Great Courses, Great Profits – A Curriculum in Human Thought - <AUTHOR> https://www.city-journal.org/html/great-courses-great-profits-13393.html <comment><USER2> > The average royalty is about $25,000 a year for a course > A Great Courses > lecturer earns a royalty that varies according to how highly viewers rate > his performance; the base royalty is 4 percent of the course's gross > revenue, but that rate can rise to 6 percent if a course receives high > enough evaluations.

25k being 6%, would mean the average course has gross revenue of about 416K per year. Impressive

</comment><comment><USER3> Breaking up my comment because it was "too long" to submit as one (that's a first).

\----

There are so many factually incorrect claims and contradictions in this piece that I don't even know where to begin. I write this as someone who owns nearly 100 Great Courses (between DVDs and digital copies). I'm also someone who has had the pleasure of taking an in-person college class with a professor whose course I first watched through The Great Courses (abbreviated as TGC from here on down).

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> Company recruiters sit in on classes of professors who have won awards or > been recognized for their teaching; the most promising are invited to the > Great Courses headquarters to record an audition lecture. That recording > then goes to the company's most valued customers. If enough of them like it, > the company asks the professor to create a lecture course.

> The very fact that the Great Courses has found professors who teach without > self-indulgence may suggest that academia is in better shape than is > sometimes supposed. But the firm's 200-plus faculty make up a minute > percentage of the country's college teaching corps. And some Great Courses > lecturers feel so marginalized on their own campuses, claims Guelzo, that > "if the company granted tenure, they would scramble to abandon their current > ships and sleep on couches to work for the firm." Further, it isn't clear > that the Great Courses professors teach the same way back on their home > campuses.

I've spoken with multiple professors who have had their college courses adapted into TGC. For the professor whose class I took in person, their TGC lectures were literally structured identically to their syllabus. Some of the same jokes in TGC lectures made their way into the classroom (lol).

The in-person filming process for TGC may require multiple trips down to their Virginia studios, especially if we're talking about longer 48+ part courses that reach 24+ hours of screentime. Then there are the occasional re-shoots and restructurings necessary if the their customer focus groups (similar to an Amazon Vine/early reviewer program) finds the content not great.

The idea that professors are creating courses from scratch for TGC is in the overwhelming majority of cases not true. A professor who has normal teaching, research, and service requirements is generally not going to have time to create a whole course from scratch for what the author herself notes is typically a $25,000 royalty per year. A religious scholar who I spoke with (eventually decided not to go forward with submitting an audition tape) said that in his mind the biggest value prop of TGC is that you can minimally adapt existing materials to earn a healthy royalty.

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> True, the Great Courses emphasizes breadth over depth and offers largely > introductory material. In literature and intellectual history, the survey > format predominates, with relatively few courses on individual writers or > philosophical schools.

This article was written in 2011, but even then there were already courses available about Voltaire, "The Great Ideas of Philosophy", "The Modern Political Tradition: Hobbes to Habermas", "Religious Debate in the Western Intellectual Tradition", Alexis De Tocqueville, "Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition", "The Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida", "Legacies of Great Economists", "The Conservative Tradition", "American Ideals", etc. And yes, I double checked my order receipts to make sure these were actually available at the time. In fact many of these courses were on their 2nd or 3rd edition.

Since then, they've added quite a few STEM courses in multivariable calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, statistical computing, complexity theory, college chemistry, organic chemistry, etc.. Several of these are taught at a 2nd year undergrad or beyond level.

> The most striking thing about the Great Courses' humanities curriculum, > however, is how often the same thinkers appear across a large range of > courses. The canon has been "problematized" in the academy, but it is alive > and well in these recordings. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Paul, Erasmus, > Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, > Shakespeare, Cervantes, Milton, Molière, Pope, Swift, Goethe, and others are > foregrounded again and again as touchstones of our civilization.

Again, TGC content is largely carbon copied from college courses' syllabi. If these subjects are "problematized", where is TGC finding these lecturers? Keep in mind that TGC is not plucking unknown professors from lonely heterodox institutions. A majority of their professors teach at "liberal" (in the American sense) campuses.

Just a cursory look at my digital courses shows (in terms of course title and institutional representation):

* Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition (Oxford / Georgetown)

* Voltaire / Birth of the Modern Mind: The Intellectual History of the 17th and 18th Centuries (UPenn)

* History's Great Military Blunders and the Lessons They Teach (University of Wisconsin)

* Fall and Rise of China (Cal Berkeley)

* Skeptics and Believers: Religious Debate in the Western Intellectual Tradition (Grinnell)

* Turning Points in Middle Eastern History (Johns Hopkins)

and so on, and so on...

<comment><USER3> > This past academic year, for example, a Bowdoin College student interested > in American history courses could have taken "Black Women in Atlantic New > Orleans," "Women in American History, 1600–1900," or "Lawn Boy Meets Valley > Girl: Gender and the Suburbs," but if he wanted a course in American > political history, the colonial and revolutionary periods, or the Civil War, > he would have been out of luck.

Take a look at the Bowdoin course catalog for the 2010-2011 academic year ([https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1291&context=course- catalogues)).

We see courses in:

* The Civil War Era (Fall 2011)

* History of the American West (Fall 2011)

* American Society in the New Nation, 1763-1840 (Fall 2010)

* Borderlands and Empires in Early North America (Fall 2010)

* The History of African Americans, 1619-1865 (Fall 2012) (announced in the 2011-2011 catalog)

* American Political Development (Spring 2011)

* American Political Thought (Spring 2011)

* Political Parties in the United States (Fall 2010)

* Introduction to American Government (Fall 2010)

...and many many more that I got tired of copying over to this post.

This is incredibly lazy research by the writer. At the time this article went to press ("Summer 2011"), these courses already existed, and there are countless others already pre-announced in the 2011-2012 course catalog ([https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1292&context=course- catalogues)).

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> The company produces only what its market research shows that customers > want.

> This repetition occurs not because the company is on a mission to > resuscitate the canon but because customers want it. The insatiability of > the demand for such courses surprises even the producers themselves.

> But the incursions of identity studies and other post-sixties academic > developments remain minimal—and are inevitably denounced by some customers > on the company's website.

> The biggest question raised by the Great Courses' success is: Does the > curriculum on campuses look so different because undergraduates, unlike > adults, actually demand postcolonial studies rather than the Lincoln-Douglas > debates? Every indication suggests that the answer is no. "If you say to > kids, 'We're doing the regendering of medieval Europe,' they'll say, 'No, > let's do medieval kings and queens,'" asserts Allitt. "Most kids want > classes on the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, World War I, and > the American Civil War." Creative writing is such a popular concentration > within the English major, Lerer argues, because it is the one place where > students encounter attention to character and plot and can non-ironically > celebrate literature's power.

The author spends a good chunk of the article talking about TGC's customer- centric focus as a key reason for the company's success. TGC largely films courses that its customers want!

Yet, the singular piece of evidence she offers that undergrads are having unpopular curriculums pushed upon them is what she herself deems as an "assertion" from a singular professor. It's difficult to square the "excesses" of student protests against what they see as Western-centric canon (a pet topic that the author has written extensively about) with the idea that students _actually_ really do want to learn about a suppressed canon.

Could it possibly be that today's generation might want a greater variety of course offerings beyond the classical Western canon? Could it be that TGC's median customer, who skews older, has different intellectual preferences and tastes from someone who is 30-40 years younger? What happened to respecting the customers' preferences above all else?

> A few professors suggest that the company has pegged the audience as leaning > conservative[...] Lerer got an angry e-mail from a customer asking how he > could include that "leftist son of a bitch" Noam Chomsky in the course. John > McWhorter was told to omit from his linguistics lectures his usual argument > that the idea of grammatical "correctness" is an "arbitrary imposition." > Such caveats on the company's part, however, could simply reflect the desire > to avoid alienating any customers.

Where is the outrage from the author that TGC's customers are so close-minded? ;)

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> Predictably, the Great Courses has come under pressure for not having enough > "diversity" in its teaching ranks. Rollins has received angry letters from > women complaining about the paucity of female lecturers; his nonstop efforts > to recruit them have yielded few results, in part because women lecture less > than men. As for the truly big-name female professors, they command speaking > fees so high that the Great Courses' pay scale looks insignificant. The same > applies to the black superstars, one of whom told Rollins: "Tom, honestly, I > make several thousand dollars a night from Martin Luther King Day through > Black History Month; you're not even on my radar screen."

As someone who has spent almost $5000 with TGC, indulge me for a second to offer some advice to the company. I would've likely spent even more if they had more courses on the non-Western canon. This is something that has improved in recent years, but until ~5 years ago, there was practically nothing in the catalog on eastern philosophy, histories of India or the Middle East, non- European music, etc.

To this day, there is nothing in the catalog about African-American literature or history, Latin American history, or African history. Given that Latin America and Africa are collectively home to over 1/4 of the planet's population, how about some content development in that area? I'd be among the first customers.

Given that TGC's bestselling western philosophy course is taught by an Oxford professor, how about some more recruitment of professors from international universities who would be experts on these subject areas (when we finally emerge from COVID of course).

> But the incursions of identity studies and other post-sixties academic > developments remain minimal—and are inevitably denounced by some customers > on the company's website.

Quoted in the previous section as well, but I will say that one of the more amusing things about TGC is that the pre-2008 economics content aged extremely poorly in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. They had a very popular course (Legacies of Great Economists) that was released in the early 2000's, and has more than a hint of triumphalism around deregulation and the financialization of so many aspects of our modern economy.

Perhaps including some more skeptical voices would've been a good thing.

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To close, TGC offers great products that I encourage fellow HN readers to try out. They offer a streaming service (The Great Courses Plus) that is likely a better value than purchasing courses outright.

With regards to the author of this piece though, with all due respect she has no idea what she's talking about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this review of the article that I posted. I really appreciate the effort and the information that you've put in here.

I love the Great Courses, and have spent a lot of money on them. I wish I'd shared a more accurate article on them now, as an addled account can't help them all that much.

<comment><USER3> I was happy to write this, since The Great Courses have had such a big impact on my learning. I was just frustrated that what could've been a nice profile (given how much access the author had to the company and its leadership) turned into an ideological screed. IMO, Heather MacDonald sees herself and/or functions as more of a commentator/activist than journalist.

The _NY Times_ has done some fun looks at The Great Courses over the years:

* [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/business/born-in-the-vcr-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/business/born-in-the-vcr-era-great-courses-seeks-to-evolve.html) * [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/05/arts/television/the-great...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/05/arts/television/the-great-courses-require-great-production.html)

 _The Washington Post_ did a profile a few years back:

* [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/before-you...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/before-youtube-and-online-classes-there-were-the-great-courses/2015/08/31/30947f08-353d-11e5-8e66-07b4603ec92a_story.html)

It's truly a remarkable company. It has reinvented itself multiple times: physical DVDs, online downloads, Netflix style streaming, and now audio partnerships with Audible. The recent lifestyle additions (partnerships with NatGeo and Culinary Institute of America) have been great too.

It's been equally remarkable that the Big History was so well regarded that Bill Gates and Khan Academy then went ahead and spun it out into its own standalone project ([https://www.bighistoryproject.com/](https://www.bighistoryproject.com/)).</comment></comment></comment>


Is it unethical to have kids in the era of climate change - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1029010/is-it-unethical-to-have-kids-in-the-era-of-climate-change-a-philosophy-professor-explains <comment><USER2> What a superficial article, doesn't even bring up the way having children _affects_ climate change and the environment.

</comment><comment><USER3> The answer is no. There have always been existential issues for humans. One that comes to mind right away is the Black Death in 14th century Europe. I don't see why climate change makes a difference now. Unfortunately, for them, it will be our grandkids that will have to figure out how to move forward.

<comment><USER4> I agree that it's probably not unethical. But during the past, the human population was actually too low, creating instability and suffering. At some point it may become too high, or may have already become too high. It really depends on where that floating equilibrium is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I watch documentaries about Syria war, or North Korea, I always think I would never give birth to a child under those conditions.

<comment><USER6> i dont even need to go that far, looking closer to home there are plenty of reasons, imagining i had a partner who made around the same as me could we afford for one of us to quit work to look after the kid? no, could we afford to pay someone to look after it? no, even affording the extra costs of supporting a non working human being like food and clothes etc would put incredible strain on the financial situation.

of course in that situation there would be a ton of benefits i could claim that would make it more affordable but why should i expect other people to pay out for my desire to have a child i cant afford?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I mean look at it this way... If no one had kids, then we would wipe out the human race, which itself is unethical. So if having kids was unethical, then it would also be ethical. A philosophical paradox. Having kids can never be considered unethical in a macro point of view.

<comment><USER8> > If no one had kids, then we would wipe out the human race, which itself is > unethical.

Not everyone agrees with that intuition.

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

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Mov...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement)

[https://www.amazon.com/Every-Cradle-Grave-Rethinking- Suicide...](https://www.amazon.com/Every-Cradle-Grave-Rethinking- Suicide/dp/0989697290)

<comment><USER9> Do _you_ take David Benatar seriously?

<comment><USER8> I haven't read his book yet, but I'm about to read Sarah Perry's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Depends on your idea of ethics. There's no ethical system everyone agrees on. Can we call a natural biological function ethical or unethical?

</comment><comment><USER6> no more so than having kids you cant afford to properly support

</comment><comment><USER11> No. There have to be survivors.</comment>


Agilent's Network Communication Protocols Poster (2001) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.induteq.nl/ict/bestanden/HP%20Protocolposter.pdf <comment><USER2> This brings back fond memories of University classes spent pondering the minutia of obscure network protocols.</comment>


Map of CPAN - <AUTHOR> http://mapofcpan.org/#/

<comment><USER2> Another visualisation of CPAN can be found at CPAN Explorer: <http://cpan- explorer.org/>

</comment><comment><USER2> Really cool! And so grateful that Perl/CPAN has great name spacing conventions to make this possible.

Here's the original post on PerlMonks: <http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=943704>

</comment><comment><USER3> Good to see Acme right up there with the big players.

<comment><USER4> for the lazy but unenlightened, Acme namespace is reserved for fun modules.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl#CPAN_Acme>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm kinda new to perl, what's the best way to figure out what a lot of these packages actually do? The content of the readme's are hit or miss for quite a few. I'd be curious if there's a collection of CPAN modules complete with helpful abstracts. Or maybe just point me to the right place, if I'm missing something.

<comment><USER6> Install cpandoc[1]. It's supercharged perldoc command.

It lets you explore the CPAN ecosystem without installing the modules.

      $ cpandoc XML::Twig
      [ ... documentation for XML::Twig ...]

[1] Coincidentally, today's Perl Advent article covers cpandoc (<http://perladvent.org/2011/2011-12-15.html>).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This, kids, is the other reason we use Perl.

<comment><USER8> ... because CPAN is the only package index with a map visualization?

edit: That map visualization seems to show CPAN package namespaces sized relative to the rest of CPAN. This does nothing to visualize the _size_ of CPAN itself, therefore I don't see how "That's why we use Perl" is a valid comment in response to this visualization seeing as it seems to be implying that they use Perl because of the breadth/depth of CPAN.

<comment><USER7> Have you tried mousing over the pixels?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think I can see my house!

</comment><comment><USER10> Very cool

</comment><comment><USER11> nice!</comment>


Bit-thereum - <AUTHOR> http://gavintech.blogspot.com/2014/06/bit-thereum.html

<comment><USER2> Hah, just this morning we published a whitepaper explaining such a solution in greater detail:

[http://github.com/orisi/wiki/wiki/Orisi-White- Paper](http://github.com/orisi/wiki/wiki/Orisi-White-Paper)

There is also a basic implementation of such a system that we've been preparing for the past week, and a website that will host a list of oracles: [http://oracles.li/](http://oracles.li/)

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the progress on sidechains right now?

I'm hoping we can stop the madness of forking the power of currencies and rather extend the core chain with new functionality. So many new currencies are dying because they don't have the required participants to survive attacks.

If ethereum and zerocash concepts could be merged with Bitcoin, it looks like it'd be an awesome platform for everything distributed...

<comment><USER2> Well, sidechains will always be useful. Even if zerocash and ethereum were to be included in Bitcoin, we'd still use a playground for testing experimental features.

When it comes to updating the Bitcoin protocol, there's a need to be very conservative and very cautious. The core dev team is working on a 2 billion- dollar running train over there. You wouldn't want to push changes too much.

And even when sidechain support gets implemented back into Bitcoin, the sidechains will have to conform to a very specific standard. Otherwise bitcoin scripts will not work with them. On the other hand, sidechains based on distributed oracles ( like Orisi - [http://github.com/orisi/wiki/wiki/Orisi- White-Paper](http://github.com/orisi/wiki/wiki/Orisi-White-Paper) ), can have any kind of form. If you want to make an alt-currency that sends you a chicken for each bitcoin you burn, and gives you back a bitcoin once you eat the chicken in front of the camera... You can do that with distributed oracles :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Bitcoin already provides a global currency and distributed ledger-- there is > no need to re-invent those wheels.

Yeah, at a cost of several million dollars per year of burned power. You'll find the less BTC someone owns the less likely they are to bring up non- arguments like "more hashes = more security!" Let's stop pretending there isn't room to innovate.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't say those are non-arguments, just not conclusive arguments. Vitalik of Ethereum brings up the nothing-at-stake problem, in the context of proposing a solution:

[http://blog.ethereum.org/2014/01/15/slasher-a-punitive- proof...](http://blog.ethereum.org/2014/01/15/slasher-a-punitive-proof-of- stake-algorithm/)

<comment><USER4> "more hashes != more security" is true even if POS does not work (or rather, security scales sublinearly with hashes - economies of scale + diminishing returns on value of security). Nothing-at-stake is solved by DPOS, the ethereum team lags behind POS development by a few months it seems (they just mentioned using TAPOS a few weeks ago when the inventor has moved past it a few months ago).

<comment><USER5> What are DPOS and TAPOS?

<comment><USER2> DPOS = Delegated Proof of Stake. Owners of the majority of the stake (stake = all the coins) designate a limited set of servers to handle the blockchain operations.

Thanks to this, there can be just 100 nodes interacting very quickly with each other and yet just as trustworthy - if not more - as the current bitcoin system.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rakudo *'s Really Really Release Ready - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.perl.org/users/ingy_dot_net/2010/07/rakudos-really-really-release-ready.html

<comment><USER2> One of the first articles I've seen that discusses Perl 6 from the point of view of somebody who (a) ported a substantial existing code base and (b) is not already part of the inner circle of Perl 6 implementers. It was encouraging to see that somebody in this position would find working in Perl 6 enjoyable and the grammar features "life changing".

That said, two of my takeaways from this article were that Perl 6 currently is very slow and fairly buggy, two characteristics that I personally would NOT associate with a project being "Really Really Release Ready".</comment>


Advice for my first startup? - <AUTHOR>

Looking for a little wisdom from the ycom crowd. I'm just getting started on a little idea that's going to be my first foray into the web startup world.
I'd love to hear any/all advice you have for me as I get started.
Backstory: I've been in the web world as an executive-type for several years, but never started my own company. I'm not a developer or designer, I just have an idea and a really clear roadmap for what I want to see happen.
Would love to hear your thoughts. <comment><USER2> Ignore everything but:

a.) Figuring out who your customers are and what they want.

b.) Building that.

<comment><USER3> On top of nostrademons advice, find people who you (and they) can work along with. They will be your family and so you better get along with them well or else perish. If you are building a technology based company, you should be very clear to your cofounder(s) (hopefully some smart technical ones) about what you can bring to the table.

Honestly, talk about your idea and see if people really care about it enough.

Of course, I've also seen this - some really smart business folks writing long business plans and then tell me, "This is our product X [a web based solution often times] that we're trying to build, there's a need for it, etc... Oh, and we just need a website - we could maybe use a part time web developer?" Of course, there is nothing wrong with not knowing where to start, but it's really good to test your assumptions from the get go.

And it doesn't hurt to have advisors - as in people who have done this kind of stuff before. You'd be amazed how much people can share over a piece of pastry and coffee :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The question is a bit vague but I would be ready for the following:

\- Your road map may appear clear now but expect to pivot \- Don't believe all the hype with your first success, keep working hard \- Marketing and standing out in the crowd is difficult \- Start building relationships now with influencers who you'd like to engage later

Without more on actually what you need advice on is tough but all I can say is be ready for highs and lows and try keep plugging away.

Best of Luck

</comment><comment><USER5> "have an idea and a really clear roadmap" Then whats the question? Do you have a developer and a designer with whom you are working? If you want to get a general idea of startups read PG's Essays.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't believe all the advice you hear. Some of it contradicts itself, and not all of it will work for you. Use your best judgment and keep your goals in mind.</comment>


Startup questions to use for choosing your lawyer - <AUTHOR> http://okdork.com/2010/11/17/startup-questions-for-choosing-your-lawyer/

<comment><USER2> I just went through the whole incorporation process for the second time. I used the same guys we used before and they gave us a good deal, agreed to defer the fees, etc. The first time around we just asked other startups who they used and what their experience was like. We asked them questions like how much their incorporation docs cost and how fast they responded to emails (lawyers have a bad habit of taking days to respond to emails).

If you're planning to raise money, it's also wise to ask your potential investors if they have any favorite firms that they like to work with. Working with firms they know and trust can speed the fund-raising process up a lot.

I'm pretty sure I've never had a beer with my lawyers. I know I've never asked them for introductions. I've got a lot of other people around me for that. What's important to me is getting good legal advice when I need it and clean legal docs that aren't going to cause problems later on. I'll take intros from guys who aren't billing me $500/hr.

</comment><comment><USER3> We struggled to find a decent, reasonable value-for-money solicitor in the UK. We used one firm to advise us on a contract, via a recommendation. It was a terrible experience. The partners dealt with our deal (£375 / hour) and they totally failed to answer or address any of our concerns/issues, delivering the weakest advice. A total waste of money.

We have subsequently found another solicitor to advise us on a shareholders agreement. Found them by chance, but they've been fantastic. My advice for a startup in the UK looking for advice would be:

\- You don't need a major name or magic circle firm. Our firm was a "top 100" with 3 offices and 75 lawyers in London. \- You don't need a partner, a senior associate with relevant experience is fine (in our case IT, shareholders agreements) and the fees are a lot less (we paid £230 / hour) \- Independent experienced advice is invaluable. It's absolutely a worthwhile investment. Really helps you know where you stand, what you are justified in pushing back on etc.</comment>


The Truth About Frivolous Tax Arguments - <AUTHOR> https://www.irs.gov/Tax-Professionals/The-Truth-About-Frivolous-Tax-Arguments-Introduction <comment><USER2> I feel bad for the IRS. They don't make the rules, but they get the brunt of the vitriol because they are the enforcers. And honestly, as enforcers, they are pretty fair and just, given the resources they have to work with.

They've used "big data" for years to target the tax cheats they think will give them the best return on their dollar. That's why they don't go after the mega-rich -- their lawyers delay the process so much that their return is lower than going after small business owners.

As far as government orgs go, they're probably one of the most efficient.

My personal experience with them was actually very positive, even though I was there for an audit. They called me in, they said, "here are our concerns", I said, "here's my documentation". We went back and forth, and mutually agreed that some things were ok and some were not. We decided I owed some extra money, but they waived the fees and penalties.

Overall, I think they're one of the better orgs in the government.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, but an organization that targeted people because of their political beliefs, postponed or withheld nonprofit status because of such beliefs, and is now stonewalling the congressional investigation doesn't count as "one of the better orgs in the government".

They apparently can't implement their own backup policy, can't comply with congressional subpoenas, and has generally slow walked and foot dragged through the entire investigation.

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party- sc...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-scandal- congress-nonprofit-obama)

<comment><USER4> Here's more Mother Jones reporting: [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party- ta...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-tax-problems)

I can provide a little context here. When I was in college I was a conservative Republican. Some right-wing groups in Washington deliberately and consciously helped me and many other students set up tax-exempt organizations. Everything was technically OK.

But in retrospect? It's pretty clear their strategy was to create a bunch of exempt organizations through which to funnel money for political purposes. The big loophole at that time was that you could be a 501c3 and provide "education" and remain exempt. Now if ALL of that education just happened to benefit the right-wing of the GOP, well I guess that's just a coincidence.

Frankly, the IRS was totally right in going after these groups. The problem is they overreached in some cases. Many of the groups are not following the spirit of the law and I would wager that many of them are not even following the letter of the law.

For example, you're not supposed to coordinate with election campaigns if you're a 501c3, but what if everyone on your board is actively involved in local Republican politics? Even if your board meeting is technically non- partisan, when everyone goes out for drinks afterwards (on the non-profit's tab) you can be sure that election strategy is going to be a topic of conversation.

For the record, I do not see liberal groups flagrantly disregarding the law in such a manner, which makes sense because they're ideologically less committed to dodging taxes.

TLDR: If a bunch of people are organizing around the concept "taxes suck, let's not pay them!" it's a pretty safe bet that many of them are actually breaking the law.

<comment><USER5> Well, I run a 501(c)3, scientific research, ("making an open source anticancer drug") and the IRS held up my application for a year and a half on what should have been a very straightforward application. While I was waiting I had to quit my job at a big research institute to avoid use of time conflicts and literally drove for Lyft and Uber to make ends meet.

It turned out that the IRS had bolo'd ("be on the lookout") all applications that used "open source" and although I don't know for sure it seems like that was what caused the problem.

<comment><USER6> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy)

> Controversial intensive scrutiny of political groups

> Beginning in March 2010, the IRS more closely scrutinized certain > organizations applying for tax-exempt status under sections 501(c)(3) and > 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code by focusing on groups with certain > words in their names.[46][47][48] In May 2010, some employees of the > "Determinations Unit" of the Cincinnati office of the IRS, which is tasked > with reviewing applications pertaining to tax-exempt status, began > developing a spreadsheet that became known as the "Be On the Look Out" list.

> The list, first distributed in August 2010, suggested intensive scrutiny of > applicants with names related to a number of political causes, including > names related to the Tea Party movement and other conservative causes.[48] > Eventually, IRS employees in at least Cincinnati, Ohio; El Monte, > California; Laguna Niguel, California; and Washington, D.C.[49] applied > closer scrutiny to applications from organizations that:[50][51][52]

> referenced words such as "Tea Party", "Patriots", or "9/12 Project", > "progressive," "occupy," "Israel," "open source software," "medical > marijuana" and "occupied territory advocacy" in the case file;[47][48]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I heard about this list on the most recent episode of Planet Money, which talks to someone who believed some of these frivolous arguments and faced a lot of legal problems because of it, and separately, with a lawyer explaining that yes, these arguments are frivolous: [http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet- money](http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money)

<comment><USER8> To be fair, they aren't frivilous. In fact, taxes were illegal or temporary(given americas hostory).

See my above comment for one of the "rebuttals".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Alas, they have yet to solve the halting problem, or create the universal debugger:

"This document, including the relevant legal authorities cited, is not intended to provide an exhaustive list of frivolous tax arguments. Merely because a frivolous argument is not included in this document does not mean that it is not frivolous."

</comment><comment><USER6> See also the Sovereign Citizen Movement, who use a lot of these frivolous arguments. (FBI claims some sovereign citizens might be terrorists; Southern Poverty Law Center says there are about 100,000 hard core believers, with an extra 200,000 partial believers.)

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

</comment><comment><USER10> While this is surely a warranted and useful document in its own right, I can't help but tell my own story of "Frivolous IRS Wastefulness" as a counter- balance.

Some in the US might remember a year when the 'Estate Tax' was suspended - that is, if a relative died and passed along an inheritance amount, it wasn't taxable like in years prior or once the suspension expired after 2010.

As a recipient of some funds - a mid single digit thousand figure - from my maternal relative passing, I paid off my credit card and - this was my mistake - included the amount received in some kind of 'income' field. This set into motion one of the most ridiculous, patience-testing exchanges in my adult life. In mid-2011, they sent me a letter wanting a check for $X,XXX.

I wrote back a clear explanation of the error in question - that the funds were an inheritance and not subject to the taxes being claimed. I sent it via FedEx, and eventually got a response. They still wanted the entire $X,XXX!

This back and forth - me being as polite and stubborn as possible in writing - and the IRS kept wanting money, offering no proof why the amount they claimed owed was actually owed (I asked repeatedly for citations). This went on for a FULL YEAR. In the second to last correspondence, I had pages and pages of the 2010 tax code included, with relevant highlights, obscure forms...yet still felt taking a polite (if a bit dense) tone would be better than getting angry, you know, poking a gorilla with a stick kind of thing.

In the end, I sucked it up and sent them about $150, what they eventually came down to after all this time, just to get them to shut up. The IRS, without question, wasted time, resources, and money stubbornly pursuing money that they weren't entitled to at all.

So, while I respect their power and genuinely believe in their mission to acquire funds to keep the government working in its basic fashion, I have absolutely no pity for staff members who have to read through line after line of bullshit excuses, because they do it too.

<comment><USER11> Hmm, the fact that you were being ignored tells me that you actually were not getting time, resources, and money allocated to your case. It was probably the case that they lacked the time, resources, and money to take it seriously and just kept sending you the default response. Sending many pages of tax code probably hurt you in the long run.

<comment><USER10> Quite the opposite, they weren't ignoring me. Every single correspondence demonstrated effort and time on their part to read through, re-calculate some things, re-package, and send it back hoping I'd just kind of cave in. The stack of papers is about six inches tall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I was in law school I liked to research "tax protestor" and "sovereign citizen" arguments to practice my legal research skills. The IRS documents submitted cover much of what I remember of these people's arguments, but not all. Some other arguments or mistakes I recall being common:

• Quoting from a court case and claiming it says they do not have to pay tax. The case turns out to be real...but what they are quoting is not from the court's ruling but rather is from a brief submitted by the losing side.

• Quoting from a court case and claiming it says they do not have to pay tax. The cited court exists, but the case does not.

• Similar to the above, but the cited court itself does not exist.

• They cite a real case from a real court, but the parts they quote to support their argument do not exist.

• On those very rare occasions when they cite a real case, from a real court, and actually quote from the court's ruling, it turns out to be a ruling that was overturned quickly by a higher court.

• (One of my favorites) Saying that a court lacked jurisdiction because the flag in the courtroom had a gold fringe, which they say signifies that this is an "Admiralty Court" and only has jurisdiction over the seas and navigable waterways.

The article mentioned the argument that the Federal government only has authority over D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, etc., but doesn't say _why_ some people believe that. I've seen two arguments for that belief. The first is that the Federal government was created by the Constitution specifically to run D.C. and other Federal territory and was not given any authority over anything else.

The second is that there is someplace in the tax code that says something like "For purposes of this section, 'United States' includes D.C., Guam, [...]" and they think "includes" means "consists of only" (and they ignore the restriction to "this section" and so think this applies to the whole tax code).

I've never run into an argument from these people that was not, frankly, idiotic. If one of their arguments does not immediately fail due to a fundamental misunderstanding of basic English, it falls apart as soon as you try to track down original sources.

</comment><comment><USER13> One of the items, specifically alleging that the 16th amendment wasn't properly ratified has some merit but there's an even better counter-argument.

The government will seize your property and incarcerate you if you don't pay.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's amazing that some actually tried the equivocation on the word "voluntary" as far as taking it to court and losing.

</comment><comment><USER15> If only that applied to pretending that your company is headquartered in a tiny office in Bermuda.

</comment><comment><USER16> The misspelling prompted me to the notion that "frivolous" is a great word that ought to be more widely applied to a variety of situations in modern life, but somehow has been pigeon-holed to a legal definition.

<comment><USER17> We fixed the typo. I agree, it's a fine word.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The truth? The truth is, you should stop enabling the waste of my money, you tax collector scumbags. Maybe if you give me the option of not having my stolen effort spent on foreign wars, I'll have some respect for you lickspittles.

<comment><USER19> Your argument is with politicians, not the tax collector.

The IRS funds democracy. They are not scum.

<comment><USER20> Democracy is not really what we have though. We the people really don't have much say in what's going on.

<comment><USER21> To be honest, what do you expect to have happened after roughly 100 years of neglect and disinterest by We The People who are supposed to be doing the electing and the watching? All technology seems to have given us is the ability to be even more polarized and entrenched about the way things "ought to be" and, thus, dig in our heels unless we get exactly that.

<comment><USER20> You need to read "People's History of the US" by Howard Zinn. There never was a democracy here. The only times when people had the actual power was during the many armed insurrections, most of which were simply suppressed by force, but some of which did achieve at least some of their ends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Trying to get out of paying taxes is like arguing the score of a game after the game has ended. If you didn't like how it ended up, you should have been playing it differently.

High level players are able to change the rules.

<comment><USER23> I agree to a point, but to further the game analogy, no other game has rules quite so complicated. When the referees decide that you had a foul in the first quarter, you begin a complex process of determining what the result of the game would have been had the foul been caught immediately.

The best "players" have great teams studying the rules. Those without the resources to do so make their best attempt by using amateur understanding and common advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Yes, taxes are stealing, police and fire should be private and pay with your pocketbook, etc etc blah blah libertarian bullshit.

I like public parks, and schools and fire. I don't like funding wars or corrupt police, but those are separate issues.

Every high income nation has income taxes. The US is the only high income nation that still has the death penalty. Let's fix that first.

Ultimately, getting rid of taxes won't change anything. You're talking about a broken system; the system of debt, war and money. They're all related. If humanity is going to survive another 10,000 years, we need to deal with the real issues of consumerism and move away from money entirely.

<comment><USER25> Actually, before fixing dead penalty, the US should resolve the Mars-Milky Way chocolate bar mix-up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Eliminate the 16th Amendment. This would reduce the power of the IRS

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxvi](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxvi)

<comment><USER27> Serious question - was this person downvoted because of the particular argument they presented, or because of the quality of the argument? Maybe it's the latter, and I'm just biased. Hacker News bills itself as a civil, open minded discussion forum, and by and large it works out great. However I certainly feel that certain views are not very accepted. If the "taboo" views were _explicitly_ laid out, that would be fine. At least we'd know where it stands.

<comment><USER28> For this particular comment, probably just that it doesn't add anything. Saying something akin to "get rid of taxes, and the IRS will have less power" is pretty tautological and not really relevant to most of the arguments linked (which are far more ... creative ... and bold, in terms of claiming that the US/IRS already doesn't have power to tax people).

<comment><USER27> I agree it's not very insightful or anything, but there are plenty of boring comments lying around that don't get downvoted _that_ much. I imagine it's partially fueled by people's frustration with this viewpoint. But I guess it's hard to uproot bias entirely.

<comment><USER29> Green accounts tend to draw more fire as well. Trolling through sockpuppet accounts seems to be more and more common around here, so people might be trigger happy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Decision: To continue working on the start-up or go to grad school? - <AUTHOR>

My business partner and I have been plugging away for the past 6 weeks on getting our web start-up going. Now he's deciding whether or not to continue on or stop and go to grad school. We're so close to launching and then would need a few 3-6 months to see if it has any potential in the market. We all know Paul Graham's opinion on going to grad school verses seeing your startup through to completion. I thought some friendly encouragement from the y-combinator crowd might help illuminate his decision. Ironically, our "start-up" is a decision making tool, and he has posted a decision page listing all the pros and cons. It's a wiki so anyone can add their two cents. It's still in pre alpha stage but here's a direct link if anyone wants to help steer this sorry fellow from a sad life of grad school at 'cough cough' Indiana State University, verses doing what he always deep in his heart wanted to do. (Actually, he's always wanted both, hence the conflict, but I digress.) All feedback on this discussion board or on the site is most appreciated.
http://decisionero.com/43t_friends/San_Francisco_or_Indiana%3F
Cheers! <comment><USER2> IMHO, if your partner can't look at his page on your site and see how _completely obvious_ it is that he should stay in SF... he might as well move to Indiana, because your product is useless. ;)

I can't figure out whether or not I can draw all over that decisionero page without ruining it, so let me riff on it here:

 _San Francisco is a city that fits me, where the possibility of wonderful new connection is everywhere._

Then perhaps you should... live there? :)

 _San Francisco might be a poor place for me to study for a degree: all that possibility for connection is also possibility for distraction._

Yes! _Thank god_! You know why I'm here on news.yc in the first place? Because Philip Greenspun distracted me from grad school.

The entire point of grad school is the distractions. I learned this far too late, but at least I learned it.

 _Indiana's comp sci department has said that they cannot fund me for 2008-9..._

Warning sign.

 _The professor at Indiana who I like is right now getting into the line of research that I want to pursue. Virtually everyone else to whom I've told this research idea to has said it's a terrible idea and can't work. This fellow "gets it". This year is probably the best time to get started on it, just as he is ramping up_

 _Big_ warning sign.

If you want to be a professor you need two things as you come out of grad school: A stellar recommendation letter from someone well established in the field [1], and the ability to get your grants funded. Working for a relatively new guy is dangerous, as is settling for a guy at a less-than-top-tier school -- his recommendations aren't worth as much. Going to work on a problem that most other profs think is a waste of time is _incredibly_ foolish, because those other profs are the ones who will be reviewing your grant proposals and interviewing you for your next academic job. If everyone tells you up front that your idea won't work, and it doesn't (which is the most likely possibility), you won't exactly look like a genius. Even if your idea _does_ work, many of those people won't get it. Or they might just refuse to listen to you out of spite. (If you think that can't happen because it would just be too petty and unfair, you know nothing about academia. ;)

 _I think professorship is really what I'm made for, and Indiana looks like the best path for that. That's the one place where I've met a professor who seems on my wavelength..._

Wait -- you think being a prof is a good idea _despite_ the fact that only one prof in the world seems to be on your wavelength?

Being a prof is entirely about making other profs happy so that they'll vote to give you funding. If you don't enjoy playing political games with other professors, you won't enjoy being a professor.

 _A master's degree from SFSU would likely lead straight to a Ph.D. from Berkeley or Stanford. And a Ph.D. from Berkeley or Stanford are better tickets to professorship at a research university than a Ph.D. from Indiana._

Amen. This is not only 100% correct, it's the most important factor by an order of magnitude.

If you seriously want to be a prof, _never_ settle for a second-tier school so long as there are top-tier schools in the running. Berkeley or Stanford profs have better reputations, better connections, and better locations. Remember: academic hiring is more subjective than objective. It's as much about marketing, connections, and politics as it is about research talent and results, even if you're Knuth.

[1] Actually, you need _three_ recommendation letters. Yet another argument for attending a university with at least three well-respected, well-known faculty members that you can interact with... and for studying a topic that these three people will understand and respect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Especially for the incite into the world of academia. Minor aside, being able to post comments like this on our website is on our TODO list. Placing your comments here in the meantime was the best option. The fact that you had to do so will bump that up in priority. ;)

<comment><USER2> Yeah. I noticed that it seemed to be a wiki, and was tempted to try it out... but I'm sure you can understand why I was reluctant to paste this giant glob of opinions all over your outline page. :)

Incidentally, no discussion of this topic is complete without an administration of the Greenspun test. Read the link I posted here, and the comments:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117378>

If your partner can read all that and _still_ be sure that he wants to be a professor... he needs to at least try going to grad school, because he's truly in love. ;) But I still recommend SF over Indiana, despite the fact that I grew up in Ohio and should really be sticking up for the Midwest...

<comment><USER2> Oh, and I almost forgot! An important book to read is _A Ph.D. is Not Enough! A Guide to Survival in Science_ :

[http://www.amazon.com/PhD-Not-Enough-Survival- Science/dp/020...](http://www.amazon.com/PhD-Not-Enough-Survival- Science/dp/0201626632)

It's a bit dated, but it's quite valuable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool.. that's all very helpful. Especially the links and extra reference material. That's all we do these days is pass books back and forth. haha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If there's no financial pressure to stop doing the startup right now I say go for it. Grad school will always be there later in the future.

<comment><USER4> Well, how about this: an investor just popped out of the woodwork, looking to put $15K into the site.

I don't have enough savings to last a year, so I was a little worried about my finances if I do decisionero. This bit of news definitely shifts the balance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just my 2 cents:

a. no matter how much formal education you have, you already have enough

b. if doesn't matter where you live

c. go with your gut (you know you want to)

</comment><comment><USER6> Defer, Defer, Defer</comment>


Shifting Incomes for American Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://flowingdata.com/2016/06/28/distributions-of-annual-income/ <comment><USER2> I feel there is more emphasis on the technique of how to create the graph to promote the subscription-based website's tutorials instead of the actual thing - which IMHO would actually benefit from _less_ programming wizardry. I find the movement distracting. Instead, show the four years side by side. Dingleberry mentions a box plot, but I think the main point would be to just see the development without having to press buttons and watch an animation (and may I suggest a violin plot, kind of like a box plot but it also shows density information). It took me several iterations of switching until I saw details that would be visible right away if all were shown in one graph, for example that how many outliers there are in each profession changes, meaning the development isn't equal but actually reverses in some of them. But you have to keep going back and forth to see which are which.

So this is what happens when your focus is teaching fancy visualization techniques instead of making the point.

<comment><USER3> > So this is what happens when your focus is teaching fancy visualization > techniques instead of making the point.

Exactly. I am surprised Nathan did this actually. Generally, Data -> Information -> Knowledge -> Wisdom. I feel this particular blog post stops between data and information. The minimum level should at least be information while wisdom or knowledge would be ideal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understood this... the guy made some claims and then showed just a very weird graph? Was it supposed to be animated? I noticed some balls moving here and there every 5 seconds.

What the rows and colours are supposed to be? I saw colored dots all over the place with seemly no logic, and those row labels didn't made clear why some row has 3 colors of dots in it while another is empty...

I am dumb, seeing a type of graph I never saw before, or the d3.js he mentions is buggy?

<comment><USER5> I haven't seen that kind of graph before, but it seems to be working (technically) for me.

It's kind of a histogram with the animation happening between years (buttons at the top). I didn't see any rows with more than one color, so maybe it is buggy for you. Colors seem to align with row labels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is the graph broken?

It takes 10 seconds to settle, and for any year above 1960, some dots move to above 200K, but around 175K it remains empty. And the relative amounts are similar, invalidating the word "shifting" in the title.

<comment><USER7> No, this is using the force-directed graph api provided by d3.

[https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4062045](https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4062045)

It's pretty slow on mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> box plot should be a better viz

</comment><comment><USER9> Who would've guessed Legal being so high? :-)</comment>


Nexus 4 - Raising The Bar For Design, Materials, And Build Quality - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/11/01/initial-impressions-of-the-nexus-4-raising-the-bar-for-design-materials-and-build-quality/

<comment><USER2> The fact that it has no 4G is a killer. I was about to buy it, but lack of 4G prevented me.

<comment><USER3> Why? You'll use up your 4G data plan in 97 seconds. At least with 3G it would take a day or so to blow past your monthly data limit.

In all seriousness - yes, this is an issue, but with the divergence of 4G spectrums and the radios required to support all of them, it does make sense they don't support it yet. I'm probably gonna get the Nexus 4 anyways, as with my iPhone 4 I have 3G data and it's perfectly adequate. I'm also a heavy (not super heavy) user of data.</comment></comment>


Readability - <AUTHOR> http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability <comment><USER2> Google Chrome plugin version: [https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jggheggpdocamnea...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jggheggpdocamneaacmfoipeehedigia) It's faster than the bookmarklet.

</comment><comment><USER3> readability plus <http://instapaper.com> are how I read anything of length online.

I.e. when I'm ready, and how I like it.

<comment><USER4> Readability is awesome. It's actually a new feature in the Hacker News iPhone App I built and makes a _huge_ difference when reading pages.

Before —> <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4595/hn-readibility-menu.jpg>

After —> <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4595/hn-readibility-done.jpg>

The update is scheduled for release on Monday.

<comment><USER5> sweeet.... looking forward the release of this one!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've actually written a Ruby library modeled on Readability (quite closely modeled - I read the source code of the bookmarklet and based my library on what I learned) that is excellent for screen scraping - like Readability, it is pretty good at finding the element on a site that holds the content, and once you have that, it's trivial to pull the content out.

If that sounds useful to you, let me know, I can probably open-source it.

<comment><USER7> I'd be interested in that.

<comment><USER8> Seconded, I'd love to see this as a library. GitHub it maybe?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My first impression was "that's pointless"... then I tried it... I can see me using that on lots of pages actually. So simple, but so effective.

Would like to be able to change settings once the page has been loaded though.

<comment><USER10> I use it so often that I have it bound to a Quicksilver hotkey. I must use it at least 5 times a day.

Even in the cases where the layout isn't particularly bad the consistency of reading things formatted in a way you're used to makes stuff easier to read.

<comment><USER9> Until today I always used to CTRL+Scroll and highlight text... NO MORE :)

I have it on my FF bar now... would love the feature to change the style it while looking at the page.. different pages need different reading styles for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Previous thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=501970>

</comment><comment><USER12> I use this and highly recommend it.

<comment><USER13> I've been using this since the last time it was posted on HN and highly recommend it as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Readability, as well as Instapaper's similar Instapaper Text bookmarklet(<http://www.instapaper.com/extras>), have made reading online so much better.

The thought of being able to use this on an iPad makes me tingly in all the right places.

</comment><comment><USER14> There's so many websites with tiny text and colours with really poor contrast, especially people's blogs about their business/start-up experience, I've found.

Most of them are just about readable on my 24" iMac, but on my tiny little netbook, if it wasn't for Readability I'd miss out on them.

Of course, in an ideal world we wouldn't need Readability as much because people would consider small screen sizes and poor eyesight when picking the site design.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm trying to apply these usability lessons (based on my multiple-times-daily use of readability + instapaper) to my apps.

There's a lot to be said for clear, large, readable, high-contrast text, either where there's a big block of text, or a critical label used for skimming the layout of the page. If you want your users to be able to quickly find the element on a page that's important to them, give it a big fat text label.

I sometimes give advice to the web editor at a consumer magazine-- their body text is small, tightly spaced, and low contrast. As a result their average time-on-page and bounce rates are quite depressing. Unfortunately, as is the case in many large orgs, making the content (remember, they are in the content business) more accessible to the site's visitors is not necessarily high on the larger organization's priority list (they seem to only be interested in pageviews, thus boosting their ad inventory so they can qualify for larger ad networks).

</comment><comment><USER16> Readability + Print to PDF + email to kindle = awesome

<comment><USER17> All packaged into a "Send to Kindle" Service on Snow Leopard = awesome++

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I recently contributed heavily to a Ruby port of Readability, online here: <http://github.com/iterationlabs/ruby-readability>

<comment><USER19> I'm curious about when you would use a Ruby port of Readability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's an alternative to the Readability tool called Clippable: <http://brettterpstra.com/2009/11/03/clippable>

</comment><comment><USER21> I saved the bookmarklet with the keyword 'read', so when I'm a site that could benefit from it (which happens a lot) it's a simple: Ctrl-l read <return> away

</comment><comment><USER22> I use this as well, but I wish someone would do a chrome extension which allows to apply Readability without needed additional click (for example they could display a tiny clickable icon behind every link, which will open the article in Readability mode).

Question: Don't you know if Readability can be used programmatically? I would like to have a script, which would automatically save a Readabilite'd version of a web page.

<comment><USER23> IMHO it would be pretty burdensome to have an additional element after every link, but the aesthetics probably depend on how often you're using Readability.

As of your question, you can inject <script> tags pointing to Readability into the DOM. If you want to do it without the browser, WebKit is your friend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> A couple months ago I coded a server side version of the readability bookmarklet. I made it to be able to link to a page and have it converted by the script. <http://cold-sunrise-39.heroku.com/>

There's also a bookmarklet there so you can easily process urls.

<comment><USER25> Is the source code available on the web for the sinatra app?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Strange things happen when you apply Readability to a Hacker News thread. Only a fraction of it shows up.

</comment><comment><USER27> Most browsers let you control font size, and unless the site design is frozen with terrible margins, you can fix that by resizing the window. It still offers some help with the font and color scheme, but I guess I need to play with it more to understand the value.

</comment><comment><USER28> A similar little project I undertook recently: <http://purepistos.net/thankful-eyes> Still needs polish, but I use it often instead of browser zooming or Readability. Feedback or patches welcome.

</comment><comment><USER29> I also love good reading on Internet. I use Readability and Readable. Here is Readable project: [http://readable- app.appspot.com/setup.html?better_web_readab...](http://readable- app.appspot.com/setup.html?better_web_readability)

</comment><comment><USER30> There's a Firefox addon as well. <https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/46442>

</comment><comment><USER31> I just use Opera's built-in accessibility mode.

</comment><comment><USER32> Ah, the war against advertising-based business models rages on.

</comment><comment><USER33> Maybe not everyone is aware so I want to point out these issues:

1\. Don't use it if the page is over SSL (it'll include external JS over HTTP which means that you are vulnerable to MITM)

2\. Don't use it if the website carries "sessionid"s over URL

3\. Keep in mind that arc90's JS can actually read the cookies (I'm not saying they are but they can). That means if someone hack into their systems they can access to cookies in used websites. (think XSS). Obviously by using it you trust instapaper guys with your account in the active website.

Developers of Readability should point out these security issues clearly in their website.

<comment><USER23> With Readability Redux (extension for Chrome) JS is stored locally, so it probably addresses those issues.

<comment><USER33> Sounds nice, I'll look into that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Nice!</comment>