to or if there are just another bad developer with an opinion. A lesson that stuck with me from systems class was (paraphrasing here) "you want to be the power programmer who truly understands how the system works and can solve bugs nobody else can, and the only way to do that is to crack a book and read about how operating systems work, how networking works, etc instead of being stuck in user land, unable to deal with situations where the abstractions break"

<comment><USER9> The second half of your comment really resonates with me. I was generally pretty good at really understanding how things worked at the system level, but there is one friend I used to work with who was simply amazing at it. He was the guy who would go deep on our web farm, figure out what was wrong in the garbage collector, monkey patch a workaround, and send a bug report to Microsoft with what needed to be changed on 16-core NUMA machines, saving us 25% of performance across the farm AND reduce page times by a 100ms or so. Or troubleshoot a sporadic network issue by isolating the issue via testing in production (without access to the network gear) and tell the network team where the bottleneck is. (Needless to say, this can ruffle some feathers of the easily offended, or with the people who believe that purity is more important than functional and that one simply shouldn't write code that understands you're running on a NUMA machine, but it was amazing to watch time after time.) He's moved on to another local company where I've heard from him (and others) that he continues to do the same over there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Regardless of your education, once you learn a set of technologies well enough it generally becomes easy to just start working on a problem.

Also, I don't mean to be invidious but, programming languages are normally the easy part: Unless you jump from (say) VB.Net to Haskell most programming languages are actually fairly similar. In fact, programming languages are boring: Once you know a few, particularly if you know a bit about compilers (e.g. can work from the specification/grammar, Haskell made sense only after I'd read SPJ( _possibly_ et al)'s, it becomes fairly easy to pick up a new programming language. _However_ , software engineering is very important (e.g. Style, testing and optimisation, i.e. for the cache, are all very important skills that I'd assume most people learn by themselves.

I'm 16, so I can't exactly speak from experience; I also don't have any data: My guess would be that because of the difficulty of getting into the top schools/Unis, they cream off the top students. These students then spend years honing their skills, however (assuming your observations are true) they get particularly good at the more rigorous/theoretical side of their science. Supposedly, that would help you focus on the stuff that matters(TM).

In practice, I think that this is probably not true. I'd be fairly surprised (Or shocked) if MIT et al just spat out magically excellent engineers. I'd guess, that it just provides a nice foundation to learn on top of.

</comment><comment><USER21> Not sure about those particular schools, but my experience of CS is that it is completely separate from the going ons of the commercial market.

I believe most schools stick with traditional tools for educating, using Haskell and C for projects, although some are moving towards python.

I'd be surprised if any of them teach any javascript whatsoever unless you took a course specifically on that topic.

</comment><comment><USER22> I went to Stanford, class of 2010. I got a BS and MS in computer science; the MS was with Stanford's "coterm" program where you can earn credits towards your master's degree during your four years as an undergrad.

* what behavior makes folks at these and alike school smart *

My experience was that almost everyone I met at Stanford had done something pretty extraordinary in high school. Examples: teaching an AP science class, being an amazing pianist, doing well at national science fairs, being a published author.

To answer your question: Almost everyone was very smart, but at least at Stanford there was great variety in the kinds of intelligence on display. This was true even among CS majors.

* what's the learning environment *

I'm not totally sure what you're asking about here. Undergrad CS classes were pretty similar to what you'd see at most universities: Professors lecturing, then people taking home exercises or programming assignments. Collaboration was usually encouraged on exercises, and programming assignments were usually done in groups.

My honest experience was that a lot of big courses were not particularly well taught. The first few CS courses are an exception; they're taught not by professors but by lecturers, who are all really good.

The best CS classes I took were graduate "seminar"-type classes, where we'd read a few papers each week and then come to class and discuss them. Shout out to Dawson Engler; his operating systems seminar was inspiring and eye-opening.

I can't speak as much to non-CS classes. I took some math and physics classes; these were pretty traditional, with lectures and written homework. Collaboration was encouraged on homework, and personally I wouldn't have been able to get through those classes without help from my friends.

* How do you see yourself after graduating from these schools? *

Again I'm not totally sure what you're after with this question. One of the best things that happened to me was that I became friends with musicians and biologists and English majors; people who are (academically, anyway) quite different from me. I learned to dance, and swing dancing has become a huge part of my life.

I work at Google now, and that's pretty humbling. Working at Mozilla when I did was as well. But life isn't all work, and in a lot of ways the non-CS stuff I learned in college has been much more impactful to my life and how I see myself.

</comment><comment><USER23> In my first college adventure, I learned Fortran, Algol-60, Simula,PL/I, APL, BCPL, and five assembly languages (MIX, IBM 1620, PDP-11, IBM 360,Burroughs 5500). We used Knuth AoCP volume I. My first job was programming a proprietary microprocessor with a mostly secret, weird architecture.

In my graduate adventure at Stanford, the course work was in Pascal, our research was in Ada (83), and I learned C, C++ (using Cfront), Prolog, Smalltalk, Lisp, and some formal specification languages. Assembly languages included DEC 10/20, VAX, Data General Eclipse, Sun IV, Cray I, and Sequent. Hennessy and gang were creating MIPS, and the CISC versus RISC debates were everywhere. My first job after Stanford was programming C and assembly language on IBM's brand new, unannounced RISC/System 6000 with a Unix-like OS. My next job was C programming on OS/2 on a very large office system with a homemade object oriented structure using C macros. The next job was a DARPA distributed system using CORBA where I brought in brand new Java to solve our multi platform GUI problem.

New programming languages are mostly boring; a Frankenstein collection of reused parts, badly stitched together. New frameworks are mostly silly.

Thanks to all of the parsing research in the early 1960s,resulting in LEX and YACC, plus books like the Dragon book, and Cooper's Compiler book, and LLVM, many programmers can invent and implement programming languages. But that does not mean that they SHOULD. Programming language design require aesthetics, which are not taught in Computer Science. Knuth's books are titled The ART of Computer Programming for a reason.

</comment><comment><USER24> Could it be that rather than the impact of the school, you're simply seeing how people who are capable enough to do well at these schools approach problems?

</comment><comment><USER25> When graduating, I knew I'd had the joy of working on real problems, designing real things, and being surrounded by really smart friends doing the same.

Much later I realized the classroom learning I'd thought was getting in the way of my experiential learning was what gave me the discipline to dig in and learn the things I needed to know to do the things I wanted to do.

</comment><comment><USER26> Very little of my CS education at MIT took place on a computer or in a language other than English. Watch an OCW lecture to see what I mean. You aren't dealing with anything more than simple C/Java notation or pseudocode if you see code at all. You learn the concepts and data structures in abstraction from their implementation.

</comment><comment><USER27> Many top people have been very self-motivated at some point in their lives. When you experience this, you can sit down and work on problems in flow day after day without fatigue -- even when the going is rough. It feels like solving a puzzle, where you get excited figuring out how every piece fits.

<comment><USER17> And then burnout kicks in and everything goes out the window. Even if you feel unlimited energy, make sure to take a break every now and then. Just my two cents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Bigger question to me is - how do we non-Top4 plebs rise to even 70% of their level?

<comment><USER29> Study some of it yourself [https://functionalcs.github.io/curriculum/](https://functionalcs.github.io/curriculum/) though you miss a lot not being in group projects, getting feedback from TAs and profs, ect.

<comment><USER28> I go to a school ranked ~48 by USNews. Concerned that I'll be I'll always be scraping the bottom, salary and respect wise because of it.

<comment><USER29> CMU/Stanford is full of grad students who went to so-called lesser ranked schools. You could also do the background work and get one of your professors to write a recommendation for you to attend the Oregon Programming Language Summer School or other summer conference where you can learn from these Stanford/CMU/MIT professors and other students. [https://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/summerschool/summer17/sc...](https://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/summerschool/summer17/schedule.php) a friend of mine did this every summer and hustled a lot of internships out of it working in research at top schools because they remembered his name from the conference and emailed him when looking for interns after they received grant money.

<comment><USER28> Valid points, but I don't have a 4.0 or any publications yet (I'm a junior). It feels like grad school is out of reach a top school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> J0-nas What kind of problems do you have in mind?

</comment><comment><USER30> Those are _very_ different programs.</comment>


Borders Nearing Bankruptcy Filing - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704329104576138353865644420.html <comment><USER2> Very sad. I loved the borders in San Francisco on 3rd and Townsend. It closed last year, now it is just a big, ugly, empty space.</comment>


Firefox to stop ISPs from tracking the websites you visit, from today - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2020/02/25/tracking-the-websites/ <comment><USER2> Duplicate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22412409](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22412409)

</comment><comment><USER3> The headline is factually incorrect. The ISPs of DoH users can still happily see user's destination IPs and hostnames (via SNI, even when the traffic goes to a shared cloudflare IP).

<comment><USER4> Firefox implemented ESNI, which encrypts the hostnames in the SNI handshake, last year.

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/encrypted- sni/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/encrypted-sni/)

<comment><USER5> IP will never be hidden.

<comment><USER3> In the Mozilla/Cloudflare brave new world, Cloudflare is front-ending and MITMing all HTTPs in any case... so the IP isn't informative.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Trump-Russia facts look from a counterintelligence perspective - <AUTHOR> https://threader.app/thread/1084498964114821120 <comment><USER2> To see it all laid out like this, one has to think why so many people (many here being any number more than one) do not want to at least let the investigation finish and to see the results. Our country was built on checks and balances and this is one of the greatest examples of how not one man or woman has too much power. We should be fully behind preserving these checks of power. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you are on, corruption should have no home in the US.</comment>


Ask HN: If I store encrypted data but throw away the key does that violate GDPR? - <AUTHOR> I thought this would be a violation as I'm not able to decrypt that data today, but as soon as technology got to a certain point, or true quantum computers become a thing, I'd be able to decrypt that date possibly trivially.<p>I was listening to a podcast where they described this as being a viable way of adhering to requests to delete personal information. <comment><USER2> Was any reason given as to _why_ doing that to (effectively) delete data over just deleting or overwriting them?

<comment><AUTHOR> One point that wasn't mentioned in the podcast, but that I thought of, was that if you had sort of blockchain that meant the data could not be deleted.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that's an interesting problem and would make sense in that context. They wouldn't be encrypting it when the data needs to be deleted, but encrypt it from the start, keep the key offchain and delete the key when they are required to delete the data. The data would still be "available" ("it's in there somewhere, but we have no way to get it out"), but useless. Would be necessary to make sure that no metadata can be gathered from the encrypted data on the chain, so when my doctor deletes the key, you mustn't be able to ascertain that I was even a patient.

I don't know whether it would hold up in court though, but it's an interesting idea. With a private block chain, the risk would be a lot smaller that a single leaked key (i.e. the customer accidentally releasing it) would result in big problems. I've recently talked with a lawyer friend of mine about a similar topic, but he didn't know immediately whether that's legally sound.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> INAL but if you've kept the personal data - in whatever form - after they've requested it to be deleted, then you're in violation.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems like more of a philosophical question.

If it's not accessible then it's essentially lost. If a new technology comes about that makes it accessible, then you would be liable.

If you've lost the key, and have no intent on recovering the data due to GDPR or whatever, then why not just delete it to avoid any potential future liability?

<comment><USER5> > If you've lost the key, and have no intent on recovering the data due to > GDPR or whatever, then why not just delete it to avoid any potential future > liability?

Perhaps there are a lot of backups of this encrypted data, some of which are not under control of the person asking the question.

Or just consider a tape backup. How would you efficiently delete a part of data stored on a tape?

Deleting data can be a hard problem in some cases.</comment></comment>


Céu: Structured Synchronous Reactive Programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.ceu-lang.org/ <comment><USER2> The language is a less-restricted (and less verifiable) Esterel descnedant. Esterel and its derivatives have been used successfully by the industry, for many years, to write fully verifiable, safety-critical, real-time reactive systems.

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

<comment><USER3> What kind of restrictions are you thinking about here? I don't know Esterel very well but Céu is very restrictive in order to ensure that responses to events don't loop. There are no recursive functions, no dynamic allocation, etc.

<comment><USER2> Esterel is not Turing complete, and it doesn't allow dynamic allocation.

<comment><USER3> Neither does Céu (not counting the C code you link against)

<comment><USER4> Your impressions about Céu are very accurate, but I would like to add some remarks. There are three possible perspectives about the language: the "static", presented in the SenSys'13 paper; the "dynamic", presented in the Modularity'15 paper; and also the actual compiler publicly available.

The static version shares similar restrictions to Esterel, as you both pointed out. The dynamic version allows dynamic allocation inside lexical pools, keeping static memory management (no GC or "free"), but with possible unbounded memory usage. The actual compiler is even less restrictive and just gives warnings for unbounded loops, recursive calls, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't be the only person wondering: how do you pronounce it? Kay-you/Say- you? Kyuh/Syuh?

<comment><USER6> Ceu (Portuguese) means Sky in English.

I think it is a take on Lua (the scripting language) which means moon.

The pronunciation is like 'Seoul' (South Korean Capital), with the 'e' pronuonced slightly more open as in egg.

<comment><USER7> Which pronunciation of Seoul is it like? The way Koreans pronounce it? The way Americans pronounce it? The way Europeans pronounce it?

I'm confused because Seoul doesn't have an 'e' sound in it at all, in Korean.

<comment><USER8> Is the 'e' skipped [soul] ? almost silent [s_oul] ? or a transition like [s~woul] ?

ps: forgot about [https://translate.google.com/#en/ko/seoul](https://translate.google.com/#en/ko/seoul), according to them it's not entirely silent.

<comment><USER7> 어 (transliterated as either "eo" or "uh") is a vowel that I would describe as like the "u" sound in the word "fun" but with the mouth open a bit wider.

It's nothing like any of the sounds an "e" can represent in English.

Europeans tend to pronounce it "See-OOL" which is just completely wrong.

<comment><USER9> It's a bit longer, always morphemic version of a schwa I believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I discovered this while struggling with C++ for an Arduino project. I'm really digging Ceu as an alternative that runs directly (and efficiently!) on the Arduino.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the neat features of Céu is that it has Simula-like objects with coroutines. Method calls are asynchronous, can be paused while they wait for events and many objects can be simulated run concurrently. One of the students here in the lab is experimenting with using Céu to code the logic for some simple 2D games and according to him the event system allows you to write code in a very "natural" way.

Another special feature of Céu is "strong abortion" with the par/or primitive. par/or lets you run two computations concurrently and if one of them completes the other one is aborted and all its resources are freed. Aborting asynchronous computations is not something that all asynchronous programming systems let you do very well.

(btw, if anyone is wondering, Céu means sky in Portuguese)

</comment><comment><USER10> Naming things is hard, but this seems like a total punt. :) Help us out!

</comment><comment><USER11> Discovered this right after handing in my master thesis where I wrote an (extremely) prototype compiler for my own language which has a similar approach.

Synchronous seems to be the way to go for multithreaded programs where optimal performance is not required.

</comment><comment><USER12> My favorite singer is Céu. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9u](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9u)

</comment><comment><USER13> I have flashbacks to Occam.</comment>


THOR-CD is a breakthrough even if it never makes it to the market (1988) - <AUTHOR> http://www.technofileonline.com/texts/thorcd88.html <comment><USER2> I can probably guess they ran into several issues with their desire to make their erasable/writable CDs compatible with normal disc players as one of the principal reasons that they didn't make it to market. I'm more curious about the specifics, though.

I found this: [http://www.hughsnews.ca/cd-e-call-it-erasable-call-it- rewrit...](http://www.hughsnews.ca/cd-e-call-it-erasable-call-it-rewritable- but-will-it-fly-0046064)

Considering I purchased my first CD burner around 1995 for the hefty price of $1,000 (A Plextor external SCSI drive if memory serves), the $500 price tag for a burner that could also use erasable discs and be compatible with normal CD players was a lofty goal, particularly in 1988! At the time, my burner could only use CD-R discs at 2x speed that generally played back in everything, but were Write Once (with $30 discs, no less, don't underrun that buffer when burning!). By the time I got my first re-writable, I found that rewritable discs were far less reliable (a problem that plagued DVD burners from Day #1 as well with their +R -R +RW -RW nonsense -- you'd think that would have been something figured out before the release of the first player since CD burners were popular by then).

</comment><comment><USER3> Going by Wikipedia, the "vaporware" label from the addendum is accurate.</comment>


The Future of Open Source Software Is in Doubt  - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/futuresin/the-future-of-open-source-software-is-in-doubt-microsoft-is-the-elephant-in-the-room-and-ibm-4df9b6d62570 <comment><USER2> I do not think it is possible to stop the development of Open Source software It's above our control</comment>


Creating a Product Focused Startup Culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/2011/02/21/creating-a-product-focused-startup-culture/

<comment><USER2> "Lastly, do not worry about competitors. Even if someone copied your idea completely, there are three areas competitors can never copy: 1) your team; 2) speed of product innovation of your team; 3) community of passionate users."

To stomach this startup mentality this quote drives home to me the most. I just came to the realization that there is a new product out that does what I want to do but not exactly. I put myself in a small panic/"is is worth it" kind of mentality but knowing that if something like this stops me from trying to accomplish my dream, then I dont have what it takes to start a startup. I won't be able to live with myself if I stop now and always have "what if's" floating around in my head. After reading this excerpt im fired up, im not going to let this speed bump stand in my way.

<comment><USER3> Completely...I've been in the same position for a while. There are dozens of apps, hacks and sites (some competitive with yours and mine!) launched every day by creators that have identified and are trying to solve legit problems --the same ones you're trying to solve. Thing is, most of these creators don't have 1) the design discipline to make the products really appealing to serve their niche consumers and 2) the forbearance to stick it out during the inevitable long iterative process. Which means that if you have confidence in your own ability to do those things better than a competitor (especially if what you're doing is "not exactly" what the it does) then, onward!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Keep a keynote file of UX/UI examples: I take screenshots of websites, features, UI design, etc that I almost always reference while we build our site." \--> This has been a major theme of my last month; paying more attention to the way I capture and keep organized. A little work as you go definitely saves time later, especially as Michael pointed out competitors cannot copy the 'speed of product innovation of your team.'

</comment><comment><USER5> Lots of useful general advice about building products. Cutting features is definitely the hardest part of his recommendations. Especially when a product is small and easy to enhance, it's tempting to add _just one more feature_. You just need to keep reminding yourself that getting it out the door will focus your efforts on what people actually want, and you'll know for sure whether that feature is worth building.

<comment><USER6> Totally true. The hardest part of the whole process is cutting features out. For me, I imagine that our sink is shipping and we just have to throw things overboard to stay afloat just a little longer. This allows us to throw things out that aren't exceptionally vital for the product.

The funny thing is that once you throw out the feature that you really really thought you needed, you actually don't even think about it anymore. Strange how that works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find the competing trends going on in the valley very interesting. It seems that there are still far more engineering-driven startups than product or customer.

Just last week I was visiting a startup where the lead engineer expressed outright disdain for product.

It'll be interesting to see which philosophy becomes dominant in 10 years.

<comment><USER8> Personally, I wouldn't hire an engineer who wasn't preaching about products. I've seen too many companies tank (or nearly tank) as a result of technology- focused engineers. You aren't taking up my head-count for the sake of learning about new technologies and cool ways to code. You are on my team because you share the vision of making users' lives better, and that is done through the product offering.

<comment><USER6> So true. I think the overarching problem with that scenario is that the engineer is building the product for himself, and not for the team and end users. Rather than caring about what's best for the product, he/she thinks about his personal ego.</comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Forecast as No. 2 Economy but Energy Independent - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/world/china-to-be-no-1-economy-before-2030-study-says.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp

<comment><USER2> _"The worst-case situation envisions a stalling of economic globalization that would preclude any advancement of financial well-being around the world. That would be a likely outcome after an outbreak of a health pandemic that, even if short-lived, would result in closed borders and economic isolationism."_

If a reduction in globalization is the worst case scenario the authors envision in the next 20 years, I think they may be lacking somewhat in imagination.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. No mention of global warming and this omission makes me think that it was written with a specific goal in mind. That is, to justify some program or policy that powerful people are behind.

<comment><USER4> Or they just assume that global warming is a given. I think more interesting questions is whether or not the current "debate"[1] about the role of religion as government that is going on in the middle east will escalate into a world wide conflict.

[1] Generally watching the Arab spring is like watching a referendum vote on the principle of separating church and state. But done with guns, bombs, and civilian casualties rather than a voting box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"In an interview, Mr. Burrows noted that the audiences in China were far more accepting of the American intelligence assessments — both those predicting China's economic ascendancy and those warning of political dangers if there was no reform of governance in Beijing — than were audiences in Russia."_

Really, they project China as #1 and Russia on a major downwards trend. Astonishing that this would be the reaction.

The whole cyber-attack warning reminds me of all the Ma Bell projections of phone outages during the phreaking era :P

</comment><comment><USER6> _"The study warns of the risk that terrorists could mount a computer-network attack in which the casualties would be measured not by the hundreds or thousands killed but by the millions severely affected by damaged infrastructure, like electrical grids' being taken down."_

I wonder about this. It seems like every study about the dangers of terrorism mentions this kind of cyber-attack as a possibility, and I just don't see it as being feasible. Hurricane Sandy cut out my own power for a week, and several people I know were without power for 2 weeks, and we got through it. I just don't believe that a cyber attack could damage the electrical infrastructure so badly that it would kill thousands.

<comment><USER4> A number of folks have argued that if it so easy to do this level of damage with a cyber attack why hasn't a terrorist done so in the last 10 years? Its not like you have to 'sneak' into the country or get pass the security theatre at the airport to mount such an attack. Hacking toolkits and websites are at least as easy to find as bomb making web sites.

<comment><USER7> Obscurity. It's not like these machines are clearly marked with signs and access points as with Airports.

So the challenge is on par with saying "find a _particular_ unsecured box on the internet". Without per-target research, you don't have a whole lot to go on. You can find tons and tons of targets. But the odds of them being the one you _wanted_ , or even _of the type_ you wanted, are pretty low.

Which isn't to say it's less a threat. But, rather, it's a threat that isn't likely to be _casually_ exploited. Anyone who goes through the trouble of per- target research and exploitation of a number of such targets, isn't likely to pull the trigger for the lulz.

Even a "trial run" of an exploit would be a risk. You'd be inviting scrutiny of the trial machine, including logs at the ISP (and NSA) going back cheney- knows-how-far, and if nothing else, have drawn attention to the very problem you're hoping continues to be ignored.

<comment><USER6> So I suppose my original comment should have just outright asked: What can a hacker actually do with (hypothetical) remote access to the electrical infrastructure? Open switches under load to effect an arc blast? Blow up a few substations?

Once hackers start mucking around with the grid, things start shutting down by themselves (cascading failures like in the 2003 blackout that you mentioned in another comment). In this situation, damaged equipment can be replaced fairly quickly (far quicker than if, say, a $60 billion storm throws trees across the wires).

I guess I was just looking more for responses from actual electrical engineers with knowledge of the problem. Otherwise we're all just talking out our collective asses, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> DNI website seems to be down at the moment. Report mirror: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/115962650/GlobalTrends-2030></comment>


Microsoft Office 365: Banned in German schools over privacy fears - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-office-365-banned-in-german-schools-over-privacy-fears/ <comment><USER2> I always wonder if it is legal for doktors to use microsoft software: In my country, the medical secret is absolute, which means giving or taking medical data to anybody not strictly needing it is a crime.

So if a medical program crashes and telemetry picks up medical data in a dump, the doktor commits a crime, as does any microsoft employee reading that dump.

I guess the only reason the court doesn't do anything, is thete is no smoking gun. So one day, someone will notice and then it all comes crashing down.

<comment><USER3> I don't know. I've long argued possession of data should never be a crime, even if the data contains evidence of crimes including crimes committed on human children.

To say a Microsoft employee who sees medical data is committing a crime would probably make me a hypocrite.

I think there should be some accountability but that should be at the top of an organization, not (just) the foot soldiers.

<comment><USER4> I'd say one of the problems is that often, the heads of an organization are almost never held to account. This is particularly the case when it comes to American companies, as we've seen in the case of Zuckerberg. Maybe if the front line felt the pain in some way, there'd be more pressure to change the internal culture. I don't see any easy solutions here, unfortunately, while companies make insane amounts of money off of violating our privacy and our right to control our own data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Who remembers RMS saying that anything non-free is inappropriate at schools? Here we see part of the reason why.

Very good decision by those schools. Hopefully more will follow and other institutions as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Funny, meanwhile in my state the schools are moving _to_ Microsoft. Unfortunately, skepticism of Microsoft and other American companies isn't as widespread as it should be here in Germany.

<comment><USER6> Compared to your next door neighbour (the Netherlands) privacy awareness is a big thing in Germany. Or at least that is the perception I get...

<comment><USER4> It's tough. Our laws are stricter than many other countries. But the vast majority of people I know or have interacted with just don't think it's a big deal. The whole "I have nothing to hide" perspective. Maybe it's an age thing. I don't know. I'll point out some creepy privacy violation and I usually get a "So?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Remember when Munich ditched Windows? It only lasted a few years before Microsoft successfully won them back by offering steep discounts and moving their headquarters to Munich.

One has to wonder whether history will repeat itself.

[https://itsfoss.com/munich-linux-failure/](https://itsfoss.com/munich-linux- failure/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd be interested to know what they're proposing as an alternative? LibreOffice?

<comment><USER9> Personally I use LaTeX rather than word, theres a bit of a learning curve though so it might not be suitable for lower levels but for high schoolers+ I totally see being able to use it. Everything word does it does better and most of Academia uses it already.

<comment><USER5> It would definitely be a good preparation for academic life after school. Personally I wish I had learned it at school time. How much better and nicer could my notes have been, knowing how to make a really well document, in contrast to loose sheets of paper flying around and being discarded after the school year. Granted, some people are good at taking clean notes and bringing them into order. At school time I was not. A good computer workflow would probably have sparked my attention to detail even with school notes.

<comment><USER9> I find its excellent for article writing, but note writing not so much the semi coding style doesen't lend itself well to free form writing at least for me. I'm in engineering grad school and writing equations from board to free hand notes is much easier for me than writing to a program. Though I have some friends who prefer using computers and some of the note taking programs you can use with a stylus and tablet are excellent.

<comment><USER5> A professor (taught mathematics) of mine once said, that "it needs to go through the hand at least once" and I used to think of that being an annoying attitude, but now I am more or less sure he was right.

Taking notes by hand is probably often a good idea. But you can still afterwards make them very clean in a document, also thinking about them again while doing that, so there is also a bit of additional learning in that activity.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


General Catalyst Backs Roughdraft.VC To Fund Student-Run Startups In Boston - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/12/general-catalyst-backs-roughdraft-vc-to-fund-student-run-startups-and-ideas-in-boston/

<comment><USER2> This makes a lot of sense to me. As Roughdraft's Peter Boyce pointed out, young founders need less and less funding to get started.

This whole thing reminds me of the recruiting craze in the NBA. Remember when guys like KG really drove the trend of skipping college and going straight to the NBA? Recruiters started looking earlier and earlier to find the best talent. When I was like 14 I remember starting to see SLAM magazine articles about the best middle school players in the country. Recruiters tried to befriend the most talented earlier and earlier.

This is what the recent news of Roughdraft.VC and Dorm Room Fund remind me of... VC's trying to find founders who aren't looking for funding _and_ maybe haven't founded something yet. And the best way to find them? The students on campus who are the most helpful and have built the most trust with these "about-to-be-founders".

That LITERALLY is the definition of Peter Boyce.

For those who don't know the story of Boyce, he is the essence of everything startups at Harvard. If you are working on a startup there, you have probably received advice/feedback from him -- or been told to reach out to him. I believe in Roughdraft.VC, and I believe in Peter Boyce.

<comment><USER3> A few VC firms put together companies with their own ideas and then invest in them. This is basically the model of betaworks. GC has done this a few times, if I remember correctly. Getting into seed funding is a good way to increase your talent rolodex if you want to do that sort of thing.

It also helps your VC firm get repeat customers down the line. Fund a founder's first company and they'll come to you with their second and third.

It makes a ton of sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It looks like GC is doubling down on the early seed funding model. First the YC partnership, now this.

There's good economic logic to it (the same portfolio theory behind YC).</comment>


Startup Lowers the Cost of Cloud Services by Harnessing Idle Computers - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-institute/ieee-member-news/startup-lowers-the-cost-of-cloud-services-by-harnessing-idle-computers <comment><USER2> tl;dr another dumb crypto currency project, -1 reputation for IEEE</comment>