NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs - <AUTHOR> http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/npr-intern-gets-an-earful-after-blogging-about-11000-songs-almost-none-paid-for/

<comment><USER2> Oh, boy, these threads are going to be a whole _bucket_ of fun. 200-odd commenters competing to see who can most stridently express opposition to the copyright/royalty/license business model of mainstream music, and 5 of us getting yelled at for suggesting that maybe private businesses should be able to pick their own business models, even if they're completely idiotic, and that everyone has the right to simply not buy music provided under business models they find objectionable.

But I'm sure the whole thing will wrap up nicely with Hacker News solving the problem of digital music sales once and for all.

(I didn't flag; the articles themselves are interesting, even if I _utterly despair_ for the quality of debate they'll inspire here.)

<comment><USER3> Oh yes, I should be able to pick my own business model! What fun. I know: I'll just pay old investors with new investors' money. That may be completely idiotic, but it works. After all, nobody _has_ to invest in my venture! There's always some risk in any investment, so it's only fair.

Now, I'm definitely being too glib. But I think you are as well: it's a complicated issue, and simplifying it down to your view while being almost unbearably condescending helps nobody.

<comment><USER2> The problem with your message isn't that it's glib; it's that it isn't logical. "Just pay old investors with new investors" isn't a business model (it is, obviously, the definition of a Ponzi Scheme). "Pay a licensing fee for XXX" is.

<comment><USER3> It might be illegal, dishonest and relatively unsustainable, but it is a way to make money. And existing business models (even legal ones) can still be dishonest and unsustainable. It is actually a very similar model to a lottery, except there's more lying involved to get more people to put in more money. So it's just an illegal and unethical business model.

Also, the argument isn't that businesses shouldn't be able to use that model, it's that the government shouldn't be helping with draconian laws.

<comment><USER2> So anything that makes money is a "business model", morally and/or economically equivalent to any other business model? That can't possibly be what you meant to imply.

<comment><USER3> I never implied that it's morally or even economically equivalent to any other business model--nothing says that all business models have to be morally or economically equivalent. But it is a business model very much like an illegal and dishonest lottery (e.g. people put money in with the hope of getting more out).

And yet, despite the fact that it is _a_ business model, society does not condone it. The fundamental point, of which this is a very extreme example, is that there is no inherent right to a business model.

<comment><USER2> Look, again, this is simple:

I said something to the effect of "I have a problem with the mentality that dictates other people's business models to them when we disapprove of the one they're currently using".

You responded with a glib comment to the effect of "You're suggesting we have to respect everyone's business models and make sure they work, so everyone should just run a Ponzi Scheme".

It does not take a cutting intellect to see the problem with your logic. Essentially what you're engaging in is the time-honored message- board- forensics tactic of "redefining words to fit your argument". If it makes you feel better to do that, so be it, but the only people you're going to persuade with that tactic are people who don't care _what_ you say as long as it somehow supports file sharing. I wouldn't want to waste my time writing those kinds of comments, but I can't tell you how to spend your time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Put morality aside for a second.

The market has clearly dictated they will not support the business practices of the major record labels, and have instead resorted to alternate ways of obtaining their music. The record labels must adapt, or they will fall[1]. Econ 101. You can debate morality until the cows come home, but that's not going to change these simple facts.

[1]Ignoring possible government interference

<comment><USER2> It's not "the market" when the new channel is based on ignoring contacts and copyrights, any more than it's "the market" that would be acting if I went to my local library, scanned all the books, and then resold them at "Bookio.com".

<comment><USER4> I'm no economist, but AFAIK market forces are defined by the way people buy/sell goods.

Your analogy fails to draw a parallel since you have only one side, the seller. Also, you're talking about reselling here, where the main debate is the sharing of music.

However I fail to realize where you deny this is "the market". Consumers are making their demands known by pursuing alternative ways of obtaining a good. Seems pretty market-y to me, regardless of the means.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure how this responds to my comment, since reselling books I scan from the library seems perfectly analogous to the market you propose.

<comment><USER4> There is a clear disconnect to both of our interpretations of each other's comments. Please see my response to the other comment in this thread.

<comment><USER2> I'll read and respond to that comment, but I'd like to reiterate that the comment you made immediately above the one I'm responding to is nonresponsive. The analogy I've provided, of pirating and reselling books from the library, is in fact perfectly analogous to the issue we're discussing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For a much better post than the skimpy NYT rehash see :

[http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to- emi...](http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white- at-npr-all-songs-considered/)

<comment><USER2> David Lowery (the former lead singer of Cracker [of "Low" fame from the early '90s] and Camper Van Beethoven [of "Take The Skinheads Bowling" fame from the '80s), the guy who wrote the page at the link you posted, took up this issue a few months ago to great effect, complete with numbers, and we kind of discussed it then a little:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3850935>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two initial reactions: 1) with the current state of iTunes and Amazon downloads, it seems easier, safer, more legal, and more supportive to buy songs, instead of relying on P2P. You can't claim to be a music lover with 15 GB of free music, IMHO - you're only a collector without commitment.

2) She claims that the music wasn't illegally downloaded, implying to me that she trades legally purchased copies with friends. Since she's only purchase 15 albums worth, I'd claim she's a leach to her friends, as that seems really uneven an exchange.

I dunno. I'm older now, and selectively downloaded free music when I was younger and poorer. I never wanted to collect hundreds of albums I would never get around to listening to, so even in the Napster heyday, my collection didn't explode like others. Now I buy my music, but I don't know if that's because iTunes removed the ethical dilemma for me, or because I have more cash and maturity.

Though these days, I seem to only listen to podcasts.

</comment><comment><USER7> Let's say that a musician goes $50k in debt making an album. They are now given a choice: would you rather be listened to by 50 million people and get no immediate money, or by 10k people and be quickly made whole?

Which do you suppose they'd choose?

The fact is that celebrity, attention, and "coolness" are more than enough reward for most aspiring musicians.

Anyone who gets famous by giving their art away has been _more than fairly rewarded_ for their work. Evidence for this comes from the 10k+ ultra-capable undiscovered who would happily _pay_ to take this artist's place.

[Edit: I write this as someone who has earned good money through music, and thus I'm not sure what is being objected to, here. It is plainly true that fame brings instantaneous massive rewards and significant potential to earn more, later. It is also plainly true that even in the current "bad" economic environment for music, millions of people spend 10s of millions of hours each week writing, rehearsing, and performing. Clearly, the motivations are not primarily monetary.]

<comment><USER2> Unless the band you create is called Sparklehorse, and you're considered an indie-musician's indie-musician, and you collaborate with PJ Harvey and Tom Waits and Danger Mouse and James Mercer, and tour with Radiohead, and end up destitute living out of your old recording studio too in hock to hospitals to pay for mental health care and then shoot yourself in the chest.

On the plus side: now you're _extra_ famous.

<comment><USER7> Isn't this more an indictment of the U.S. social safety net than it is of the economics of music performance?

And, am I to conclude from your statement that, in fact, all artists who are as good as Sparklehorse are entitled to sufficiently remunerative compensation, in addition to their fame and prestige?

<comment><USER2> A. Yes

B. No

I'm just responding to the "fame can be its own reward" sentiment I detected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just curious, how does she have 15gb of "legally downloaded" music that she didn't pay for?

<comment><USER9> I assume she means that she didn't download it, but copied from a friend or similar. And, the law is a bit inconsistent on whether that's legal, since it depends strangely enough on what technology you use to do the copying, which may be leading to some confusion.

Copying music on analog media for personal use from a friend is fair use, under the Audio Home Recording Act; in return, the music industry gets a kickback from every blank tape sold to compensate them. However, the AHRA does not apply (in either the fair-use or kickback portions) to copying music from a friend for personal use onto your iPod. It's not clear very many people who aren't specialists understand that home-taping is legal but home-iPodding isn't...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Once again, killing (or at least assaulting) the messenger.

<comment><USER11> I don't actually see it that way. Admittedly, there is always some gray area when it comes to Intellectual Property, but, in this case, the intern's behavior was just disgraceful. Stealing is stealing. Ever since reasonably priced alternatives (iTunes and Amazon) of non-drm content in flexible packaging (per song purchasing) became available - music listeners have no excuse for stealing music.

I.E. This might have been excusable behavior in 1997-2009, but starting January 6, 2009 (The day Apple removed DRM from iTunes), the rationale for stealing music effectively disappeared.

Now, Game of Thrones torrentors on the other hand....

<comment><USER12> Here's my issues with this line of thought. For one, why is 99c considered "reasonable" for a song? I feel as though this price point has little to do with the economics of the song-making business and a lot to do with the economics of iTunes/etc. Secondly, what is "convenient"? Why is iTunes downloading convenient, but watching GoT on HBO's online service not? I'm not saying they are equal, I think iTunes is easier, but why does the line fall in between them? Basically, the writer in question thinks the line still falls on the other side of iTunes, so why does that make their behavior disgraceful?

<comment><USER2> Why do you get to demand a third choice, besides "Pay 99 Cents" and "Don't Get The Song"?

A small bag of M&Ms costs, I don't know, 79 cents? Why is 79 cents considered reasonable for 29 peanut M&Ms? If I object to that price, and instead pony up the marginal cost of those M&Ms and their packaging (more like 13 cents), am I being reasonable or unreasonable?

<comment><USER13> First, to answer the broader question: we get to "demand" another choice simply by expressing an opinion about the structure of the market, the lack of sensible choices, and the existence of bugs in the legal system that need fixing. At least in this case, I don't think anyone in this discussion harbors any delusions that downloading a song qualifies as legal, but most of the people in this discussion can make a sensible distinction between _right_ and _legal_ ; anyone wanting to change the legal system has to have the ability to discuss bugs in that system.

That discussion remains distinct from the question of whether any individual person would choose to (openly or secretly) flaunt the existing legal system and take the associated risks; I don't personally want to take those risks, but that doesn't mean I see those choices as _wrong_ , just _currently illegal_.

To answer the more specific question: since you've already seen all of these arguments play out enough times to become jaded by them, you already know the entire line of arguments differentiating physical property with scarcity from infinitely copyable digital files. In short, taking a bag of M&Ms means the owner of them no longer has it, whereas copying (not taking) a file leaves the original in place.

<comment><USER2> Did you read my comment, or did your nerd brain instantly detect "comparison between $PHYSICAL_PRODUCT and $ENTITY_EXPRESSIBLE_AS_A_NUMBER" and cause you to blurt out this comment? Because I addressed the point you thought you were making against my comment.

I mean this playfully. If we were discussing DOM corruption or block cipher modes I would probably have a hard time carefully reading comments that disagreed with my worldview too.

<comment><USER13> I did read and fully understand your comment, and no, I don't think you've addressed the point in my comment. However, I do agree you've suggested a subtler issue than the one usually discussed in this context, and since my comment used terms like "scarcity" and "infinitely copyable", I may have come across as endorsing a much more simplistic argument than I intended to make.

You described the idea of taking a physical item and paying only the manufacturing cost of that item, and I'd assume you intended that to define copying a file as taking it and "paying" the copying cost of 0.

However, those two actions still have a fundamental difference, and not one of price. Assuming a price (zero or otherwise) also assumes a particular entity owed that price; the analogy you made assumes a price inherently owed to the original author of some piece of data, and that copying the file amounted to refusing that price and choosing to pay 0 instead. When I disagreed with that analogy, I didn't intend to imply that the zero cost of copying data provides a justification; rather, I disagreed with the implicit assumption of inherently owing any particular price to the author (zero or otherwise).

To elaborate on that distinction: if I want to copy a chair, I can look at it, perform measurements of it, perhaps perform some materials analysis, and given sufficient skill I can make a copy of it, all without affecting the original. I argue that I have the inherent right to perform that process. That process will almost certainly entail some cost to me: for instance, I'll have to purchase materials to build the copy. However, I don't inherently owe any price to the original designer or builder of the chair, beyond what I might have originally paid them to obtain the original chair. I'd consider the copying of a chair in this manner exactly analogous to the copying of a digital file in all relevant respects. As it turns out, copying digital files requires no particular measurements, materials analysis, or skill, and costs effectively nothing; however, that particular detail doesn't matter for the question we've both asked, namely "does the copier inherently owe anything to the author". And if we build a system to automatically analyze the chair and print a new one on a 3D printer, and can thus copy a chair at minimal expense, that doesn't affect the key question either.

Bringing that back in the direction of copyright, the same thing applies to the copying of a physical book: that process typically involves a non-zero cost, in some combination of time, wear on equipment (copier, scanner, etc), and possibly materials (if copying onto paper), but the conclusion remains the same.

And to go in a different direction: if I hear a song, and later sing it myself, I've copied it (lossily) with my brain and vocal cords, at zero cost to me and zero inherent price owed to the singer or author of the song. We've had infinitely copyable goods long before we had computers.

If you take a bag of M&Ms and pay less than the cost, the proprietor of those M&Ms no longer has them, and cannot then choose to do with them as they see fit; I'll assume from your use of that analogy that you already agree that such an action violates basic expectations of property rights, and that the proprietor of the M&Ms can choose to demand any particular price or none at all. I agree with you completely there: you don't have the inherent right to steal a bag of M&Ms because you find the price not to your liking. However, I hope I've made it sufficiently clear why I don't find that situation analogous to copying a file, or to copying a chair, or a book, or a collection of sound waves.

However, your analogy does actually suggest a rather clear approach to handling trade secrets, or (as brought up by another reply to my comment) private information. If someone chooses not to distribute certain information at all, then taking it from them against their will does not seem reasonable to me. For instance, if someone breaks into my personal system, copies my passwords or encryption keys, and distributes them to the world, I don't consider that reasonable, despite the copying occurring at zero cost; _that_ situation seems quite analogous to the one you described.

That seems like an entirely different situation from the one more commonly addressed by copyright, namely the original author choosing to distribute information and then attempting to control the subsequent distribution of that information by others. I'd argue that the author has every right to choose what to do with the information they have, including not distributing it at all; however, if they choose to distribute that information to others, I'd also argue that those others have every right to choose what to do with the information _they_ have, including distributing it further.

Hopefully I've managed to make it clear that my comment came from a position of careful thought, not from a pattern-matched knee-jerk reaction. :)

<comment><USER2> It really seems like you just listed out a bunch of things that are different about a bag of M&Ms and a piece of music without addressing the economic question. I think I understand that an M&M is different from an A minor chord voicing.

About the closest you came to the point I raised was to point out that even if you "square up" with the M&M vendor by paying his cost basis, you've still deprived that vendor of the right to sell their music --- oops, I mean M&Ms --- at the price they determined.

In other words, the closest you came to my point was by agreeing with me.

<comment><USER13> You seem to have completely ignored any parts of my comment that didn't directly agree with you, and then attempted to reimpose the analogy that I spent the entire comment systematically rejecting. Specifically, I made the point that the rationale for copying data has nothing to do with its zero cost to copy, and even with a non-zero copying cost the rationale still applies. That rationale depends on the differences between a bag of M&Ms and a piece of music (or other data), which you dismissed as not "addressing the economic question"; you said that you "understand that an M&M is different from an A minor chord voicing", but then you reimposed an analogy that assumes you can treat them identically. I addressed the economic question quite plainly: a copier does not inherently owe anything to the author of the copied data. Anyone currently in possession of a piece of data can let anyone else copy it (on whatever terms they see fit), and the author has no inherent right to get involved in that transaction. They currently have an _artificial_ right to get involved in that transaction, hence this discussion.

To further abuse analogies for a moment (note that I used "candy" rather than "M&Ms" to avoid confusing the copying analogy with trademark issues): if I open up a stand across the street from the candy vendor and start giving away free bags of candy, I haven't "deprived the vendor of the right to sell their candy at the price they determined". They have no such right; they have the right to _try_ to sell it. (They might even successfully sell a few bags to people who don't want to cross the street.) Fundamentally, I've done nothing wrong and I owe the candy vendor nothing. I certainly don't owe them the cost basis of a bag of candy, and implying otherwise would make no sense. Even if I created those bags of candy by purchasing a bag from the vendor and analyzing it so I could precisely duplicate it, I still owe the vendor nothing beyond the original price I paid for that one bag of candy. Do you see anything particularly wrong with that analogy? (If you'd like to complain that I've suggested giving away something that costs a non-zero amount to produce, consider that people routinely provide free downloads even though they pay for bandwidth.)

<comment><USER2> Exactly what is the difference between depriving the owner of the bag of M&Ms of the opportunity to make more money than they paid to obtain the M&Ms, and depriving the owner of a song copyright from the opportunity to make more money (really, any money) from their investment in that song?

Your answer seems to be that the latter opportunity is "artificial", but here "artificial" seems to be a synonym for "pertaining to copyright". If that's the best you can do, I stand pat on my M&M analogy.

<comment><USER13> You seem to have responded to the first paragraph of my comment; the second paragraph answers your question.

I've argued that an inherent difference exists between copying something and taking the original. Your analogy discusses taking the original, and I've already agreed that taking the original does not seem acceptable; applying that analogy to information produces a useful approach to handling trade secrets and personal/private information.

However, you've provided no reason or rationale to treat copying something the same as taking the original. Your analogy does not cover that case, and your subsequent comments have not addressed it either.

Person A has a piece of data. Person A lets person B copy that data. What gives person C any particular right to complain?

Person A has a chair. Person A lets person B construct a copy of that chair. What gives person C any particular right to complain?

I view this as simple rent-seeking.

(The rest of this comment just responds to your specific complaint about "artificial", which seems like a side-track. The point above represents the fundamental point of my series of comments.)

> Your answer seems to be that the latter opportunity is "artificial", but > here "artificial" seems to be a synonym for "pertaining to copyright". If > that's the best you can do, I stand pat on my M&M analogy.

I've made the assumption here that you don't mind having a discussion about rights that does not assume the current state of law as having any particularly inherent claim to optimality. I don't want to privilege the hypothesis; I want to determine the optimal approach. Assuming the current state of law puts the burden of proof on anyone arguing to change it. Starting from nothing and arguing about what laws _should_ exist puts the burden of proof on anyone wishing to construct a right where none inherently exists. Hence my use of the word "artificial": I don't intend it as a synonym for "pertaining to copyright"; I intended it as a label for a "right" that would have no particular reason to exist without the explicit construction of laws to enforce it.

I've also made the assumption here, based on your original analogy, that you already agree with the notion of property rights over physical property; I agree with that as well, so I've simply taken that as a given without exploring that issue further. I hope you agree that we don't need to explore that. You can either think of such rights as inherent, or think of them as artificial and assume that we agree on sufficient justification for them to exist. Either way works for the purposes of this discussion. I've stated this assumption explicitly to stave off any complaint you might have in response to my previous paragraph that "property rights are artificial too by that definition".

You also seem to believe that property rights extend to information, which I don't agree with, so _that_ point I've explored quite extensively. I don't consider those rights inherent; I consider them artificial, and I don't believe they have sufficient justification to exist.

I refuse to assume the burden of proof here. You argue for copyright law, so you cannot assume copyright law when making your argument. Please actually argue for it. :)

<comment><USER2> You're fixating on the same point over and over again, probably because it is the point that _every nerd ever_ fixates on when this discussion comes up. "The copy leaves the original owner no worse off".

If you actually think through the scenario I presented, you'll see it's more equivalent to copying than you're crediting. The M&M "cheat" is recouping the M&M owner for their cost of goods sold. The M&M owner is _no worse off_ , because the owner can simply buy another bag of M&Ms and wait for the next "sucker" to come along and pay retail.

This is obviously an absurdity. The person who takes a bag of M&Ms, coughs up the wholesale price, and walks out with the product is obviously guilty of a crime: shoplifting. Everyone agrees with this. But the economic impact to the shopkeeper is the same.

Why do you accept one and not the other?

Please don't write another 20 paragraphs about "rent seeking" and "copying" and plans for chairs. By your own definition, the shopkeeper is "rent seeking" when he charges more than his cost basis for the M&Ms.

You put a lot of effort into writing, obviously. Put a little more effort into thinking. When someone is caught shoplifting, do we have them pay the wholesale price of the item they stole as damages to make the retailer whole? Of course not. If we did that, there would be no disincentive whatsoever to steal; if you win, you get the item free, if you lose, you get a discount. But you're applying that same logic to unlawful downloads. And, lo and behold, there is apparently no incentive whatsoever for anyone to compensate artists.

<comment><USER13> You're fixating on the same point over and over again, probably because it is the same point that _every "intellectual property" advocate ever_ fixates on when this discussion comes up: "the original author has an inherent right to demand payment for future copies, and copying deprives them of those payments".

I haven't attempted to argue whether the original author (note my not accepting the term "owner") will be worse off from the copying. I haven't fixated on that point at all; it never once entered into my reasoning. The original author is a third party to the transaction of copying; they have _no standing to object_. Party A has data; party A lets party B copy that data. Neither party is the original author, so the original author has no standing in the transaction.

Please do not assume that people who disagree with you must not have put enough thought into it. I have put a great deal of thought into my position on copyright, and I came to a different conclusion than you did. Your analogy provides no new information to lead to any different conclusion. I do not appreciate you dismissively lumping my arguments in with "every nerd ever" and assuming I have not put my own thought into the issue.

> By your own definition, the shopkeeper is "rent seeking" when he charges > more than his cost basis for the M&Ms.

No, my own definition had absolutely nothing to do with the cost basis for M&Ms or any other physical product. Please don't attack a strawman. I defined rent-seeking the same way economists do, namely attempting to extract economic rent from a third-party transaction:

'Rent, by contrast with these two, is obtained when a third party deprives one party of access to otherwise accessible transaction opportunities, making nominally "consensual" transactions a rent-collection opportunity for the third party.' -- <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking>

That seems to describe copyright quite accurately, doesn't it?

We both obviously agree on about property rights over physical property. Thus, we both obviously agree that the owner of a bag of M&Ms has the right to charge whatever price they see fit, and nobody has the right to take that bag of M&Ms on terms the owner does not approve of. You keep bringing up your analogy, bringing up the obvious absurdity it implies about property, and then trying to jump from there to a conclusion about copying. We fundamentally disagree over whether an author has the right to control the copying of data. To accept your analogy as having any meaning in the context of copying data, I would have to accept the concept of copyright as a property right the author has over the copying of their data. Circular reasoning at its finest, disguised by way of an appealing-sounding analogy.

> Why do you accept one and not the other?

Why do you assume one implies the other? I have no particular reason to think of data as property, so I don't. Why should I believe otherwise?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _"...what she really wants is simply to pay to subscribe to "one massive Spotify-like catalog of music that will sync to my phone and various home entertainment devices..."_

Isn't that what Rhapsody is?

<comment><USER15> Pretty much. And isn't that what Spotify is? or is it implied that Spotify doesn't have a library as big as she wants?

Lately, I have been listening to Slacker Radio with a Premium account ($10/month), and it is very much like Spotify and/or Rhapsody, and I have been pretty impressed with how big the library of music is that can be played on- demand.

<comment><USER16> Don't get musicians started on spotify, it's terrible for artists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> All the same, as consumers we are being punished for either (1) desiring and getting music in the means most convenient and historically accessible to us or (2) desire and getting technology in the means most convenient and historically accessible to us.

The historical, political, and mercantile lines draw behind the scenes is a theatre we are not privvy to. Pulling the card "you're actually supporting the big wigs of tech and the cost of the big wigs of music" all to make the point that the big wigs of music could enable artisans assumes that artisans themselves trust and believe in the music industry.

The point I want to make here is that all of this is heavily historical. We're to simply overlook our desires, aforementioned, because of historical and political threads which largely interplay outside of our control? I mean to suggest that, in a sense, reprimanding anyone for jumping onto these historical presentations of music and technology seems like reprimanding one for not staying inside because it _might_ rain, or because aliens might attack. Whether they do or not is a fact of the matter, but should we await for Apple, RIAA, etc. to play their course while they continue to tantalize and bombard us with all sorts of "technology"?

One obvious point is that _that is difficult_. The growing philosophical trend of the counter-culture is this: Hey! Musicians were still making a living out of their music _before_ technology put any of us into this mess!

<comment><USER18> Spoken like a true intellectual. Historically people have stolen photographs and graphics to use on their web pages. Is that cool? Image if someone just ripped off one of your client's advertising slogans and used the same design to sell their products. All's fair when digital right?

This "historical" argument is the same argument that people use to explain all manner of social ills. It's a cop out. It was wrong historically to steal and it's wrong now. People have a personal responsibility, it isn't societies fault that this girl is a thief.

<comment><USER17> I'm suggesting the new departure, a new form of problem is this: casually, it is her fault, but this is irrelevant to responsibility. Responsibility involves a conscious acknowledgement of the world around you, and one is at fault, personally, for a lack of consciousness of that world. However, what is the problematic is the presentation of (1) and (2). Independently, they are harmless. We should consume as much music and as much technology as we can, but whether their political, historical and mercantile threads interweave, we are face with a problematic.

I take a majority of this way of thinking from Alain Badiou: the truth procedures of music and the truth procedures of science. What is most interesting to me is that a truth procedure of polity is _seemingly_ determined by the historical presentation of file sharing software and music. I should hope that my arguments do not justify theft, though I may be led astray by my own constructions of thought. But what I am most concerned here is with White's role played as a militant, within the political theatre of piracy; by Badiou, she would be considered a "militant of truth" I believe. One who compels who to witness a "rupture" of the system which _presents_ such a militant. Her superior's condemnation, to me, presents something that might be expected: that we should be compelled by a _person_ to deal with these abstractions which have happened upon our political drama.

People do have a personal responsibility, but at the same time, "personal responsibility" is a function of an social structure. I do not mean to address any "casual" but rather "semantic" description of this "responsibility." What connections (political, historical, etc.) immediately can be drawn from our _decision_ (rather than hypothesis or principle) that White is "wrong"? One conclusion is "education"; but one problem is that a society may very well believe that stealing is "right," like ours. How _might_ one present a counter-indoctrination? From their perspective, this may be how it is presented. We have had decades to mature the ideologies, I believe we are now at a time where we must accept that fact. Some of these ideologies are inherently confrontational. Calling it theft does not entail that any particular action should follow, so it seems that in the absence of one, we might inevitably decide, produce such a _decision_, what those actions should be. I should hope that I am prompting such a discussion.

It _is_ theft. But it is theft born out of a period that allowed dogmatisim to mature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have one question for everyone: who cares?

<comment><USER16> The girl herself cares and is naively lamenting about it while not realising her lack of perspective is part of the problem. It's the whole point of the article you dum-dum.

Read before you comment.</comment></comment>


Job offer at amazon canada - <AUTHOR> Hi there,
I've just git an offer to vancouver, canada. it is 125k CAD base + 17k CAD signing bonus 1 yr, plus 15k CAD second year + 118 stocks + relocation. This is for LVL5 (SDE 2). How good is the offer? Is it affordable to live in Vancouver with two children for that money (renting)?
I am from Europe, planning to relocate later to the us. Thanks <comment><USER2> My opinions (living here):

That salary, after tax, will be roughly $90k/year, and the bonuses will be $8k, $7k, after taxes (assuming top-rate on these bonuses).

Rent for a 2-bed (decent, central, downtown) apartment will run you at around $2500 to $3500 / mo (30-40k/yr). Living costs otherwise are reasonable relative to your income. You probably don't need to get a vehicle straight- away, and there are some car sharing services out there (to visit far places, like Whistler, etc.).

Negotiate extended employee benefits (health / dental) paid 100% by the company (excluding long-term disability) AND negotiate the payment of Medical Services Plan (gov't fee - appx. $150 / mo for family) - which I think you have to pay if you're a resident.

So on the surface, yes... I think you'd be "comfortable", but you're not going to feel rich.

Curious what other HN's think...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much! I think 100% health/dental is included, will check. Will negotiate payment of Medical Services Plan.

How about renting 3-bed Apt/House in suburbs 40-50 minutes to commute? As far as I understand it is Richmond or Burnaby.

<comment><USER2> Commuting can be tough - depending on where Amazon is... if it's downtown, close to the skytrain / Canada Line, then you'll want to live in close to one of those lines. Trains are much easier (faster) to get in vs. driving. They use the same pass system like in London (tap in/out). Driving downtown from Richmond, even Burnaby for that matter is a lot of driving. Parking downtown can be $8-15/day.

In terms of house - not sure. But Burnaby is the kind of place where you could probably still rent a house with a backyard (good for kids). Craigslist is a good start for finding houses for rent, too, otherwise ask potential co- workers for some advice on finding a place. It's quite competitive in the rental market, so give yourself a month or two to find a place. Ask your employer to bridge you a month or two with a furnished rental suite. That's what I did when I first moved to Vancouver...then you aren't worried about making a commitment before living here.

Best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In burnaby $1500 will get you a 2 bedroom. For $2500 you can rent the main floor of a house.

[http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/search/apa?bedrooms=3](http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/search/apa?bedrooms=3)

$125k is a great salary for Vancouver. It probably puts you in the 95% percentile provincially. Developer salaries seem to be comparable to most other white collar jobs however, so you may take a big hit if you ever leave Amazon.

[http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum- som/l01/cst01/f...](http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum- som/l01/cst01/famil105k-eng.htm)</comment>


Uber is dependent on fulltime drivers but can't afford to pay them like employee - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-lyft-ab5-fight-reveals-dependence-full-time-drivers-2020-8 <comment><USER2> So, Uber's business model only works by exploiting the workers by denying them the benefits that an actual employee would have?

Sounds like all the courts deciding that Uber's drivers should be classified as employees got it right then.

</comment><comment><USER3> pass the tax & expenses to customer

they'll become taxi company (without obtaining medallion)

<comment><USER4> Why do you say they'll become a taxi company? Maybe, I'm not sure what the distinction is.

Frankly, they could afford to raise their prices. They, through their apps, offer an improved experience compared to traditional taxis. It doesn't need to be cheaper than them as well. I'd pay more happily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is simple. They should close. This business model does not work. This is capitalism.</comment>


Location via SMS App - has anyone tried this? - <AUTHOR> http://whereareyou-app.com/ Does this actually work? Sounds very suspicious. I can't test, I don't have an iPhone. <comment><USER2> I haven't tried this out, but I do know it is possible to roughly locate a user via SMS. A lot of government agencies already do this using SMS messaging, basically you can send a silent SMS to a user so they don't even need to 'receive' a message. I assume it works the same way, but not silent(?).

From Wikipedia:

Silent messages, often called "silent sms," "stealth sms," or "stealthy pings," are employed to locate a person or to create a complete movement profile. They do not show up on a display, nor trigger an acoustical signal when received. The mobile provider, often at the behest of the police, will capture data such as subscriber identification IMSI. In Germany in 2010 nearly half a million "silent SMSs" were sent by the federal police, customs, and the secret service Office for Protection of the Constitution.[60]

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm, i don't think it works like this, ... ? Must be some other technology... I don't have an iPhone to try, but anyways. I'll figure it out... thanks for the interesting info.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> available for Android as well??

<comment><USER4> yes, what about the android version?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> not bad....</comment>


Hacking the Hiring Process - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twilio.com/2009/09/hacking-the-hiring-process-part-1.html <comment><USER2> Using some test like this to rate applicants probably only points out a weakness in communication skills, but is better than just slamming through random resumes. A well-written cover letter should easily answer the first two (and listed as most important to twilio in the article as the folks building the team) points listed.

I think it is also entirely NOT scalable. What if you get 1000 submissions? In my area of the world (Research Triangle Park in NC) there is a company that famously gets hundreds to a thousand of resume and cover letter submissions per SW dev opening, especially when the job market is tight. One healthcare software startup I knew about was getting so many resumes for open positions that they developed a policy of trashing resumes received after 9AM on any given day. Just to keep the piles manageable. How can that be effective?

But maybe a bulk of the applicants to the positions mentioned in the article clearly just shot a resume at a job listing with no further effort demonstrated? Can we get some numbers on how many applicants just sent a resume versus attempting some of the "extra" work you asked for?

I've thought for some time that the best thing an applicant to a job could do would be to provide a portfolio of code (or website or demo) that clearly shows finished projects and results they have achieved previously. But that could be a pretty intense process on the employer side - how do you review even 50 of these portfolios in a meaningful way if each one is even small code samples (say 2K lines of code)? Then the employer and candidate could sit down and talk through the design choices and schedule trade-offs made on that code.

Plus, using previously written code completely punts on the idea that you might prefer a really smart hacker who is inexperienced in some technology instead of poor developer who has spent a career in that technology churning out mediocre work. My guess is that the hackers who would care enough to actually have a code portfolio out there for employers to see are probably a cut above the average software dev type anyway.

Maybe this is my startup - given many portfolios of hacker's work, how do we make it effectively searchable by employers who need to find good matches? There has to be a good web app out there for this - recruiters get big percentages on candidate placements, so there is clearly some potential market. I don't have any data to back up this supposition, but don't we think that recruiter candidate placements can be pretty closely approximated with some data mining given a portfolio of work and simple heuristics?

An additional problem is that many hires are made via personal networks - it's just easier to say, oh yeah, that person worked with our friends who were really happy with his/her work on that project, we should think about bringing him/her in.

The problem of hiring and finding great candidates has been bubbling in my head. But I haven't had any blinding flashes of inspiration for really great solutions - any thoughts out there?

<comment><USER3> Please keep me informed, if you hit on anything. I like your way of thinking through it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Can they write a little code? Do they have enough experience to be able to deploy code somewhere? (An[sic] fairly good test we've found of whether or not somebody is a "hacker". Hackers have playgrounds.)"

I guess you could assume a negative correlation there (no playground == not a 'hacker'), but I doubt there's an equally strong positive correlation. I know plenty of people with a VPS or in-home sandbox server whom I wouldn't put in the 'hacker' category (myself included).

</comment><comment><USER5> (more details follow)

You should not hire people that do any of the things you ask. They are giving their valuable services away for free - since your company exists to make money, your employees giving their time so freely is likely to affect your profitability.

People thinking about applying - Reconsider. The company is too cheap to pay for good work - they extract what they need from interviews. Its likely that you'll never discuss pay with them since you're not going to get hired once they have their answers.

(the details)

Getting work done in an interview is a poor practice since the candidate does not know if the work relates to an actual problem or is fictional.

If an actual problem, you are asking for the candidate's time and could end up using the candidate's approach - this puts you into a conflict of interest: you have a candidate that just gave you what you need and you are in a position to hire.

If the problem is fictional, why bother? How does it help?

Besides, candidates are smart too: it's likely they hacking the interview process too. Not sure where that leaves anyone, but good luck with that.

[want a solution? hire me ;) ]

<comment><USER3> Possible solution: Pay the candidates for the time they spent working on your problems in the interview.

Though I doubt this is a problem in interviews. But asking for a solution even before the interview will skew your distribution of appliciants, like you point out.

Not sure if this is a bad thing --- you want to hire people for whom solving your problems is easy.

<comment><USER5> It is a problem for freelancers - people always ask for free solutions to real problems and various ways. Candidate employees are in the same situation, but during the worst possible time - the interview.

As you said, you want to hire people for whom solving your problems is easy. Keep in mind that your problems are not unique and probably already have a solution, so you really need someone that.....woops...almost gave it away ;)

<comment><USER3> Yes. Though drafting a cover letter and tweaking your resume also takes some time (not to mention the research).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good ideas! I have been doing a bit of hiring lately, and wish I had read this before I started. Sounds like a really scalable way of doing a first selection.

<comment><USER7> It is completely scalable. I did it. The second round was an estimate for a more significant 'paid' task that advanced the company's goals (i.e. real work). The third round was completion and delivery of the task (which paid just enough to keep qualified candidates interested). My time was more valuable than the cost of having the few interested candidates that got that far do the various useful bits of work.

At the end I did a few long long interviews and really got to know who I was going to be working with and they me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Web Technologies Engineer: [http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=743818&f...](http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=743818&fromSearch=0&sik=1252997713223)

Twilio Core Engineer: [http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=743817&f...](http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=743817&fromSearch=1&sik=1252997713223)

</comment><comment><USER9> Pretty soon we'll be seeing headlines like "Hacking riding a bicycle"..

<comment><USER10> This is actually a fairly clever and atypical approach to hiring. I agree that the meaning of "hacking" is often stretched, and maybe this is one of those cases, but it's hardly the worst.

(However, like the Microsoft/Google brainteaser interviews, I could see these little extraneous tasks getting pretty annoying if they became widespread.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "You're a web developer? Write a few lines of PHP code." Lovely PHP people! Please go love yourself!</comment>


Is app UI testing broken? - <AUTHOR> I found that app UI test is usually really hard to set up. What do you think?
I'm currently working in an app company, where we spend most of the time creating new features. It becomes increasingly often that engineers break previous features, sometimes important ones.
Testings are almost always done manually here, as it's often considered impractical to write all the test cases given the time constraint.
To make manual testing harder to replace, usually new features introduce drastic changes on UI or interaction. Those changes really make it hard to implement UI auto test in any comprehensive way.
Is there a very easy way to set up automatic UI test for iOS/Android apps? Ideally I'm thinking about just showing it once and have an automation system repeat my actions.
Thanks <comment><USER2> I thought UI testing would be hard for iOS, but in practice it was only the new "style" of interacting with the app that was an obstacle.

Xcode literally allows you to record your taps, however the code will be impossible to maintain. It is better to pause the application with breakpoints, inspect the app through "po app" and see what it allows you to click. Then just add the code to click whatever you want. Then continue.

There's a lot of "aha" moments but as each one gets ironed out you'll become faster at it.

As an added bonus you will be more knowledgable about how your app perform in 'accessibility' mode.

I also consider the "breaking" of UI tests a feature. Because if you do some breaking change, you might have added some new bugs. In practice I haven't had the 'hell' period of many tests breaking though.

</comment><comment><USER3> android espresso is built for this i.e it fires up the simulator and simulates a robot playing on the app in order to test it.

[https://developer.android.com/training/testing/espresso/inde...](https://developer.android.com/training/testing/espresso/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> App UI testing is so rudimentary and difficult to use. We could use some real tooling

</comment><comment><USER5> I've found UI testing to be very brittle esp on Android but that probably also applies to other platforms, UI tests are hard work to maintain when the designs change in small ways - it's so easy to get false negatives. We try and mitigate that a little by trying to get as much of our code out of the view layer as possible so that nearly everything can be unit tested. What's left should (almost) not need testing - we still run some high level espresso tests, but it's not part of our CI at the moment, so not ideal</comment>


Blueberry concentrate improves brain function in older people - <AUTHOR> http://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/newsandevents/news/title_572581_en.html <comment><AUTHOR> It's a small study population and partially funded by a manufacturer; I hope more study follows.

<comment><USER2> From the article:

> _The study excluded anyone who said they consumed more than five portions of > fruit and vegetables per day, and all participants were told to stick to > their normal diet throughout._

So the effect is probably related to any vegetable, not something special about blueberries.

> _Before and after the 12-week period, participants took a range of cognitive > tests while an MRI scanner monitored their brain function and resting brain > blood flow was measured. Compared to the placebo group, those who took the > blueberry supplement showed significant increases in brain activity in brain > areas related to the tests._

The redaction is very suspicious. They don't claim that they improved in the test, they get some kind of indirect evidence that perhaps is not useful at all.

From the abstract of the article:

> _There was also evidence suggesting improvement in working memory (two back > test) after blueberry versus placebo supplementation (p=0.05)._

This smell as p hacking, i.e. they did a lot of test, most of them were not conclusive, but by chance one of the many variations they test had p=0.05.</comment></comment>


Email Ad Network LaunchBit Raises $960K, Plans Move To Las Vegas - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/06/launchbit-seed-round-las-vegas/

<comment><USER2> The Las Vegas Downtown startup thing looks really interesting. $960k in NV should go 2-3x as far as in Silicon Valley, as long as the founders want to go there. Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and founders having existing relationships with Silicon Valley help a lot, I think.

I don't think this would make sense for developer tools or anything where you needed very frequent in-person meetings with Bay Area companies, but for a consumer or small business product, potentially a good idea.

<comment><USER3> The money should go farther in Nevada but probably not 3x.

<comment><USER2> Housing is probably 1/3 or 1/4 the cost (or less), so I guess it depends on whether you can compromise heavily on housing while doing a startup vs. other things. Certainly iPads and Macbooks cost the same in both places. Income taxes maybe not so relevant.

1/2?

<comment><USER3> Income taxes can be relevant, Microsoft licensing isn't in Reno for nothing, Apple and every other large company tends to pass billions of dollars of revenue through Nevada due to the lack of corporate income tax. Nevada also still has no personal income tax. Home prices are definitely lower but it's only about 1/2 for most desirable areas not 1/4.

Equipment costs are going to be the same of course but access to other services (bandwidth comes to mind) will be much more limited and in many cases much more expensive. There also won't be a huge savings on corporate office space in places like downtown Las Vegas or even downtown Reno.

Companies starting in Nevada will get a bit of a benefit due to the looser requirements on employee benefits and companies can get away with offering crappier benefits due to a lack of job availability in the area. The flip side of that coin is that there isn't a ton of top notch talent in the area. The top notch talent is making a salary on par with SV or at most 10-15% less. Top talent is constantly leaving the area for SV rather than moving to the area. Most of the companies that I know are actively recruiting recruit out of Oregon and the midwest. Getting people to relocate from California to Nevada, especially the Bay Area to Las Vegas is going to be a real challenge. Vegas doesn't have a lot going on for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a need for legit email newsletter advertising? Yes. Is it ever going to happen with a CPC model on a large scale? No.

It seems like LaunchBit is trying to do two things: 1) Launch a new affiliate network and 2) Advertise spammy products via email (one of their default advertisers is a teeth whitening product).

It just doesn't seem like either of those things have a very bright future.

<comment><USER5> What affiliate network are you referring to?

As to point #2, Launchbit allows publishers to select which ads they want shown in their newsletter - something you can't really do with any other ad network. Don't think teeth-whitening products are a good fit for your audience? Don't run those ads.

<comment><USER4> _What affiliate network are you referring to?_

That's fair. I should have written ad network, not affiliate network.

 _Don't think teeth-whitening products are a good fit for your audience? Don't run those ads._

It's not that those ads wouldn't be appropriate for _my_ audience, but that they are _not appropriate in email marketing at all_. I'm pretty sure that any list that runs that ad will get marked as spam. Then, any other email that contains any links similar to that spam email will also get marked as spam. At a very small scale, one could probably get away with it for a little bit, but I don't think it will work on a large scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm inclined to give this a shot. My business targets non-tech-savvy SMBs and marketing to them in a scalable way is tricky. Since it's CPC there's no risk, I'll report back in a week with some data

<comment><USER7> There's tons of risk. Did you know a TON of email servers and spam blockers click all the links in emails and analyze what is linked as well? How do you know you won't be charged for those?

<comment><USER8> As one of the co-founders, I can tell you that click fraud and bots are certainly issues with many ad networks. This is something we think about a lot. We try to pre-empt this by writing algorithms to not count clicks of known-bots. But, people are always coming up with new bots, so it's impossible to apriori block every bot. So, we are constantly retro-actively checking clicks to make sure they are legit. For example, if a publisher yields more clicks on a given campaign than we predict, we'll retroactively take a look through a series of methodical checks and in many cases will do a series of manual checks. And if we find a bot or a ring of folks trying fishy things, we'll retro-actively rectify the situation, so the advertiser doesn't pay for those clicks.

<comment><USER7> Will you do any CPA deals?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Who still uses e-mail newsletters?

<comment><USER5> Plenty of people. Just to name a few in the tech field:

Hacker Newsletter

Javascript Weekly

HTML5 Weekly

Betalist

Startup Weekly

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just what everyone wants - ads in email! I predict spam filters will start blocking must of their crap.</comment>


Ask HN: Moving to SF. Which offer should I take? - <AUTHOR> I'm fortunate enough to have a few job offers, all at the same level and relative same comp (base + stock).
Some of these companies are public which makes the comp more liquid and some are not.
The offers I have are from Instacart, Flexport, Square, and Uber. How would you rank them? <comment><USER2> I'd ask:

1) what type of person are you financially. If you're risk-averse, stocks are preferable since they let you convert into different investment vehicles earlier, whereas if you're risk-tolerant RSUs and options are a bigger gamble - the latter much more so

2) having talked to the teams, which one seems most interesting

I wouldn't worry too much about gossip/social cachet. Speaking as someone who does technical interviews at one of the companies you mentioned, I can say that for engineering positions, interviewers at future employers will only really be interested in whether you can do good engineering work.

<comment><USER3> Mostly what I was referring to regarding the gossip/cachet (which I admittedly didn't elaborate on) was the negative buzz that still circles around Uber. Another decent sized scandal could really tank things internally, which would likely affect their workforce.

<comment><USER2> (Disclaimer: I work at Uber, my views are my own, etc)

I joined a few months before Dara took over as CEO, sort of right in the middle of the storm; long story...

Anyways, to be honest, I think the company has done a lot to get itself back on track since Dara took over. There was extensive investigation about employee misconduct after the Fowler incident (culminating in some 200 cases being reviewed by an independent firm, with substantiated cases resulting in termination) and training policies were implemented; the 2016 data breach cover-up incident resulted in the head of security being fired; espionage programs were shut-down; and the company is in full cooperation w/ investigations about the Tempe SDV killing incident.

With all that said, I don't want to sound like I'm defending Uber, just giving my two cents as an insider, given that media tends to focus on the shocking negatives but not necessarily on the follow ups.

I think more than considering how media portrays a company, it might be more fruitful to consider its size, since smaller companies have different dynamics than larger ones, and might be more suitable to one's preferences/experience than the alternative.

<comment><USER3> I would agree that a lot has been done, and believe me... I wasn't dumping on Uber. I still use the app myself. I'm just saying from a practical viewpoint, it's a serious consideration to be made if someone is moving to a new job.

<comment><USER2> I think it's fair to be worried about that, but conversely, given that I believe Uber is legitimately getting its act together, and the recent Wall Street ratings of its stock, I think now might be a particularly good time to make a bet on it.

Personally, when I joined, I made a similar bet based on what I could gather about its growth trajectory at the time and a belief that corporate scandals eventually get closure.

I'm a bit on the risk-tolerant side, so RSUs two years ago with IPO rumors flying around and bad public perception seemed like good timing. With the current landscape, I think Uber is less risky than two years ago, and I even agree that Square might be more attractive to a more risk-averse person, but yeah, at the end of day, I think it still boils down to personal preferences/risk tolerance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Square, Flexport, Uber, Instacart... in that order. The reasons are myriad, but they include a combination of long-term viability, visibility within the market, stability in (or of) their industry, executive team (including the "gossip" surrounding it), and the social cachet a job at each place would look to a future employer, among other reasons.

Good luck out there!

</comment><comment><USER4> Uber, Square, FlexPort

I would rank FlexPort higher for growth potential, but my understanding is that they have a gnarly large Ruby on Rails legacy codebase that I wouldn't want to work on. If I'm wrong here, please correct me.

I don't think Instacart will do well long-term.</comment>


Beautiful Golden Ratio Coloring Book Raises $35k in Four Days - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1854671654/golden-ratio-coloring-book?ref=nav_search <comment><AUTHOR> After years of lurking HN, thought I'd share my friend's project: For over 40 years, Architect Rafael Araujo has been crafting these amazing illustrations of nature, entirely by hand.</comment>


Ask HN: Anything fancy in your .vimrc? - <AUTHOR>

Anything particularly esoteric in your vimrc?
Couple I find invaluable:-

  " Yank block visual selection to space separated line
  vnoremap <Leader>y "+y:let @+ = join(map(split(@+, '\n'), 'substitute(v:val, "^\\s\\+", "", "")'), " ")<CR>

  " Yank block visual selection to comma separated line
  vnoremap <Leader>Y "+y:let @+ = join(map(split(@+, '\n'), 'substitute(v:val, "^\\s\\+\\\|\\s\\+$", "", "g")'), ",")<CR>
 <comment><USER2> I have too many. I have many ideas for plugins as I'm getting into vimscripting (and have since released one) and I use vimrc as a staging area for those ideas to grow on me.

Just last week I put this to have modified buffers in my statusline:

      set statusline+=%{GetModifiedBuffers()}
      function! GetModifiedBuffers()
        redir @b
        silent! buffers
        redir END
        return system('echo "'.@b.'"' . " | awk '$3 ~ /\+/ {printf ".'"  " $4 "*"'."}'")
      endfunction

I also have something I'm calling Streamline, which allows you to navigate relative lines while seeing absolute lines.

Also just yesterday I hacked something which allows me to block hjkl for more than one consecutive press, while binding their double presses to some other action. So pressing j once gets me down one line, pressing a second consecutive time activates Streamline which then, without a count, takes me to lines multiple of ten, so it's my way of scrolling when I don't know the outlook of the file (given a count of 4 while on line 37, Streamline would take you to line 44). This is still not on my online vimrc, but the rest is at github.com/goldfeld/dotfiles.

</comment><comment><USER3> Working in data I often had tab delimited files. So you'd want your tabs to show up as real tabs when typed and not converted to spaces. Otherwise for code convention is almost always spaces. So I use this.

      syntax on
      filetype plugin indent on
      :set paste

      set shiftwidth=4
      set tabstop=4

      autocmd FileType ruby,eruby,yaml,java,clojure,html,css,xml
      \ setlocal shiftwidth=2 |
      \ setlocal tabstop=2 |
      \ setlocal expandtab

</comment><comment><USER4> Does Vundle <[https://github.com/gmarik/vundle>](https://github.com/gmarik/vundle>); count as something fancy?</comment>


The Entrepreneurial Attitude - <AUTHOR> My girlfriend works at a little coffee shop called "It's a Grind".  Recently a Starbucks moved in right across the street.  The owner, John, tacked a letter up on the wall.  I thought it was so great and inspiring that I took a picture and decided to share it.  Here it is:
====
To: TEAM GRIND
From: John
Guys,
We have had a lot of questions from customers and friends about Starbucks going in across the street.  Here are some things you might share with customers, assuming that you agree with them:
1) Starbucks WILL be competition.  Will Starbucks get some of our business? -yes.  Will we get some of their business? -YES.  Our drinks taste better than theirs, our store is nicer and more comfortable and our staff is more friendly.  I get a lot of positive comments about our staff-it's doubtful that Starbucks does.  These things will keep us competitive in spite of Starbucks brand recognition.  An important thing to remember is that many people relate to locally owned businesses.  Large international companies like Starbucks have the bottom line (stock price) first in mind and a lot of people don't relate to that.
2) We are doing well with speed of service at the drive-thru.  This is important because Starbucks is good at that.  We need to make sure we keep it up and maybe get a little better.
3) Our regulars will stay with us-we have a great core of regular customers that know us and this is important.  Our core of customers will grow as the area grows.
4) Food-this will be key in differentiating us from Starbucks.  We are in the process of getting our menu set up.  This will be in place before the end of the month.
5) Every business that I've ever been involved with is competitive-that's the way life is.  People who put their tails between their legs and pout never succeed.  People with positive attitudes that stay focused almost always succeed.
6)  We will not only succeed but we will be thriving 2 years from now.  That's because we have a great crew, a superior product and competitive prices.  If somebody comes in whining-"You can't compete with Starbucks"-that's baloney and they have a loser attitude.  Keep your chin up and don't be afraid of competition!
John
====
One reason this is so great is because John is in his mid-50's.  Even at that age, he still has a startup mentality.
Another thing I like is he's rolling out new tactics and trying new things.
Don't be afraid of the competition guys!  Get things out there and make them work. <comment><USER3> > One reason this is so great is because John is in his mid-50's. Even at that > age, he still has a startup mentality.

Wow! Even at _that_ age? I'm surprised he's even still _alive_!

Seriously, this is a weird bit of bigotry. I'm mostly surprised when I see the start-up mentality in _anybody_ ; it's rare in all age groups, not just the AARP-ready.

<comment><USER4> It's rarer for old people, because they have more obligations and they're better-informed.

<comment><USER5> This is bullshit, plain and simple.

The only area this is even remotely demonstrable is in the tech sector. In other areas, most entrepreneurs are in their mid to late 30's, even their 40's, and have families and obligations.

In fact, with boomers now able to leverage the equity in their homes, many of them that have always had the desire are finally able to manifest it.

<comment><USER6> If you disagree with something, just refute it.

<comment><USER5> True enough.

It's just frustrating that something that has little evidence beyond the anecdotal is taken as gospel.

We've got to remember that being involved in tech start-ups or being in college tends means that our own experience is limited to that which we see everyday, and isn't necessarily the norm.

For example: "A 2005 CGC study of 3,000 job seekers found that 13 percent started their own businesses in the second quarter, up from 9.9 percent in the same quarter a year ago. And of that group, 86.6 percent were over 40, evidence that the next big wave of entrepreneurs may be seasoned workers, not college dropouts in Silicon Valley with a breakthrough technology concept." From here: [http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060403/3primet...](http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060403/3primetime.htm)

And Here: "...last available government statistics on business startups revealed that the average entrepreneur is white, male, aged 36," From Here: [http://www.startups.co.uk/The_average_entrepreneur.YYB-B- hoS...](http://www.startups.co.uk/The_average_entrepreneur.YYB-B- hoS63Ijg.html)

And Here: "According to a Vanderbilt University study the number of entrepreneurs age 45 to 64 will grow by 15 million by 2006. That"s compared to a 4 million decline for entrepreneurs age 25 to 44." From: [http://www.ez2find.info/entrepreneur/Small_Business_QA_Entre...](http://www.ez2find.info/entrepreneur/Small_Business_QA_Entrepreneurs_Just_Get_B.html)

Now, until we see statistics that suggest the failure rate is a lot lower for younger entrepreneurs, the age question has obviously been blown out of proportion based on a few opinions, valid as they may be.

<comment><USER7> It's cool that you actually googled some stats.

But let's face it -- we're on news.ycombinator.com, where the majority of the applicants and chosen entrepreneurs seem to be college kids or people in their twenties. (with a few outliers?)

A large chunk of the general population thinks it's entrepreneurial to join up with Amway, or do a consulting biz. (which it might be, just not what we're talking about here)

<comment><USER5> >But let's face it -- we're on news.ycombinator.com, where the majority of the applicants and chosen entrepreneurs seem to be college kids or people in their twenties. (with a few outliers?)

In other words: Don't let the facts get in the way of a good opinion! :-)

I get you, and believe me I agree, but as entrepreneurs, it's always good to keep two things front and centre:

1\. We live as part of a much larger world. 2\. Our perceptions often lie to us.

If I'm the only one preaching that, so be it. Perhaps it helps one lucky person someday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The founder of Second Cup (a coffee chain in Canada) told us what happened when a Starbucks opened across the street from a current Second Cup.

"The lady was furious. She had invested her entire life savings into the Second Cup, put so much energy into getting her store off the ground, and now when things were finally looking up, Starbucks moved in."

What ended up happening according to Sean O'Dea, the Professor giving us the lecture, was that her Second Cup sales WENT UP 25%. The extra competition somehow begot more coffee sales for both parties.

<comment><USER9> Makes sense:

When the line at Starbucks is long and yours is short, people come to you.

When people want variety, they come to you. I don't go to the same restaurant in my neighborhood each time - I mix them up. People don't necessarily want the same coffee every day.

Because there are coffee customers in the neighborhood that aren't already yours, you have an audience for your specials and sales that is relatively easy to reach. People won't go five blocks out of their way for a one-day, 20% off sale on bagels, but they might go five feet.

Starbucks marketing is so much more effective than yours that they will attract customers that you never could. Once they're in the neighborhood, these customers are much more likely to come and taste your coffee - <USER2> all, if your coffee sucks, they can always spit it out and go back over to Starbucks. If your coffee doesn't suck, some of those customers will become regulars. _Many people_ prefer local shops over chains... if the effort to switch is low, and if you make it easy to switch back.

I remember reading that this is why specialty shops often tend to cluster in specific districts of a city. You would intuitively think that the best spot to open a new store is an underserved location far from existing shops . But, in fact, you're often better off opening a store one block away from your competitor, where there's some pre-existing traffic that is happy to do some comparison shopping. I once talked to a computer store operator who had deliberately set up shop across the parking lot from a new Micro Center, and he told me the same thing.

<comment><USER10> To get my coffee fix, Starbucks is always the second choice. The only time I drink that sewage is if I'm stuck in an airport. In Baton Rouge, there is a local chain of coffee houses called CC's that serve much better brew. The mom- and-pop shops do pretty well, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow, guys. This is pretty disgusting. The first set of comments were really interesting, then.. What? I'm a bigot? What by'view said was bullshit? Wonderful. Grow up.

Yeah, maybe it was silly to call attention to the fact that he's approaching 60, but guess what? People get old. When they get older they get more and more tired. So it's really great, even _inspirational_ , that he is still fighting the good fight even though he's done this kind of thing his _whole life_.

Jeez.

</comment><comment><USER11> We have a florist's shop a block away from our house, and another one farther down the street. A year or two ago, a Kabloom opened up on the same block as the local florist. The florist was pissed, partly because the Kabloom franchisee had gotten a grant from a quasi-public agency that promotes business development in our neighborhood.

I don't know if the local florist has gotten more or less business since Kabloom showed up, but she's still _in_ business.

</comment><comment><USER12> In Milwaukee, WI on Brady st. there are 3 cafes within walking distance, a Starbucks and two local establishments; Rochambo, and Anodyne. I find it odd, and awesome that either of the local establishments have more business than Starbucks does. In fact there is so much more business in these other two cafes that a 3rd could probably still spring up and beat the Starbucks.

<comment><USER5> Heh, in Vancouver BC, there are two Starbucks' kitty corner from each other.

Quite a sight actually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> at 50, john is way too old to have a startup mentality. he has kids, mortgage, etc to worry about. didn't you read the other posts at this site?

<comment><USER13> Is this flame bait, or are you really that stupid? One key principle in business is to assume nothing. Another is to never underestimate your potential competition. You just violated both in one sentence. Oh wait, you're too young to know any better.

<comment><USER10> Neither. It's called "sarcasm" and was meant to hint at the set of links that typically appear on the front page related to the topic of age and entrepreneurs. I apologize that you are so severely offended.

<comment><USER13> No need to apologize. I'm not offended. Just too old to know any better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _If you have the time, this is the most inspiration story I've read this week..._

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: "When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. "I believe that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child."

Then he told the following story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play?" Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."

Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. His Father watched with a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!" Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball ... the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay"

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third!"

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, "Shay, run home! Run home!" Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.

"That day", said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world".

Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

<comment><USER14> <http://www.snopes.com/glurge/chush.asp>

<comment><USER15> You are such a wet blanket! ha ha</comment></comment></comment>


Swift: Close to greatness in programming language design (Part 1 of 3) - <AUTHOR> https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/swift-programming-language-design-part-1/ <comment><AUTHOR> Part 2: [https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/swift- progr...](https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/swift-programming- language-design-part-2/)

Part 3: [https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/swift- progr...](https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/swift-programming- language-design-part-3/)</comment>


Does a child die of hunger every 10 seconds? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22935692

<comment><AUTHOR> My take away is that it's a child dies of poor nutritional education of the parents</comment>


Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514 <comment><USER2> Awful headline.

One of multiple exercises in a 1940s test of 'self-regulation' involved standing still. Children in 2001 don't obediently stand still as well. Separately, the article notes (without referencing source) that "good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ".

The custom headline going from 'standing' to 'school success' is tenuous extrapolation that, if the reporter had put it directly in their article, would not have survived editing and fact-checking.

Bad headlines waste readers' time and send discussion off in tangential directions based on skewed understandings.

OTOH, I love the article -- good info on how self-management, in individual children (or even groups) might be best encouraged, and how toys/things might be just the wrong thing. (What would that mean for the OLPC?)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not a bad headline, it is an opinionated headline (based on text from the article). I understand that you disagree with my point of view. Please understand that I disagree with yours, too. The "tangential direction" you are complaining about is the reason I posted the article. I would not have posted it otherwise. You should be glad that people who disagree can still be helpful each other, rather than complaining that your free ice cream wasn't the appropriate flavor.

<comment><USER2> In my experience, people who disagree can best cooperate if they emphasize accuracy in their statements -- thus quickly finding the areas of agreement and disagreement.

That you thought the statement "good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ" was the most important part of the article is a valid opinion I can respect. That you found the standing-still experiments an interesting way to measure child self-regulation is also a valid opinion I respect.

It is the pairing of the two opinions into the unsupported statement "Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ", and then the promotion of that dubious statement to the key position of headline, that I find objectionable.

Alternate approaches I wouldn't have objected to:

* contribute article with original headline, but post a first comment with "I found it interesting that the article suggests ability to stand still for longer may predict executive function, and thus school success, better than IQ."

* contribute article with original headline plus appended pot-stirring question: "Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills (Does standing-still predict success better than IQ?)

Or, if HN were to someday allow a comment-with-submission or subhead-with- submission, that would be a great place for highlighting an opinionated takeaway from deep in the article, even though the article's main thrust is something else.

<comment><AUTHOR> The original headline is disagreeable to me. Most of the content of the article is disagreeable to me. It is not a neutral article. There is no simple neutral way to post it.

<comment><USER3> Actually, by altering the headline to your own taste, you introduced further distortion, which does not facilitate neutral discussion regarding the article itself, which is the actual topic, and should be treated with respect as one. While the article may be biased, introducing further bias does not help the readers's judgment, so the _best_ headline to post would actually be the original headline; you let the reader decide whether it is disagreeable to them or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've had a bit of insight into this, through some exposure to a program that attempts to treat ADHD, Aspergers and Dyslexia. The program is based on the premise that these conditions are caused by an underdeveloped cerebellum, and provides a program of exercises that are specifically designed to develop this part of the brain.

One of the tests they do in diagnosis and progress assessment is a basic "standing still" test, performed on a platform with computer-monitored sensors, and several of the exercises involve simply standing as still as possible for a few minutes.

They find that over the 12-24 months the candidate participates in the program, as their ability to stand still increases, the extent to which they suffer from these conditions diminishes.

As I'm sure many here would attest, people with ADHD, AS and Dyslexia often have above-average IQ scores, but struggle with school performance or endeavors that require similar strengths, like conventional office jobs.

<comment><USER3> I have a related story. During a visit to a doctor when I was a kid, the doctor found me unruly, noisy, and over-active. Being a friend of my parents, he flatly and frankly told them, and in front of me, that I "cannot sit still" and suggested they enroll me into a Go classroom, which they promptly did.

After a few months I visited him again, and he said, again in everyone's presence, that I was "much better." I was actually not yet mature enough to care or comprehend what it was all about, but I am thankful for having had those lessons.

I also daresay that the benefits of taking such lessons would have comparable or perhaps superior effects to these lab-controlled exercises, at least when there is still uncertainty.

However, as per the article, the goal, I believe, is self regulation, so at least in my case, the neural changes probably were not focused in the cerebellum.

<comment><USER5> What is a "Go classroom". A place where they teach the boardgame Go?

<comment><USER3> Yeah

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From this headline it sounds like this is an article about the lameness of schools, but actually it's a very interesting article about the importance of self-discipline.

<comment><AUTHOR> The part I put in the headline is what I thought was most interesting.

Most of the rest seemed to consist of saying that lack of obedience in modern children indicates something is wrong with them. And finding things to blame this on, like toys.

I don't think the issue was _self_ -discipline because the example of how they studied it was about whether the children would stand still when someone else told them to.

<comment><USER7> I think you missed the most interesting aspect, not about obedience or toys specifically, but that attempting to control, regulate and educate children has severely hampered their ability to control, regulate and educate themselves.

"Essentially, because children's play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids' toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren't getting a chance to practice policing themselves. When they have that opportunity, says Berk, the results are clear: Self-regulation improves."

<comment><USER3> It seems rather unfair that you got upmodded so much, and curi's post 2 layers above got downmodded below 0. curi states a personal opinion, which is valid as one.

You say curi missed the most interesting aspect -- from your POV (and obviously shared by others). I disagree with you about what is the most interesting aspect, but I don't think your point is uninteresting, but neither would I think you missed the "most interesting aspect." I think the "most interesting" is merely the useful idea that "developing self-regulation is beneficial and important."

While there is really nothing wrong about the state of your, and curi's scores, and how much people agree with either of you, this points system makes it look like, at a glance, that something was wrong about curi's post, and yours was, relatively, +18 correct. This is a negative side effect of this point system, which I don't think most people keep in mind when voting.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah. you might also be interested to look at my thread history to see some of the other stuff i get downmodded for. a few are: a question about what dates someone meant, a comment that lotto odds are public knowledge (questioning the point of the post which asked about what the odds "really" are), a "+1 informative" joke that's at -9 for some reason.

edit: btw this thread wasn't a representative example. disagreeing with pg increases downmods. if it'd been someone else it might not have happened.

 _and_ i was getting some downmods by people who didn't like the link or title but who can't downmod the submission itself so downmod comments intead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a great article. Key paragraphs for me:

It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.

We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning says, the results were very different.

"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."

<comment><USER9> I don't see all the mystery: people no longer beat their kids to the extent that they did 60 years ago. Maybe if they made the request as part of a game instead of as an order from an adult there would be more validity (but you can't go back in time to the '40s to make them change the experiment as well).

<comment><USER8> I am not sure that's it. I wasn't beaten as a child, nor are my children. However, I had much much more unstructured play "in the neighborhood" than my children do. Almost any activity is mediated by adults today. Other parents, primarily fathers, have remarked on this in the last five to ten years when we compare how we organized our time when we were between five and fifteen years old with how our children's time is organized and managed for them. For the most part we didn't have adult umpires or coaches as children, we had to work out situations for ourselves. Sometimes a game would break up, but over time we learned to compromise in ways that seem less common with adult coaches and adult referees who are often more committed to "winning" than the children involved. We may be getting off topic for "Hacker News" but unstructured play seems to be a key component to fostering self-control and creativity is my take-away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, is it a good thing that I talk to myself when programming? My parents always look at me a little strangely when I do that. (I suspect that my coworkers would've done so too, except that many of them also mumble to themselves while programming.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Self regulation and IQ are both important characteristics. It makes sense that self regulation has a stronger correlation with better school performance than IQ. School tests one's ability to regulate their time and focus, studying a paying attention.

I believe that children must mix "raw" play where they can imagine their surroundings. The good old empty box comes to mind... it can be a race car, a castle, a rocket ship and so on and so forth.

On the other hand I think the commentary undervalues the importance of regulated play. The learning of rules will come in handy when one enters school and the work world where there are many formal rules to follow.

</comment><comment><USER12> The problem is much bigger than merely children's toys. In general, our society is progressively less imaginative, and merely consuming what we've inherited from our past. This is why a lot of entertainment is based around destruction: cutting humor, violent action/horror films, most video games, pop music (angry rock, gangsta rap).

The hacker community has an advantage here, since we are so used to using our minds. Games like nethack are entirely dependent upon the user being logical and having a good imagination.

<comment><AUTHOR> In what range of years do you think most of the imagining was done?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> old fashioned play involved mimicing what the children saw in the adult world on a much simpler level. What do you do when you want to understand something? You make a simplistic model of it and go from there. Are the children of today not doing this and thus not building an understanding of the world? Is WoW and MySpace the same thing?

</comment><comment><USER14> But I was only hungry for one marshmallow...

</comment><comment><USER15> The headline is a sad mark on our schools...

Especially as they talk about young children, any faults lie with their parents--the same generations who think they were tougher when they were kids, are creating problems by never saying no to their own offspring. And, schools don't ever want to keep students back, so the curriculum is designed so that anybody who shows up to class can pass. Required daily homework and classwork that might represent 50% of one's grade, instead of a couple of tests that define 80% of one's grade, teaches kids to focus on submitting paperwork instead of actually putting in thought nor allowing them to figure out how to do the learning they might need to do.

This process works to ignore incompetency in basic abilities year after year in students, as long as they have good grades, the fact which allows educators to say that college opportunities their kids have available to them are also good, and therefore, that they did their job. Not to mention that schooling our students one month longer, and for 2 years longer, than other countries do, in the same "conditions" described, furthers work towards decreasing independent thought and leaves many kids unprepared for real life.

Sometimes I wonder if that when people think our education system does our kids justice because our students are better at sports (that are mostly only played in the US), have more options of after-school activities, and have the chance (based on parent income) to utilize many different types of expensive private educational tools, tutors, "theories", consultants, certifications, and textbooks, if they're not missing that...

...the huge factor that explains why our students end up being more entrepreneurial or have the potential to get paid a lot of money when they finally do grow up, is that the US is incredibly wealthy--and at the same time cannot keep track of money any better than its average citizen--than that we're good at educating our students remotely close to what we should be given the money the government budgets for education.

I don't think we would hinder our country's strength in either entrepreneurship or Football, Baseball, Lacrosse, and Softball programs if we were to increase our understanding of math and science in this country; nor would it hurt to have a law that would require mandatory monthly teacher to parent education on what is expected of their student and ways the parent can help the student actually succeed at learning the material rather than submitting enough homework assignments to pass. Of course, having more educated people instead of "consumers" could affect our economy "negatively" as well as positively, but there are already many ways our economy is being pulled in both directions, so I don't think that teaching arithmetic and the scientific method to everyone would be a crazy thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for the great read.

</comment><comment><USER16> I read this as "Social Standing Still Predicts Better than IQ..." ... coulda used a better headline.</comment>