The Build a SAAS App with Flask Course Is Getting a Complete Makeover - <AUTHOR> http://nickjanetakis.com/blog/build-a-saas-app-with-flask-is-getting-a-complete-make-over-soon <comment><USER2> What do you think of Udemy's change to their pricing structure?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good question.

I blogged about that a few days ago: [http://nickjanetakis.com/blog/recent- changes-to-udemys-prici...](http://nickjanetakis.com/blog/recent-changes-to- udemys-pricing)

The TL;DR is it's a step in the right direction. Their platform still has a lot of problems IMO, but at least it's improving.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for that. It's nice to read something with a broader perspective on the issues with Udemy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I built a SaaS app with Flask....if I could turn back time, I would stop myself from using Flask.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why flask and not bottle? I thought flask hadn't been maintained in a few years? Anyone know of a similar course for bottle?

<comment><USER5> Looking at github, they both seem to pretty much be in maintenance mode. Flask seems to generally be the more popular framework too.</comment></comment>


Is The QR Code Dead? - <AUTHOR> http://interactionworks.com/is-the-qr-code-dead

<comment><USER2> QR Codes for marketing may be "dead" (it was DOA for most implementations IMO), but that doesn't mean they can't have some interesting use cases. I think the syncing of two different devices is pretty compelling.

That being said, the article hits the point pretty well when noting QR Codes are a tool. However, NFC isn't necessarily a "replacement" for QR Codes, as QR Codes don't require the proximity that NFC does.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm building a web application based around QR codes, and living in Los Angeles I can see that QR codes are definitely not dead, if anything they are appearing on almost every flyer, restaurant window, etc.

Until you can easily program a RFID tag from the web without having to use a driver, then I think QR codes will serve their purpose for an easy way for phones to access content quickly just by scanning a photo.

<comment><USER4> Have you done any analytics or tracking to see how often they get used?

<comment><AUTHOR> We include analytics in the campaigns we run. It all depends on the benefit to the user, we've seen good results and have done a case study on one campaign.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> QR Code is Dead.. Long live the QR Code.. Within shipping / warehouse operations QRCodes will continue to be useful as they are easy to print onto a sticker, are fairly robust, and are already built into many a logistics program.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good example. Forgot to consider that one as well. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6>
       The QR code is just a tool…it's not a solution to a problem.

The problem is typing in long strings (like URLs) into mobile devices, the solution is QR codes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, valid point. But why would a user want to go to a website in the first place? That seems like the bigger issue in most cases that QR codes don't solve that businesses neglect.

<comment><USER7> I think this is the core of it. Why do I need to go your web site _right now_? What are you offering me that rewards that kind of prompt action? Most often it's absolutely nothing. And the QR code is on a subway train, where I can't load the web page anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well said. Ah...subway QR codes...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Marvin Minsky: What makes mathematics hard to learn? (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/OLPC-1.html <comment><USER2> I had dinner with Prof Minksy, about 15 years ago. He asked what I was working on (evolutionary algorithms) we got talking about domains of knowledge.

He said all knowledge has a half-life, the time it takes for half of what you know to be redundant or wrong. Math, he said, is the longest, measured in centuries or millennia. One should feel sorry for neuroscientists: they can go to the bathroom and half their knowledge will be out of date.

The only time I spent with him, but both the metaphor and his passion for math will stay with me.

<comment><USER3> >neuroscientists: they can go to the bathroom and half their knowledge will be out of date

Web development seems to be even worse than neuroscience in this regard. I feel like I have to perpetually study to be abreast of best practices.

<comment><USER4> > Web development seems to be even worse than neuroscience in this regard. I > feel like I have to perpetually study to be abreast of best practices.

The worst part is web development is a completely arbitrary made-up system without any abstractions you can learn and use in a different field of work. It does not even transfer to something as closely related as desktop/mobile GUI toolkits. I view "knowledge" like that as a waste of time and avoid it whenever possible. I wish there was a word for it, something to imply "garbage knowledge."

<comment><USER5> Really? Functional reactive programming, immutable data, unidirectional data flow, application state as a fold over a stream of actions... it seems like web development is seeing a really high uptake of valuable, transferable abstractions and ideas, far more than mobile GUI toolkits, for example.

<comment><USER4> JavaScript programming is, CSS and HTML not so much. I would also argue that the details of frameworks like Angular also fall in the "garbage knowledge" pile.

<comment><USER5> Fair enough, you meant to refer to a subset of web development, rather than the entire field. It's a significantly weaker claim, though. I could pick out subsets of any field of work, and declare them non-transferable, and the details of most systems are going to be less transferable than the concepts undergirding them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While kids may find arithmetic to be boring and demotivating, they're able to do it. It's when math gets symbolic that you get the permanent attrition. For instance, most people never get to calculus.

When you progress from arithmetic to abstract, it hardly gets _easier_.

Moreover, memorizing. You go from memorizing multiplication tables to other kinds of tables, like tables of equations giving various identities, rows of coefficients in series, and the like. Contents of various kinds of matrices.

The need to be precise and avoid mistakes never goes away. Manipulating a complex math equation is still a form of arithmetic. And it's harder because the underlying semantics means that something which is _mechanically_ correct at the syntax level (easy to check) could actually be meaningless and wrong.

The simplistic notations used in math don't "keep up" with the increasing complexity of what is going on. They just get harder semantics. Notation which _looks_ like multiplication or addition in such and such domain is just "sort of" like it, but, oh, here are the ways in which it isn't.

<comment><USER7> Disagree. Kids disengage from math for many different reasons. There is no single pattern to it. If it were that simple, it would not have remained an issue since schools were commonplace.

Minsky solidly makes the point that when math is taught as nothing more than an endless series of tedious drills with no purpose in sight, of course it demotivates kids. No one likes pointless Sisyphean tasks.

Many students, however, "rediscover" math when they get to their first class that involves theorems and proofs (often in high-school geometry) and when it starts being used in science coursework. It is then that they realize that math is a way of thinking and this can transform their opinion and motivation for math.

The best teachers find ways to relate mathematics to real life and real purpose. Yeah, it is always going to be challenging, but having a purpose creates motivation to get through the tedium.

<comment><USER6> Humanity as such absolutely loves pointless repetition, and abhors thinking about something hard, which involves focusing intensely on one subject in which where no repeatable progression of simple successes is taking place, leading to a mounting sense of discomfort.

Just look at various cultural traditions, popular (and even serious) music, crafts, sports, ... _sneeze_ ligion. Mindless repetition is everywhere.

The same kid that hates doing arithmetic will play the same video game for hours in which a small variation on the same set of events happens over and over again.

The kids you're describing are the smart minority, of whom a portion will go on into STEM type fields. They too will hit their mathematics ceilings. Most will go as far as a couple of third year undergrad math courses and that's where it ends.

<comment><USER8> For myself, I found math difficult. Never understood, even now, the need to spend so much time memorizing multiplication tables.

That said, I started over in a community college, and finished up to trig. with ease. I found trigonometry, surprisingly straight forward. I went on to finish a year of physics. I didn't need calculus for my major, and heard it was really hard. Plus, I didn't want to ruin my grade point average with a class I didn't need. I now regret not taking calculus, but it's so much easier to learn something these days.

My struggle with math was two fold. I didn't care in high school, and I never had a firm grasp on basic math. I look back , and once I truly inderstood basic math, especially fractions, and percentages; it all became so easy.

I see a lot of kids still struggling with math. They get pushed along, and avoid any class that has math in it. I do blame our U.S. teaching system in this case. Keep teaching basic math until the kid can teach it to to their classmates.

Then, and only then move on to algebra, and trig? As to calculus, I didn't take it so I won't comment, but when I was applying to health professional schools, I didn't find one that required Calculus. Probally for good reason. My physics classmates biggest, silent stumbling block was they were horrid in math, and looking back--they just didn't know the basics, so every step up the ladder became more mysterious. Most of my classmates seemed to the solving problems in physics by memorizing the homework; not truly understanding the problems.

<comment><USER9> For myself, I love math. I also never understood, even now, the need to spend so much time memorizing multiplication tables.

In fact, I've never learnt it. From time to time I still find myself multiplying on fingers; as a kid I used it a lot, now the table went into my head automatically simply from continued usage. The way to multiply two natural numbers from <6; 9> on fingers was one of the most important things my mom tought me :)

There's also a way as presented in the article (8 _7 = 8_ 8-8), but I mostly use it when double checking, as I find it slightly more error-prone when doing it in head (and obviously very inefficient when done on paper). Works great for bigger numbers though.

Once in junior high school my math teacher caught me on multiplying on fingers and ordered me to learn the table for the next lession. Managed to pass it, but quickly forgot in following days. I never cared - I was always doing very fast and well on math classes anyway.

<comment><USER10> I view memorization as a shortcut that allows one to operate on higher level concepts with ease. Much like abstraction mechanisms in programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are four other essays in this series.

Effects Of Grade-Based Segregation [http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/OLPC-2.html](http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/OLPC-2.html)

Role Models, Mentors, and Imprimers and Thinking [http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/OLPC-3.html](http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/OLPC-3.html)

Questioning "General" Education [http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/OLPC-4.html](http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/OLPC-4.html)

Education and Psychology [http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/OLPC-5.html](http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/OLPC-5.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> > Anecdote: I asked a certain 6-year-old child "how much is 15 and 15"and she > quickly answered, "I think it's 30." I asked how she figured that out so > fast and she replied, "Well, everyone knows that 16 and 16 is 32, so then I > subtracted the extra two 1's."

Wait, is this girl some kind of base-2 native?

<comment><USER13> This is how i often work with things. I break them down into things that i know how to work with. I search my knowledge for elements that most closely represents the problems and then combine them.

For example, rather than remembering 12 * 6 = 72, i recall that 10 * 6 = 60 and 2 * 6 = 12, hence 60 + 12 = 72. I don't need to remember as many things and for me i can do that much faster than trying to recall it.

My memory has never been very good, so perhaps this is why i take such an approach, as i find it overall easier.

<comment><USER14> That's how I felt about math for a long time. The so-called good laziness. You don't bother doing the hard way, you search for tricks. Symmetries, difference from simple cases as the girl did.

Instead of memorizing algorithms, kids should be shown this. It's free gamification and, after some years, I believe it's a core idea of what is, and why math can be pleasing.

<comment><USER15> Parents can do it and it can really help.

I actually was taught this and a number of other "tricks" in primary school. Estimation was a defined thing, and the idea of getting quick math results in your head was a real goal. Reasons given: job interview, pricing goods and services to understand value, fuel consumption, making things (that deck, how many boards, cost, etc...), navigation.

They took us through a lot of those cases. The first time I applied this was powers of 2 for computing. Learn the first 16 bits worth, and that helps with all sorts of things in computing, same as powers of ten and common easy to compute things do in most other areas of life.

So, what I did was make it a car game. Figure out how tall things might be, or prices, whatever comes up. Practice doing it helps to actualize the skill and once it's done, they will apply in in ways they find useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "we need to provide our children with better cognitive maps of the subjects we want them to learn"

This style of learning works for _everyone_ \-- including children. There is a growing community of people sharing educational, animated gifs on Reddit that recognizes the value of visual learning.

Popular subreddits include:

\- /r/educationalgifs \- /r/mechanical_gifs/ \- /r/GifRecipes/

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure that is what he means with a "cognitive map". I believe, he means that children need a better understanding of what is possible to do with, and what the point is with math.

<comment><USER18> Agree. For me it was games.

While other kids complained about algebra, I recognized it as exactly what I had been doing with my little Apple II games, basically fumbling on my own. Now each math lesson was a chance to make my games even more interesting.

My first graphing calculator had a simple example of 3D point rotation. It was like learning a magical incantation! (This is pre-internet.) My friend and I were so excited at the possibilities and immediately wrote a primitive ray- tracer.

The point is: by connecting it to games, we were literally _hungry_ to learn more math.

<comment><USER19> The other benefit is a lot of math intuitively _makes sense_ in the context of using it for games. I started learning linear algebra when I was ~14 or so because I was trying to make a 3D game and had a specific idea of how the camera should operate—quaternions, once I got past the sci-fi name, just made sense in the context of rotating the camera around. That, in turn, made complex numbers a piece of cake when I got to them in school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> That old topic. Ironically, I find people who work with math ( _chosen_ to work with math, that is) to probably be quite unqualified to truly understand the problem. He opens by saying that learning avoiding mistakes before any bigger concepts is a major root of this but then again, people _do_ make mistakes in math (even math professors) and it's a field where any mistake can completely invalidate the work. Also most people learn math for practical uses rather than as a science or field of research which also gives a different perspective (for most people, it's more important in life to not drop a zero when calculating a bill than it is to understand, say, a Homomorphism).

Math simply is hard. It goes against all our good-enough, subconscious brain functions we use every day to make basic "bigger or smaller" decisions. The problems mathematicians call "interesting" are counter-intuitive pretty much by definition and now imagine someone thinking like that writing a math book for children. The language used is vast and was built over literally _millennia_ of mathematicians appending their own little modifiers above, below, and all around other mathematical symbols, resulting in monstrosities like the function for the Fourier Transformation which can actually be described quite intuitively geometrically.

Mathematicians want "simplicity" and "beauty" but their definition of either is absurdly different from any that would take into account basic human intuition. That's the problem. And there barely are any mathematicians that would admit that this could ever be a bad thing.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure how you would define the Fourier Transform geometrically without needing 4 spatial dimensions, at which point intuitive geometric reasoning is impossible.

<comment><USER22> Far from impossible, it's even reasonably intutitive. Wikipedia has an excellent graphic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fourier_transform_time_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fourier_transform_time_and_frequency_domains_%28small%29.gif).

Then for people for which that's too abstract, I find this graphic helps a lot in explaining. [http://static.nautil.us/1635_42a3964579017f3cb42b26605b9ae8e...](http://static.nautil.us/1635_42a3964579017f3cb42b26605b9ae8ef.png)

You picked a really bad example for the unintutiveness of mathematics.

<comment><USER23> Speaking in my capacity as a person who doesn't understand Fourier transforms, I'm afraid I have to say that your "intuitive" graphics are anything but. I can't even make sense of your second graphic.

Just a data point for you.

<comment><USER22> Fair enough, it works a lot better as a gif. Out of curiosity, does this clear things up, or just as confusing?

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Fourier_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Fourier_series_square_wave_circles_animation.gif)

<comment><USER23> Oooh. Yes, actually; I think I have an idea about what's going on (and why they're so damn useful) now.

Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Why do some children find Math hard to learn? I suspect that this is often caused by starting with the practice and drill of a bunch of skills called Arithmetic—and instead of promoting inventiveness, we focus on preventing mistakes. I suspect that this negative emphasis leads many children not only to dislike Arithmetic, but also later to become averse to everything else that smells of technology. It might even lead to a long-term distaste for the use of symbolic representations."

Substitute "Arithmetic" for "Interview Problems"

<comment><USER25> To the contrary, don't most interview problems _overemphasize_ inventiveness?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's hard to know exactly what would work for ALL students.

Honestly, for me, the issue is "one size fits all" that the vast majority of our students get.

I learned math just fine the way it was taught. Sure, it was boring at times, and I was mathematically inclined, but it worked for me.

For others, it clearly doesn't work.

We have to ask ourselves, what exactly do we want people to know who don't want to learn math. What is the "bottom line" that we need a citizen to know?

Algebra 2? Trig? Some combination of Algebra and basic math finance concepts?

That's the main question. And it's very difficult to answer for ALL students.

I don't know what the answer is, but adopting one method for all students isn't the answer.

<comment><USER27> Back when I was in high school, they used to break my class into to groups: those who study German and those who study English. I was in English class. I don't see why this won't work for mathematics. Break students into two groups: ones that never question anything and those who can't move forward until their why questions are answered in a satisfactory manner. The first group can study precalculus, computational analysis, matrix methods....basically anything that can be done by rote. The second group could be introduced to proof writing, beginnings of set/category theory, abstract algebra/topology, statistical inference...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> There is something quite interesting about the form of the article. While Mr Minsky talks about teaching using the "deck of cards method" and why it might not be the best approach if the child wants to advance to more complex subjects he also wants us to learn about his experiments (which are quite good!).

Having read the article I find it well written but WHAT THE HELL?! Why doesn't he use pictures? simple diagrams? "sexy" stuff?

It seems that I'm having the same problem as the child is having: the form does suck and it discourages me from reading a boatload of articles like this one. If the presentation of the subject was better I could read 10 more and maybe, finally, take an interest in "teaching methods" that would lead me to being curious and accept any "bad form" of content :)

<comment><USER29> He doesn't use pictures because neither his target audience nor the subject matter require pictures.

His target audience is composed of people who are interested in mathematics teaching (parents, teachers and such). He expects (correctly in my opinion) that these have handled and can handle long texts.

The subject matter is an opinion piece without much underlying data, so graphical representation is not required.

The writing style must be adapted to circumstances. Increases in picture density do not monotonically increase text appeal.

<comment><USER28> I do agree with you. Preaching the converted doesn't require that much effort.

Now to nuance a bit this over-simplistic sentence I just written: do you think I am interested in mathematics teaching? I did read the article anyway so you might be right but I felt a bit overwhelmed by all this "jargon" when an example would have been so simple to understand.

After all, Mr Minsky was a teacher, certainly a mighty good one :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is a wonderful series of articles and I find myself nodding along with most of it. However, these lines really made me cringe:

      A child was sent to me for tutoring because of failing a geometry class, and gave this excuse: " I must have been absent on the day when they explained how to prove a theorem."

      No wonder this child was confused—and seemed both amazed and relieved when I explained that there was no standard way to make proofs—and that "you have to figure it out for yourself".  One could say that this child simply wasn't told the rules of the game he was asked to play.  However, this is a very peculiar case in which the 'rule' is that there are no rules! (In fact, automatic theorem-provers do exist, but I would not recommend their use.)

I think interactive theorem provers would go a long way towards making children understand symbolic reasoning. The way these programs work is that you have feedback available at every step of a proof. Children can learn basic causal relationships by looking at the world around them. By visualizing the basic relationships between logical formulae you can similarly learn to inuit the effects of reasoning steps. Interactive theorem provers provide the visualization.

The game has rules, and you can learn them.

<comment><USER31> > I think interactive theorem provers would go a long way towards making > children understand symbolic reasoning.

I can agree with that, but symbolic reasoning isn't everything. As shown by Gödel, you can't have symbolic system capable of proving every true fact about natural arithmetic without also proving some false "facts" about natural arithmetic.

The ultimate game doesn't have rules. On some level, math is just few pieces of meat speculating about abstract notions originating from and tied to their physical experience. Or something like that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> He makes a really good point about traditional teaching methods. What's the point with the obsession over 'the correct method'? If the answer is correct, and the method in question can reliably reach the correct answer, in my opinion, the correct method is that one, and it differs from person to person.

<comment><USER33> The correct method might be the method that scales better. Counting on your fingers for example is a pretty decent method to add until you reach bigger numbers. If you don't use the more complicated methods, you'll never improved past some point.

<comment><USER34> Then ask harder questions that show the value of the harder (more complicated, less intuitive) methods.

But at the same time, show the value of those answers, because on the face of it, knowing how much is 342x520+92 is not really valuable. Even knowing how much is any number plus any number is not that interesting for basically 90% of the population.

<comment><USER35> > Then ask harder questions that show the value of the harder (more > complicated, less intuitive) methods.

It's not clear to me that there's an obvious right answer here, but I do believe that most obvious answers are, to some degree, wrong. Namely, saying "just ask harder questions" doesn't take into account that then the student is trying to solve hard questions _and_ learn a new method at the same time.

Teaching a more general method on easy problems gives time to become acclimatised to the method, while also offering sanity checks (by easier, faster, and / or approximate methods) to make sure that it's not going wrong. On the other hand, as you say, this approach seems unmotivated, and bores or frustrates students—there's no obvious right answer! I think that all that can be said is that one must find the appropriate balance for each individual student, or class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think early math education suffers from the lack of awareness about how important is exactness in math. People come to math from real world, where they don't mind to be rigorous about the meaning of every word. Most newcomers tend to skip words they don't find interesting and then penalty seems to come from nowhere. And education even encourages such error-prone behaviour, by giving wrong exercises and poor material.

Math isn't hard, it just doesn't work for those who don't know how to use it. And knowing how to use it means understanding what exactly you are doing. Many students don't bother about what does it mean to do when asked to solve an equation.

<comment><USER37> This resonates very strongly with my experience helping my two kids (11,13) with their math work. Their teachers have not always been as helpful as they might in this respect, for example marking test solutions as entirely incorrect when the student has made a stupid arithmetic mistake in the working but otherwise demonstrated a proper understanding of how to solve the problem. I'm not arguing that incorrect answers should be rewarded, but it does seem to demotivate the student when they are punished for a mistake performing a task that no adult would need to perform (we use computers and calculators for our arithmetic, and have done since I was my kids age in the 1970s).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I love these insights, they have strong echoes of "A Mathematicians Lament" by Paul Lockhart, another excellent essay on the topic.

[https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament....](https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf) [PDF]

</comment><comment><USER39> It has apparently been shown, years ago and on a limited sample, that avoiding arithmetic until 7th grade (in favour of general discursive education) can produce good results in terms of the ease and success of eventual learning of arithmetic: [http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/benezet/](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/benezet/)

</comment><comment><USER40> " This child imagined 'Math' to be a continuous string of mechanical tasks—an unending prospect of practice and drill. It was hard to convince him that there would not be any more tables in subsequent years"

Well, I enjoy maths, but for me my entire mathematical education was always about memorizing tables. It was made worse by the fact that during Polish exams you cannot use advanced calculators(only ones that can do addition/multiplication) so for the final exams at the age of 19 I had to remember loads of different formulas, trigonometric values for common angles etc etc.

I'm not saying he was wrong, but in a lot of educational systems maths is 90% about remembering stuff.

<comment><USER31> > I had to remember loads of different formulas, trigonometric values for > common angles etc

Real math is about being able to derive this stuff when woken up at 5AM.

What you get in school is drilling kids to _appear_ as if they understood math so that adults who don't remember this stuff anymore feel intimidated and leave with impression that their children are learning some rocket science and the "education system" deserves their money.

No teacher literally reasons like that and no one will tell you that, but that's exactly what they do when they are overwhelmed by a horde of barely interested kids who somehow have to pass the final exams. The other part of this insanity being politicians who set up those exams.

<comment><USER2> It's cargo cult mathematics.

People who understand math can do X, Y, and Z.

Therefore we should make sure children can do X, Y, and Z.

Then they'll understand math too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Not everyone can learn math. I my self had brilliant and great math tutors that my parents hired for me. I event went to special private math classes with brilliant math teachers and i tried to the best of my abilities to get good at it and pass the advanced math courses in highschool. Still i suck greatly at math and i always will.

I am very grateful for all the help my parents provided for me without it i would not pass even the first math classes in highschool.

<comment><USER25> Barring an extremely small number of cases, this is not true by any means. The cognitive skills required to learn math are the same as the cognitive skills required to learn language. If you're interested in learning more about this, check out Keith Devlin's "The Math Gene" [1]

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Math-Gene-Mathematical- Thinking/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Math-Gene-Mathematical- Thinking/dp/0465016197)

<comment><USER41> If it was as simple to read one book to be good at math I would be an engineer a long time ago with all the tuition and help i got thru my years in school.

<comment><USER25> You misunderstand me. The book I referenced does not try to teach you math. The book I referenced surveys scientific studies on the question of "whether everyone can learn math." There is overwhelming evidence presented in this book that, in fact, everyone can learn math.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Please, never mind my English it's awkward sometimes.

Math could be taught qualitatively.

First, one can give their students ten or so hairy problems where the goal is to write down what the problem is asking in the most explicit and gory details.

Then one can present another batch of hairy looking problems and ask the students what definitions/lemmas/theorems/corollaries look appropriate to apply to the problems and why?

Another batch of convoluted problems can be offered where the goal is to simply formulate one's questions regarding the problems in the most precise way one can. Asking the right, penetrating questions solves more than half the problem.

Ask the students to rewrite all the definitions/lemmas/theorems/corollaries presented in class in their own words.

Present students with a text full of unproven statements (most grad level math texts). The exercise here is to identify as many of these statements as possible. The bravest students are encouraged to supply proofs.

Give students a bunch of required problems peppered with generalizations and extensions of required concepts(typically reserved for big boy students) and ask them why they are required to solve these problems. What exactly to be gained out of solving every specific problem?

After all that students can tackle the required set of problems written up for them by the Department Of Serious Business. At this point math will come naked and explicit in front of one's eyes.

None of this is going to happen in classrooms, though. Students will have to learn these things on their own as per the traditions.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's simple. If you're not passionate for a topic you're not going to care for it.

I hated math when I wasn't passionate about it. In school a lot of math classes were about route memorization, not going through or writing beautiful proofs.

Why don't they teach more abstract math in school? I love studying number theory and category theory.

</comment><comment><USER43> I really like the educational policy recommendation in Where Mathematics Comes From [0]. Even the most abstract mathematics is an analogy with our intuitive embodied experience.

One striking example: Training children to individually articulate their fingers makes them better at processing arabic numerals. [1]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From) [1] [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marie- Pascale_Noel/publ...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marie- Pascale_Noel/publication/5464114_Does_finger_training_increase_young_children%27s_numerical_performance/links/0c96051a8abd238141000000.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER44> Solution: For the students, answer "Why should I learn this?" and, then, give good intuitive explanations for basically how it all works from algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus to probability, statistics, functional analysis, and more. For the intuition, do include pictures.

</comment><comment><USER45> My father made it memorization a fun quiz game. Maybe a couple times a week he'd ask whats "5 times 7" and so on. Or how to spell a word. There was no penalty for getting something wrong. You just wanted to learn the right answer to please your father and yourself.

<comment><USER46> > Maybe a couple times a week he'd ask whats "5 times 7" and so on.

Ah, the Henry Jones Sr. approach to parenting! I'm a fan.

Young Indy: I have to show you something!

Professor Henry Jones: It can wait. Count to twenty.

Young Indy: No, Dad, I-!

Professor Henry Jones: Junior!

Young Indy: One, two, three, f...

Professor Henry Jones: In Greek.

Young Indy: [rolls his eyes] Ana, theo, thea...

(from IMDB)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is interesting. I volunteer at a homework-help clinic for public housing kiddos. They've heard "the answer is right but you got there the wrong way" a lot. It's frustrating to work with the kids, because they say "if I do it that way, the teacher will say I'm wrong."

And, I basically don't have a clue about how they're being taught to do this stuff. Any sane person turns 2 x 15 into 2 x 16 - 2 or 10 + 10 + 5 + 5.

But this Common Core arithmetic is not quite sane. The intention is to teach reasoning skills, but the reality is that some curriculum-writer's idea of reasoning skills has become codified. Grumble.

You'll be missed, Dr. Minsky. So long, and thanks for all your teaching.

</comment><comment><USER48> Mathematics is hard to learn because it's a 'solved' problem.

Everything is taught as a convention through brutally boring rote memorization and repetitive mechanical operation.

Unfortunately, the people creating the training materials are usually so far removed from a basic level of understanding, they're blind to their own expert bias.

What we need sre training materials that bridge basic to advanced understanding theough practical application. Except practical application is hard to measure so it'll never be used. In a traditional teaching environment.

</comment><comment><USER49> I found his note at the end most interesting and mirrors my observations since. Governmental standards are making our children math-illiterate. There should be a myriad of different schools with different specialties. There should be schools for the learning impaired as well as the gifted. If every school was private it would allow experimentation with every form of teaching and promote innovation and effective methods to be discovered and thrive. One size fits all education works as well for education as it does for clothes.

</comment><comment><USER50> For an actual implementation of the "students need maps" idea, check out expii: [https://www.expii.com](https://www.expii.com)

Click on "Topic map" in the header — it is a real domain-expert-created topic map of many areas of math and science.

It's a free, interactive, crowd-sourced learning platform that does exactly this, especially for math — the founder is lead Coach of the USA International Mathematical Olympiad team, and a math professor at CMU.

f/d: I interned there last summer.

</comment><comment><USER51> What makes anything hard?

It's difficult to make initial progress and you see no path, with little rewards along the way, to get good at it. What's the reward at the end?

Math doesn't have a path and there's no "cool" prize at the end, for most people.

Computer programming has a path with lots of little rewards and "cool" prizes at the end. So, you get lots of self-taught programmers.

Create an interesting path for math with lots of "rewards" along the way and many more people would be interested.

</comment><comment><USER52> Math is hard for the same reasons that anything is hard. It is literally a mental strain on your brain.

I agree with the author in that a teacher's enthusiasm and perspective, and 'rigidity' in school can compound difficulties.

But as a physicist, the most difficult part of learning math, for me, is overcoming my own mental barriers. I need patience and focus to comprehend even the most simple sentences. If I don't want to learn/strain in the moment, then I won't.

</comment><comment><USER53> Imagine if learning english required getting to college before you could even get past spelling. And that your teachers who majored in english, have only constructed a sentence a few times in a 400 level class and have never read more than a paragraph. How do you even begin to talk about literature? The payoff is so far away and unrelated to the subject taught in school that 99% of the people in charge have no idea what is going on.

</comment><comment><USER54> Mathematics is hard to learn because the way classes and performance testing is done, there is often only one answer and until you get to the answer the question is not complete. the end state is binary - either the student was successful in it, or the student was not.

On the other hand, in a subject like history a student can make good ground towards an answer by laying down fundamental facts and then arguing and reasoning back and forth. Even with minimal facts the student may use some approximate recollection of events and still be able to build an argument. The answer may not be complete, and it may not even be good, but the final outcome has the appearance of being complete, and is often somewhat far from the starting point of nothing.

Humanities subjects use assessments that provide intermediate rewards for a student. Mathematics offer no such respite. That is what I believe makes it intimidating. Even worse, some questions have intermediate solutions look extremely hairy, leading the student to believe that he has gone further away from the solution. In such cases, the intermediate step has punished rather than reward!

Very often suggestions for improving mathematics pedagogy is to make use of "open-ended" questions that admit multiple solutions (as Marvin did here). I believe most of us who make these suggestions understand the effect that traditional maths questions have on a learner. These suggested questions are just like those in history or literature that allow students to have a decent go at it and still make progress.

I don't know if I truly believe in the theory (hypothesis) that memorization makes it extremely boring. Until historical accounts are utilized in some argument (during a performance assessment), these are just empty facts to be memorized. And given the wide range of questions that can be asked in a history exam, the effort involved in memory work in history class seem to be more onerous and less rewarding. Yet I have seen students who are gifted in remembering in detail historical events, capable of building logical structures and narrative flow, and they struggle with maths. So clearly they must have committed a decent amount of effort to memorization - but not in maths but other subjects instead.

In any case, at the higher levels, rote work in mathematics is extremely important: it is very difficult to pursue an advanced class in probability theory without the basic tools picked up in real analysis, for example (that means all your theorems relating to sequences and continuity and functional analysis and so on). That usually involves some amount of "practice", thinking and solving problem sets before moving on to more advanced topics.

</comment><comment><USER55> My high-school math teacher (Older man) had his favorite pets (girls) sit in front, and would not even address the rest of the class. Questions and inquiries were completely ignored. The only reason I was able to get ahead is due to my interest in programming my own games, and thus learning the relevant math (trigonometry at the time).

<comment><USER56> Sounds like how women are treated in most classes (ignored, not addressed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> If you want to change this, fund my story problems book. [https://experiment.com/u/Uwxi7A](https://experiment.com/u/Uwxi7A)

Algebra and Functional Programming taught together in Middle School is a huge win.

</comment><comment><USER58> Anybody know of any schools/programs that introduce math to children in some of the ways that Minsky suggests? (In case it isn't obvious, I'm not a programmer (nor do I work with math)...but I am a parent.)

<comment><USER59> Why not do it yourself? I think that fostering a particular topic by the parents should be a first step.

<comment><USER58> I agree completely. But I also think it is helpful to understand how others who may have focused on this issue more than I have to date are approaching this. I see a fair amount of discussion regarding how we can do a better job of introducing math to children, but far less on what we should actually do. Should I just start playing around with LOGO or Scratch myself?

<comment><USER60> When my kids were younger, the curriculum that their school used was more about the aha!s and connections than about rote recipes. I volunteered in one's first grade math class where they spent 20 minutes of the 45 minute math period learning to draw puppies and kitties so they could answer the question, "Sue has 15 puppies and kitties. How many of each does she have?" The goal was to get the kids to come up with every combination from 0 puppies and 15 kitties through 15 puppies and 0 kitties, and first graders are still mostly concrete thinkers and need those pictures.

At this level, getting 3+2=5 was MUCH less important than being able to explain in writing that 3 apples and two bananas added up to a bunch of fruits in words. 4, 6, 8, 5, whatever. Alas, they never got 3+2=5 hardwired in this curriculum. But they were better artists for it!

And my kids did _not_ learn math, because the curriculum was more about writing than math and explaining reasoning (I called it "math for people who don't like math and would rather write about it than do it"). So in elementary school, I taught my kids math using Singapore Math curriculum and let the school do its thing so it was balanced, and I volunteered weekly in math during the elementary school years so I was on top of what they were learning and how.

In addition, we always did math at home in informal ways without being explicit about it, from counting lug nuts on cars when they were toddlers through guessing the color of the next car to go by the stop sign on our walks to estimating which box of cereal was cheapest without a calculator to noting that the arrival rate at a traffic signal wasn't random in one direction because the only way cars could get to it was by going through another signal. Heck, even counting in binary using the 3 lights above an airplane row on visits to the grandparents - Look, with three lights I can only count to 8! And now with high schoolers and college kids, math jokes like log(fu) = log(f) + log(u) are the height of hilarity, or at least lighten the mood at exam time.

Point is - there is "studying math" (with whatever curriculum and rubrics) and there is "playing with math." As a parent, especially with younger kids, I found that it was great to establish both. Math isn't a "thing", it's part of life.

<comment><USER61> On the total flip side I remember when studying math in high school most of the other students HATED the math questions that required writing. It was like by that point they preferred the memorization. Maybe because that is what they were used to. Having to think about how to actually apply math was difficult for most of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Roger Penrose writes about how fractions are incorrectly taught in school in the preface of "Road to Reality" always the pie visual is used as an approximation which later confuses students.

<comment><USER63> I remember asking my 4th grade teacher what the difference between fractions and division. She clearly didn't understand what I was asking. That was the moment I started seeking my own answers and stopped trusting my teachers blindly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> DragonBox: Secretly teach algebra to your children

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9469364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9469364)

</comment><comment><USER65> Spelling too is also memorization before higher concepts like grammar or essay construction. Perhaps its perceived as easier than math because it has a natural cognitive map.

<comment><USER66> I think you generally understand grammar before you can spell, if not very rigorously

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Math is extremely interesting when you apply it to real world things, such as finance or physics. It's hard to stay focused on math topics that are purely abstract.

</comment><comment><USER68> _Is it possible that when John Smith moved from Apple to Microsoft, this raised the average IQ of both companies?_

Ouch... I guess Minsky was a Mac guy.

</comment><comment><USER69> It's not that it's hard to learn, it's just not easy. You can't take shortcuts (you can at first but it bites you later), you must do things in the correct order, you must be exact. There are lots of little things to learn and remember.

I think some peoples brains are just wired to 'get' math just as some people 'get' programming. And some people just 'get' art. Certain people just 'see' certain things and you can't really teach that.

</comment><comment><USER70> > Fascinated by electronics and science, the young Mr. Minsky attended the > Ethical Culture School in Manhattan, a progressive private school from which > J. Robert Oppenheimer, who oversaw the creation of the first atomic bomb, > had graduated.

Crazy to read this sentence while I am halfway through Cat's Cradle.</comment>


In Praise of Entrepreneurs, Persistence and a Gourmet Food Truck - <AUTHOR> http://www.azreporter.com/tt/index.php?id=2149

<comment><AUTHOR> Entrepreneurs say "No!" to the naysayers.

How true.</comment>


DVD delivery is a declining monopoly. Netflix is right to focus on streaming. - <AUTHOR> http://drewb.org/post/10448031584/netflix-won-dvds-time-to-focus-on-streaming

<comment><USER2> Interesting take on the matter. Have you read this article?

<http://www.appleoutsider.com/2011/09/20/netflixpr/>

link to discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018573>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I did. Apple certainly has a better consumer facing voice than Netflix, especially when deprecating services.</comment></comment>


Julian Assange (Wikileaks) to speak at HOPE Conference in NYC in 2 weeks? - <AUTHOR> http://thenexthope.org/2010/06/speaker-under-threat-by-u-s-authorities/ "Assange is scheduled to give The Next HOPE Saturday keynote on July 17 in New York City. To make things even more interesting, Lamo ["hacker" the April drone video was leaked to] has also been planning on appearing at the conference and may now wind up facing a hacker community who views his actions with, to put it mildly, disappointment." <comment><USER2> In the article (which is two weeks old, by the way), they say that he was _scheduled_ to speak before all this started, but they're not encouraging him to attend given all that has happened since.

<comment><AUTHOR> According to their radio show "Off The Hook" (July 1st - <http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/11980>), they might have something setup so he can still deliver the keynote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is he a journalist or is he an activist? He needs to pick one and stick with it.

<comment><USER4> Since Wikileaks is intrinsically both a journalist organization and an activist organization, I'm not sure what you expect Assange to do.

Are you criticizing how the Apache helicopter attack video was handled?

<comment><USER5> By being an activist, you are by definition bias to a certain cause. To me he is more of an activist then a journalist. He can call himself a journalist, but that doesn't make him so.

<comment><USER4> Does having a transparent political agenda disqualify somebody from being a journalist? Should Amy Goodman and Geraldo Rivera be stripped of their credentials?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought there weren't going to be anymore HOPE conferences.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, me too. I really enjoyed listening to the recordings from "The Last Hope". <http://www.thelasthope.org/talks.html>

I think the hotel got "saved" by the economic downturn so they scheduled another one. (I think they talked about it on the radio show. <http://www.2600.com/offthehook/>)</comment></comment>


Google struggles to contain uproar over China censorship plans - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/08/03/google-search-engine-china-censorship-backlash/ <comment><USER2> With $100b+ in the bank it's obvious they need to cash in on Chinese oppression and impede human rights as effectively as they can. Just because they have $100b+ in the bank doesn't mean they can't run out of runway and shut down in several thousand years, so it's as courageous as it is vital. It's almost as courageous as not paying taxes or calling your employees contractors to not pay health care.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are their shareholders making them? I mean, it is Google's responsibility to continue to return value (ahem, money) to shareholders, so if shareholders think Google is leaving money on the table by not being in China, Google could have issues if they don't do this.

Doesn't make it right by any stretch, I just wonder who's motivation it is.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am proud of those Google employees who've taken a stand against the unethical practices of their employer.

This world would be a much better place if more people did that rather than looking the other way and acting as mercenaries for the highest bidder.

</comment><comment><USER5> Reporters love nothing more than reporting on their previous reports and taking credit. Of course only accounts that confirm their narrative and friendly quotes (from their sources) make into publication.

There is nothing wrong with a company seeking to enter new markets especially that their absence from these countries doesn't change a thing.

<comment><USER6> > There is nothing wrong with a company seeking to enter new markets

I mean, this is clearly wrong. You may not draw the line at China's human rights abuses, but you would probably draw the line somewhere. Maybe at a country that trades child slaves? Would it be ok for Google to create a special version of their search engine that only says good things about child slavery in order to "enter a new market"?

Just because a company's activities _can_ be reduced to a P&L statement doesn't mean corporations' activities have no moral dimension, or that they are somehow beyond moral judgement.

<comment><USER5> No need for silly hypotheticals, China is a WTO member that has been globally recognized and normalized, doing business there isn't taboo, at least not for everyone else.

<comment><USER6> Doing business isn't the problem. The problem is that Google is creating a censored version of their search engine. Rather than simply turning a blind eye to China's abuses, they're actively helping the communist party perpetuate those abuses.

Additionally, your flippant dismissal of "silly hypotheticals" is particularly misplaced. Maybe read about some of the things they've done to the Falun Gong and what occurred at Tiananmen square. These aren't small abuses that can be overlooked, and no American company should be complicit in helping the Chinese government keep these things quiet.

<comment><USER5> > Doing business isn't the problem. The problem is that Google is creating a > censored version of their search engine.

Search is their business and they won't be allowed to conduct it there without censorship.

The vast majority of search queries have little to do with the conduct of the Chinese government, and if you hadn't noticed Google's absence from china didn't liberate the Chinese people.

<comment><USER6> > Search is their business and they won't be allowed to conduct it there > without censorship.

Right. Nor should they if that is the cost of doing business. Sometimes there are lines that shouldn't be crossed.

> if you hadn't noticed Google's absence from china didn't liberate the > Chinese people.

"I haven't been helping any thieves for the last decade, but robberies still keep happening. I might as well get in on it and make some money."

Sorry, but I have a hard time taking your arguments seriously. You seem to be working very hard to miss the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good. This needs attention and needs to be discussed.</comment>


To What Degree Is It Possible to Do Memory Management at Compile Time? - <AUTHOR> Memory management is usually offloaded to runtime (tracing GC / Reference Counting) except those variables which can be stack allocated by escape analysis.
While rust claims to eliminate it, it still needs a lots of care around lifetimes, scope etc... It however brings some good concepts to the table.
apart from rust, I have found some papers on mercury logic programming language, cyclone etc..
Can I get references / links to previous work on compile time memory management (partial or full)? <comment><USER2> Rust uses something like uniqueness types to ensure memory management is correct, but there are also linear types and I know it has been research on that in Haskell for example. Search for Hask-LL.</comment>


Gen Z is going to be the domestic cozy generation - <AUTHOR> https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/03/04/domestic-cozy-1/ <comment> Joe-Z Just goes to show that you can sell any idea, if you just stay vague enough in your pitch.

Honestly: What was I supposed to learn from that?

</comment><comment><USER2> The author is painting with a very wide brush, with no evidence or much reasoning. Instagram is very popular among both generations. I don't get what makes YouTube 'cozy' and Instagram not.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I'd agree either but I think they're saying a YTer would not care much about spit and polish, whereas IG users care about presentation and may project something they are not (i.e. not aspirational but rather they are what they present). More image conscious, to be blunt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So they're Gen X, in other words? Needs work.</comment>


Introducing programmers.stackexchange.com - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/12/introducing-programmers-stackexchange-com/

<comment><USER2> Giving an explanation is fine but even as a SO user, I don't "get" it. It's just splitting a strong StackOverflow down into weaker parts. Why not a separate Ruby SE? One for dynamic languages? One for questions that involve networking? That's what _tags_ are for.

 _Stated another way, the best Stack Overflow questions tend to have actual source code in the questions or answers._

That may be generally true, but isn't my experience. Those SO posts that get voted up the most on sites like HN and Reddit have tended to not be source based. These sorts of posts, say:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/487258/plain-english- expl...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/487258/plain-english-explanation- of-big-o/) [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do- emulators-w...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators- work-and-how-are-they-written)

<comment><USER3> It's the age-old inclusionist vs deletionist battle. I think what they're trying to do is keep both sides happy by creating a vast network of sites with various purposes and then encouraging the deletionists to push questions to other sites rather than deleting them. Personally, I find it highly annoying but if it keeps interesting questions from getting closed then fine.

<comment><USER2> In this case, there seems to be a subjective vs objective divide between the sites whereas the topics are the same (things like algorithms are mentioned explicitly in the good questions suggestions). Clearing that up in a way that satisifies even a minority will be tough and many will just end up scanning both sites (which is perhaps their goal, traffic wise).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great new interface. Poor name for this new site, though, with a bit of work, I'm sure people will start to remember that:

      o Stack Overflow = Source Code Examples
      o Programmers = Essay questions about Software Development.

I'm still bummed that "Networking" was considered to overlap with "Server Fault", and was therefore rejected as a group. I find it ironic that Webmasters, Wordpress, Unix, Ubuntu (all of which, actually _involve_ servers) are considered as not overlapping too much with Server Fault, but networking, a topic that is a discipline that, for many, will never involve working on a server, is considered to be a Dupe.

</comment><comment><USER5> I really wish they would fix the reputation system so that it's not annoying or downright impossible to constructively use the site until you have a certain number of points.

Barring that I'd settle for having my reputation carry over to related Stack Exchange sites. Until then I probably won't bother to use this one.

<comment><USER6> "I'd settle for having my reputation carry over to related Stack Exchange sites."

If you have more than 200 on one site, you get a boost of +100 when you link the account on a new site.

(Maybe not enough for you, depends what you want to do, but I just thought I'd point it out in case you didn't know)

<comment><USER5> I spent a bunch of reputation adding a bounty to a question without really thinking about how having a low reputation would send me back to restricted functionality. I haven't done much about building it back up once I got to the point where I could do reasonable things again. I must still be below 200 pts on stack overflow because I have 1 point on programmers.stackexchange.com.</comment></comment></comment>


How To Hack A Marathon - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/209645/hack-attack-how-to-hack-a-marathon

<comment><USER2> I've also heard the tip of wearing pantyhose to keep your inner thighs from chafing, but if you're running a marathon in shorts and/or you're a guy, it's not a very appealing solution.

It also works for horseback riding.</comment>


Free Computer Forensics Training - <AUTHOR> http://academy.ehacking.net/courses/computer-hacking-forensics-investigation/

<comment><USER2> It's good to see that the course is listed here. I am the founder of EH Academy so if you guys want to know anything, just let me know.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thumbs up! I like your work.</comment></comment>


The most pinky page of the web - <AUTHOR> http://pageof.pink

<comment><USER2> Firefox: View/Page Style/No Style.</comment>


Hulu CEO: "We screwed up royally" - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1534-hulu-ceo-we-screwed-up-royally <comment><USER3> Why is this linked through 37signals? Why not just link through to the original message?

I understand people respect 37s here for whatever reason, but sometimes the linking is just ridiculous. This has nothing to do with 37s...

<comment><USER4> is it just me getting this feeling lately or 37 signals is trying to spam HN

<comment><USER5> This seems to go in phases... First TechCrunch spam, then anything Zed Posts, now anything 37s posts.

<comment><USER3> It's been anything 37s posts for months and months. HN is practically an RSS feed for the 37s blog...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems "ClownCo" isn't quite turning out like we expected. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5972>

<comment><USER7> No joke. I _love_ Hulu, and when I found out it was just a joint venture I was kind of surprised. It really is a great substitute for traditional TV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note that he didn't just say the right things; they backed it up with actions. They got the eps re-added for two weeks to provide notice.

<comment><USER9> And took full responsibility instead of shedding the blame on others. Talk about defying expectations, Hulu is incredible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> From what I've seen of Jason Kilar he seems like a damn good CEO. Totally excellent candidate for a Founders at Work II interview.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. He was my vote for the CEO Crunchies Award. Just because someone has a good product is one factor, but I think this guy handles himself like CEOs should.

<comment><USER12> Zuckerberg winning that award was a partial contribution to the incredibly laughable nature of that entire production.

<comment><USER13> Can you point to any mistakes he's made? He seems to me to have done a remarkably good job.

<comment><USER12> Besides Beacon, he seems to interview pretty poorly, Facebook is still hemorrhaging money so he hasn't managed the whole "profitability" thing, and there's the whole ConnectU fiasco to name a few. Considering the fact that he's 24 and running a place like FB, I think he's done a good job _all things considered_ , but the award was for "Best Startup CEO" not "Best Startup CEO who is still young so doesn't really know he is doing, but is doing pretty well in spite of his lack of experience."

Because that would be way too long for Om Malik to say remotely coherently.

(P.S. I think I would make an _awful_ CEO of FB, but I also think there are far more competent Startup CEOs out there than Zuckerberg, it just so happens he gets a ton of press, which means it makes sense that he would win an award that is determined by a mass of mouth-breathing, TC-reading publics. Sort of like how it makes sense the Twitter founders won "Best Founders" since, apparently, any press is good press, even press that constantly points out how incompetent you are.)

<comment><USER13> It's not necessarily a mistake to focus on growth instead of revenue, especially in the business they're in. It was certainly right to focus on growth initially. At some point there is presumably a threshold where revenue becomes more important. Are you sure you know better than Zuckerberg where that threshold is?

I'm not. I wouldn't want to bet their strategy has been optimal, but I wouldn't want to bet against it either. At the (very coarse) precision at which I can judge, their strategy seems optimal. Can you judge with finer precision?

<comment><USER12> If I had a 150MM users, I'd start worrying more about how to monetize them than I would about getting more. Facebook has been around 5 years, has taken over 500MM in funding and still requires a yearly influx of investor capital to keep running. To me, that signifies a problem (or, if not a problem, at least an early warning bell). I cannot judge with any finer precision, but from my perspective the strategy is no longer optimal.

I suppose sometime within the next decade we'll find out who was right. Although, given the choice, I will pretty much always bet against a bread-and- butter social network like FB. Statistically it's a really safe bet.

<comment><USER13> In a market where there's a tendency toward centralization, what matters is the percentage of users you have, not the absolute number. Facebook only passed Myspace in traffic last month. Surely it's at least reasonable to believe the threshold for when to put revenue first might be in the future.

<comment><USER14> Do you have to be _the_ #1 in a sector to make a lot of money though?

Plentyoffish has just overtaken match as top dating site in the US - <USER2> parallels with facebook. Difference is, plentyoffish has been massively profitable for years... Why hasn't facebook? Do they need 10,000+ servers and all those staff? The big fancy expensive offices?

Facebook seems like a tech bubble in itself to me.

<comment><USER10> Zuckerberg is taking the road less traveled. Most sane people would have cashed out $100MM and walked away as soon as they could have. I would have.

He's trying to turn Facebook into a billion+/year revenue company by utilizing an as of yet proven (or identified?) business model.

Worst case scenario is that he could do what MySpace did. Put horrible ads all over the site and milk it for everything it's worth. Should turn profit if they then cut back on spending (and fire 80% of their staff).

<comment><USER12> "Everything it's worth" being the sum total of office supply costs for Fox last fiscal year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How hard is it to create a startup when you have all the premium content on TV at your disposal?

<comment><USER16> Excellent point. In many ways I think the networks get a bit too much credit for Hulu.

I thought a bit about it think and I think the accolades are largely because people didn't expect much after the fiascos of the RIAA and the MPAA. How many of us here expected the networks to be able to embrace, adapt, and deliver like they did with Hulu? I know I sure didn't.

Sure many readers here could've built something equivalent or better given rights to the content and half the capital injection but IMO the networks still deserve recognition for Hulu.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think Hulu did great in this situation. It's not like they have said they would keep episodes of shows up forever, shows get removed a lot. FX wanted the show off, so they basically had to take the show off.The only bad point was originally they would have lost credibilty as a reliable place to watch shows, but the notice and addition of the show for another two weeks show they are taking this seriously. Hulu has earned some of my respect, I'm impressed.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's funny that 37s thought the apology letter was great because it violated some of the principles they laid out for good apologies.

</comment><comment><USER19> They even got two episodes added back that weren't there before (The Gang Gets Whacked, pts. 1 & 2). Sweet.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm sorry, but I think everyone is missing the point. Why is Hulu removing content from their site at all? We live in the age of practical infinite storage and effectual infinite bandwidth. I wonder if any of these people have read about the long tail. Even though the economics of the LT are still being debated, there is absolutely no valid argument to be made about removing content from your service that has already been made available. For instance, I have been listening to tech podcasts at ITconversations for years and have even been an occasional editor. They have a system that rebuilds their entire collection of shows multiple times per month with new audio ads/sponsors. They are a much smaller business than something like Hulu and have built a dynamic infrastructure that works very well. Hulu can slap updated ads onto their shows much easier than that because it's all flash based. So why are they removing content at all? That is the question AND the point, not whether or not they have a proactive and apologetic CEO.

<comment><USER21> They're removing it because the people that created the TV show want it removed. Those people are the ones with rights to the content.

They also remove The Daily Show after two weeks, because Comedy Central wants to archive it on their own show. They have that right as content owners.

So I get that you don't like that, but it's their right, and the fact is that Hulu's so good _because_ they work well with others.

<comment><USER20> That doesn't negate my argument though. Hulu is a creation of major content owners getting together and agreeing to put their content in one place and to run advertisements against it. The problem is that the same content owners who agree to put their content up for a limited time are also not getting the full picture of how things have changed in the last few years. The methods for distribution have changed. The content creators no longer have sole control over the distribution medium, like original tv and radio broadcasting stations.

The first major break in that decades old paradigm was the wide-spread growth of cable networks. This opened up more viewing opportunities and made room for new networks. Comedy Central itself is an example of this. The major networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS fought against cable pretty heavily in the beginning. Then they finally caught on and that has been their primary broadcast medium for the last 20-30 years. Now its happened again, and this time not only are the old networks being reactionary, so are the same cable networks that sprouted up as cable tv spread around. This time distribution is online and essentially worldwide. The content owners are now treating their own websites and services like channels and tv stations. They want to make the audience come to them in order to get access to content. They have yet to catch on that this will fail too.

The audience, us, will get content wherever we want it. A lot of us download via filesharing and p2p sites. Some of us buy via services like Amazon and iTunes. Most of us still watch TV, but more and more of us have DVRs and choose to skip over commercials. We will watch content how and where we want. The rules of the new paradigm basically mean that content is no longer packageable. You can't wrap it up in a tape or disk, lock it into a channel, or lock it down to a website. The audience is no longer vertical, but has instead gotten much wider and deeper. If you want to make money from the content you produce, you have to spread it out to every distribution method where you can get some kind of incremental revenue from it. Instead of having your content on your one station or website, keep it there and also push it out to Hulu, TV.com, iTunes, Amazon, Xbox Live, and wherever else you can push it to. Don't remove your content from certain services as an artificial mechanism to try to direct where your audience goes to get it. All you end up doing is alienating your fans and turning them off.

<comment><USER22> You need to hit return twice to start a new paragraph.

<comment><USER20> Fixed. Thanks for the tip.

<comment><USER23> More tips here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> _Mistakes happen. It's how you handle them that really matters_

You know that analogy about the king not wearing any clothes, and the little kid is the only person to notice it?

Yeah.

<comment><USER21> I'm a bit confused. Who's lacking clothes in your analogy?</comment></comment>


Ask HN:My former co-founder is threatening to sue me  - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I am from a third world country and my fomer co-founder is a u.s citizen.
We have been working since last 3 years on a ad network start-up which closed earlier this year.
I started a part-time project and i need some money to sustain myself so i decided to ask for 500 USD for
6 months and also 2 - 4 hrs commitment  everyday from my former co-founder the project kicked off really well and
we generated about 6K income in 1 week after the expenses our total profit was about 4K.
My co-founder paid for 2 months thats 500x2  after that the venture was profitable so he never paid and he didnt commit any
time in  6 months he only spend 10-15 days avg 1-2 hrs on advicing and i myself spend 18 hrs a day in coding and business
development.
After repeatly warning him i dedicided yesterday asked to  not to do any futher business with him and pay him for the
expenses  and he got  mad hearing this he threatened to sue in  U.S court and file a grandtheft against me he says i will never be
able to step in US or do business with a US company if i dont give him 2000 USD right now plus 50% of the company.
I feel cheated to work with someone who cannot commit time and effort  as much i do in the venture.
All agreements we had were via chat and voice and not in legal sheet.
The company is a not us company but must of our customers are from u.s.
Please advice
Thank you ! <comment><USER2> "I dedicided yesterday asked to not to do any futher business with him and pay him for the expenses". I'm sorry, you are wrong here. He took risks. You can't just "pay him for expenses" and expect him to give up his part of a profitable business.

If this company made 4000 US$ in a week (as you say), it is worth a lot of money and you will need to negotiate with him. Offering to pay him 1000$ for his part (ie. "his expenses") is ridiculously low.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dude, it's not worth his time to sue you for anything less than $5k. Lawyers are very expensive here.

I would just incorporate on your own, in India. Run your business as if he didn't exist. He won't do anything.

<comment><USER4> Not worth it now but what happens in the future if his company does well and the cofounder comes looking?

<comment><USER5> Comes looking with no contract and none of his own commitment to show? At least the Facebook case had a signed contract that could be dug out, and proofs of payment.

<comment><USER4> IANAL but a verbal agreement can be a legally binding contract.... which can be hard to prove in court.

But apparently if you have been paid for a job you agreed to do then that's considered a contract even if no documents were signed. If there are any lawyers out there please correct me.

<comment><USER3> A contract is for a fixed amount - not for an equity sharing agreement. When the initial $500 was invested, papers should have been drawn up saying, "okay, i own 50% and you own 50%". A $4000/week business is easily worth $1 milion. The guy sees that and is now trying to sneak his way in.

People often try to take credit for your success, but back away from your failures. Since OP presumably has a $1 million dollar idea, he could get a MUCH better valuation - give away 20% for $200k.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What you've written is quite contradictory; for example: why does he want 50% of a now defunct company?

You said that you made 6k in one week; after saying that you've been working on this start up for 3 years. Is the $4,000 the entire profit this company made over the course of those 3 years? Based on these inconsistencies, I'm finding it hard to follow your story.

To start; IANAL so YMMV.

It sounds to me like you went in with different mentalities. You were a founder; he was an investor. I realize that from your perspective, "he didn't put as much time in" as you did; however, you agreed to give him some share of the company for his monetary investment. That said, it sounds like the valuation agreed to was $6,000 when he invested and that by contributing $3,000, he would own 50% of the company.

However, if he only invested $1,000, then he actually bought only 1/6th of the company, not 1/2. My calculations say you owe him approximately $1,680 which includes returning his initial investment and the profits from a 17% share of the company (which he really does own whether you like it or not).

All that said, if he can document actual material contributions to your products, he quite likely has a legitimate claim for a higher share.

The lesson here is NEVER do business in any form of partnership without a written agreement as to the ownership levels, roles, and responsibilities of each partner.

<comment><AUTHOR> We both were working on an ad start-up since last 3 yrs that stopped earlier this year then i was doing a side project which i launched that the side project made 6K in one week

<comment><USER6> That makes more sense then. That said; my original comments still apply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _All agreements we had were via chat and voice and not in legal sheet._

Chat/email/voice are more than sufficient to establish a contract in the US legal system. Read the introductory "elements of a contract" section from here: <http://www.expertlaw.com/library/business/contract_law.html>

<comment><USER8> Depends on the amount. It really depends what _US STATE_ the man was in whether it does or not. For instance, anything 1k or up must be in writing in Georgia.

What you can do and what you should do are different things. If he's not keeping up his end of the contract, then _sue him_ in the country the company is registered in. Don't give him time or the benefit of jurisdiction in any legal action. If you just don't like the guy, he likely still owns part of the business.

<comment><USER9> > For instance, anything 1k or up must be in writing in Georgia.

IANAL, but chat or email probably count as "in writing."

<comment><USER8> Email? Possibly. Chat? Dunno, but not very confident it would be held up. IANAL either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> (Not a lawyer and this should not be taken as legal advice, just my two cents worth.)

It does sound like bluster. It's certainly not grand theft (which would be a criminal matter), it's a contractual dispute. When people start throwing around legal terms they don't understand I always suspect that they either aren't serious, or that they know so little that their intent is irrelevant as it's likely to change when they learn the reality of the situation, the likely costs and so on.

My guess is that if you made him an offer - possibly just 50% of profit to date - he'd accept and go, but what you need to make sure is that any deal you do with him makes clear that the payment is made in full and final settlement of the matter.

In the UK full and final settlement is a specific legal term (I'm guessing that there is a US equivalent) basically meaning that the matter is settled and the other party can't then return at a later date with a further claim. This should be stated clearly in the accompanying letter (make sure the letter and payment are signed for and you record all details) and also make it clear that by cashing the cheque he waives any right to further payment or claim against you or the company in relation to any business dealings you have had.

But the point others have made is valid - just because it's not worth him suing now don't assume it won't be worth it in the future.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I own the company at the moment i repeatedly request to form a u.s corporation with the money we got he was avoiding to do so bcuz he wanted to make sure we make 50-100K before we make any company which sounded fishy to me.

<comment><USER11> Ah, well in that case, perhaps it's your erstwhile partner who is screwed. If you have the company and physical control over the site, domain, etc... it sounds like it would be difficult for him to actually get at you.

By the way: when replying, use the 'reply' link.

<comment><USER12> He could still sue but : \- Does a US court have jurisdiction on a foreign company operating from a foreign country and that has no legal entity in the US ? \- Even if they could, what can they do other than prevent that company to make any business in the US ? \- And then, can't the OP just make another company in his country that would buy the assets from the previous one ?

(I don't know the answers to those questions)

<comment><USER3> no, it's near-impossible to sue unless they have a physical presence in the United States.

Additionally, an American investor can't be an individual investor in an Indian corporation.

If they really wanted to be on the "up-and-up", the American investor would have set up an American company, with the Indian company as a 50% investor. Then, the Indian company would sign a legal document assigning all copyrights to the American company.

Since nothing was on the up-and-up, and nothing was even signed (I hate email/telephone contracts), the American investor has very little leverage. Since he's threatening to sue, I would exploit it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Although I agree that nobody is going to sue anybody in this situation, I'm curious about the technical legalities.

Could the "new venture" be viewed by a U.S. court as a continuation of the old venture? Could the acceptance of the $1000 salary in the first two months be construed as a contract of some sort? Also, the OP says in a comment that he requested that a US corporation be formed, so there are probably emails to that effect. Would such a request be considered to mean there was a partnership in place already?

Again, I agree with other commenters, there will not be a lawsuit over $2000. But the 50% of the company could be enough incentive if you were successful enough, so the OP might want to get solid on where he stands. It sounds to me that there's a bit of a backstory, maybe enough to make a court look twice.

<comment><USER2> It's not over 2000$, in the post he states that they made 4000$ in a week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well, there's two sides to every story. He fronted you cash on a project with some risk of it going nowhere, and he did contribute time as well. He's got some legitimate ownership claims.

Now, you feel like he's not worth what he's getting, and this happens. Actually, one of the most common reasons partnerships break down is because of perception of the other guy's work rate.

I'd look to negotiate a buyout for him. He does own some of the company. On your side of the story, it looks horribly unjust. But you know, there's his side of the story where he spends time thinking about the company, consulting with you, risks his money, etc. He's probably feeling like you're trying to screw him and that you're being terribly unfair as well.

Try to negotiate a buyout that includes him relinquishing all ownership of the company. He did put time and money into this and backed you with no guarantee of return - he's entitled to something. The court thing is a non-issue at this stage unless he's really vindictive, but it'll be like an ax hanging over your head forever if your project is successful, or you want to hire, or raise money, or anything else. Try to buy him out and go on your own way. When you negotiate, don't tell him how unfair it is, etc, etc. This just ticks people off without accomplishing anything. Just focus on how you don't think this is a good partnership any more, and you're sorry it didn't work out, and after thinking about it you'd like to buy him out, and then make a low offer and come up a bit.

<comment><USER3> I agree with this - just remember that under no circumstances should you give away equity of the company. Tell him that if he wants to own 50%, he has to pay 50% of the costs as well. Tell him you're going to rapidly expand and ask him to commit $50-$100k (that you could easily seek from outside investors) or he's going to risk being diluted. I bet you he will change his tune.

<comment><USER15> Also, to be realistic having an antagonistic relationship between the two owners of the company is going to be poison. The other guy should understand this; if he owns half the company then hack_rohan is probably not going to be terribly keen on continuing to work on this company.

But certainly the other founder is entitled to a lot more than a thousand dollars here (though there's some vagueness in the description). A good negotiating position might be to tell him he can have half the company _or_ the $2000, and plan to get bid up on the $2000 side somewhat.

<comment><USER3> I'm not even sure how they would go about creating ownership in the company. An American can't be an individual investor in an Indian company. An Indian without a working visa can't have a startup in a US company. Ownership issues are convoluted, and would take way more money on lawyer fees to figure out.

Everyone keeps bringing up US laws with regards to ownership, but remember that this is an INDIAN company, where different rules apply.

<comment><USER16> You don't need a working visa, a visa, or to even set foot in the U.S. to be shareholder/owner of a U.S. company.

<comment><USER10> That's true but Indian law is an absolute minefield, particularly for those not familiar with it. I have a former colleague who is still embroiled in a case that's been going on for over a decade. Jarndyce and Jarndyce anyone?

It would take a brave soul indeed to get involved in that from abroad with relatively little at stake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You are acting horribly. You talk about this guy as your "former co-founder" when he is your co-founder. This is a guy who looked out for you when you needed help and chipped in money and effort to support the business in good faith. And not only are you screwing yourself by cheating him, but you are screwing your fellow countrymen. If there is ambiguity in your original agreement work it out in good faith.

If you are running the business and he is doing no work on it right now, it is reasonable for you to pay yourself a respectable salary before sending any profits back. Plenty of companies don't pay dividends. But unless you are eager to shoot yourself in the foot you need to send him an email apologizing for your behavior and putting things right.

<comment><USER17> You guys can downmod this one too. When it comes to doing business, your word is your bond. This guy made an agreement with someone that he wants to break unilaterally now that he has some money and the agreement is inconvenient for him. This is a simple question of honesty and integrity.

And I would _love_ to hear from those of you downmodding my comments on why exactly you think this guy should get a free ride on the do-unto-others principle. And please post under your real accounts so others have fair warning when they make agreements with you.

<comment><USER5> Having an agreement is one thing. Threatening to sue and blackmailing with invalid immigration-related claims is quite another. I don't believe the former partner has a case for anything, but if there is any claim, it would be for breach of contract, not theft. Certainly nothing that would land either a conviction or a permanent visa denial. This is a scare tactic, not a pursuit of a claim. It sounds like the two had both committed to work on the company, but only one really did and he now feels used. Obviously we only have one side of the story, but from the available data it seems it was not the OP who broke the original commitment to the company.

Also, how the hell is he screwing his countrymen, as you claim? Are you saying that because someone got screwed by someone in country X, noone will want to do business with other people from country X anymore? That makes no sense.

<comment><USER18> "I don't believe the former partner has a case for anything, but if there is any claim".

That's the reason for the threat. He has no other way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Imagine yourself in his shoes.

You shared _risks_ and _responsibilities_ of the venture along with the money. Keeping aside the friction with the co-founder, you deserve 50% of the company.

</comment><comment><USER20> > _"500 USD for 6 months and also 2 - 4 hrs commitment everyday"_

> _"My co-founder paid for 2 months"_

> _"10-15 days avg 1-2 hrs on advicing"_

Not a lawyer, but based on the post I would suspect that there is a straight forward argument under common law that the ex-cofounder was in breech of contract.

</comment><comment><USER11> > All agreements we had were via chat and voice and not in legal sheet.

Sounds like the whole thing is pretty much screwed.

> The company is a not us company but must of our customers are from u.s.

Who owns the company?

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like he has no basis. Talk to a lawyer. You should be fine.

</comment><comment><USER21> It costs tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars to sue someone residing in another country... That's if you can even find a lawyer to take the case against someone in a third world country.

If you feel you owe him more, give him what you think he is worth to buy him out. If you think you owe him nothing, then cut off communication from him.

He has to sue you in your country of residence so until you start hearing from local courts, I wouldn't worry.

</comment><comment><USER22> Considering how little recourse he has to actually get money from you without spending far more in lawyer's fees than you're actually earning, I suspect he might be convinced to sign a document relinquishing any ownership stake in the company if he is offered that $1000 back...

<comment><AUTHOR> i offered him back 1000 USD but he rejected also said him i am willing to pay 50% of the profit that will be made in next 2 months one time amount for the money he invested.

<comment><USER23> That sounds like a great deal. Assuming you make the same amount of money and it wasn't an aberration...

2months X 4 weeks X 4K per week = 32K. Minus operating expenses for 2 months (Let's just use 500 per month here) = 31K Minus taxes (assuming 25%) = 23.25K

$11625 to have a clean corp that grosses 208K a year. Sounds like a no brainer for me... Pay him off, make him sign a final and complete settlement that previous poster suggested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's difficult to sue in another country. I don't think he can stop you entering the US or dealing with US companies. Just don't respond to him and don't give him any money. Assume the company is over. Disclaimer: ianal.

</comment><comment><USER25> What was the 'agreements' you guys made? Was he to have 50% for his advice and money? Or was he meant to contribute as much time as you did? Any tips for us on how to avoid a situation like this would be great

<comment><AUTHOR> he was to lead business development with minimum 2 hrs of commitment everyday which he failed to do

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I send 1900 USD now he is telling 50% of any company i do is urs

</comment><comment><USER26> He's going to sue you? Haha, for $5000? Not going to happen. Just ignore him and move on.

BTW, don't let the word "grand" theft scare you. Any theft exceeding $400 is called "grand".

</comment><comment><USER27> ahem you have skills to create a biz worth 6k in income.

Your best option, state you are walking away form venture and that if he wants the 50% you owned to pay up..

Now, when you create the new one..get a lawyer involved and have things in writing.

</comment><comment><USER28> kick him out! do not pay!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> looking for advice from HN readers</comment>


Sudo make me a sandwich... literally - <AUTHOR> http://www.perfect-woman.com/en/

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's definitely a hoax.</comment>