A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2018/aug/09/a-phd-should-be-about-improving-society-not-chasing-academic-kudos <comment><USER2> _When you look at the stats, it's hard not to conclude that the current PhD system is fundamentally broken. Mental health issues are rife: approximately one-third of PhD students are at risk of having or developing a psychiatric disorder like depression. The high level of dropouts is similarly worrying – and possibly another symptom of the same problem. Research suggests that on average 50% of PhD students leave graduate school without finishing – with numbers higher at some institutions._

The biggest risk factor I've found for a PhD student is lack of research experience during the undergrad degree.

I've seen it over and over.

A newly-minted bachelor's student without research experience has no preparation for the frustration, isolation, and sense of futility that real researchers face.

When it hits them, many discover they lack the temperament to actually move a research project forward. By then, they will have sunk 2-3 years of their life (or more) and a major amount of prestige into a failed attempt.

If you're an undergraduate and harbor the slightest ambition to get a PhD, drop what you're doing right now and start looking for a research group to join. You're going to need 2-3 years of experience actually doing research to know if it's something you'll enjoy long term.

You may well discover that you don't like what you find. If so, better to know that now than when you're in your late 20s.

If things do work out, you'll have a better idea of what to look for in advisors and schools.

<comment><USER3> These phenomenons are interesting to witness for someone like myself who loves doing research but followed a very different academic path because I felt demonized by formal school systems in high school and at a state uni. Speaking purely from observation of many peers, there were definitely some who navigated the social and academic realms well, and garnered respect from socially-encourageable and conformist mentors, but for some reason their ambitions often lacked.

All my friends with PhDs are unhappy, and do not enjoy doing research. They are all intelligent, some a little bit creative, and only curious when forced. They are experts of citations (a tease that never gets old to me, sorry) and I'm afraid are most concerned with not being _left behind_ or achieving prestige.

Having had countless long late-night chats with them in empty bars about this, I gather their habits of conformity got them that far and let them down once they were on their own. They consistently think what I'm doing in my life is more interesting than theirs. I think the opposite and would die to be in their shoes.

These friends are all in mathematics or humanities, and for those in humanities, I would especially die to be in their shoes. I recommend them books on a regular basis, collaborate with them on papers for fun, sending loads of notes that get chiselled down to whatever the editor is expected to prefer.

The whole process is nasty from my perspective. A pile of people desperate to wiesel off the next because that's the skill they were selected for from early on. In my best effort to put bitterness aside, I can only rationally conclude it's rotten to the core.

To be clear, these are _very_ intelligent people. But, the system of schooling most go through selects fiercely _against_ curiosity at it's earlier stages. This is only a theory. Feel free to point to research on the topic.

<comment><USER4> I work in a large academic research lab and I'm with you on the lack of creativity and conformism. Most people here don't have ambitious ideas. They always think in terms of basic improvements to ideas that were recently published about. They seem to automatically think that progress can only be made in the direction of the latest cool papers from well-established authors in the field. Me, I'm with Peter Thiel... Don't compete. Differentiate yourself. Try to find a niche that everyone isn't already trying to fill.

People here are also seemingly very conformist. For the most part, they work extremely long hours, are in hetero-normative relationships, with similar life goals (get a high paying job, buy a house, have kids), they don't do drugs or rarely even drink. If they have any hobbies, it's going to be your typical going hiking and camping sort of deal.

I'm surprised that STEM research doesn't attract more "freaks" and free- thinking people. People who want to challenge assumptions and do things differently, explore new possibilities. Unfortunately, I guess where I am, the main draw is prestige and the possibility of getting a high paying job when you finish.

<comment><USER5> _I 'm surprised that STEM research doesn't attract more "freaks" and free- thinking people._

At least when I was at university, those people generally didn't have the focus to graduate with good grades (or graduate at all for that matter). It's one thing to sit around and talk about all the 'out there' implications of quantum physics. It's an entirely different thing to get your quantum physics course work in on time and study enough to pass the exam.

<comment><USER6> I think I'm one of the freaks in question. I'm not one to sit around pipe dreaming, but I've found a vastly better fit writing code at startups than I ever did in grad school.

I get to invent, experiment, learn, and at a vastly faster pace. I'm even working in the same field, solving similar problems to the ones I worked on in school.

<comment><USER7> This is great if the problems you want to solve have direct business applications with a turnaround time of tomorrow.

There aren't very many startups funding basic research, though.

<comment><USER6> I know. That's why I went back to grad school in the first place. Big mistake :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Man, this view of getting a PhD, which seems fairly common, is so alien to me. Both my parents are research professors, both regularly have students, and I have never seen any of the misery or stress that people keep bringing up.

Sure, if you are unprepared to do research then you shouldn't do a PhD, but my parents' students are hand picked, and it is very rare that they end up with a student that doesn't want to, or is unprepared to do research.

Being a PhD student should be one of the most fun parts of an academic career. You get to focus on your research, and are mostly removed from the politics and stress of securing funding. You aren't constantly being barraged by requests to review papers or having your time used up by a myriad of other responsibilities.

I guess it is totally possible that the corner of academia that I grew up around (ocean sciences at a lab removed from the main campus) is an outlier, but my impressions of getting a PhD were always positive, and the reason I never did it was because the part after your PhD seemed like it sucked.

<comment><USER9> I guess it depends on your field, but I've definitely seen that happening in Physics and Math. I have many friends who continued school to pursue a PhD while I left to work in the industry. It's a mix of:

* dropped out (some changed field completely)

* failed to pass their defense

* were miserable until they obtained their PhD

* managed to obtain their PhD after a looooong time and a lot of financial trouble. After that followed a long quest to look for a job (humanities).

* was uber successful and loved it

Note that these are people I know from all over the world, not just one country or one school.

The one guy that was uber successful absolutely loved what he was doing. The others either did not have the passion, or found out later that they did not enjoy doing research that much, or worse loved it but could not afford being poor.

<comment><USER10> > The one guy that was uber successful absolutely loved what he was doing.

This is the absolute most most important thing. I could have taken an increased scholarship however I would be bound to researching what the top-up provider wanted. Instead I opted to be on a base level scholarship but I got to choose exactly what path I wanted to take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a rather poor essay.

"Many academics enter science to change the world for the better. Yet it can often feel like contemporary academia is more about chasing citations. Most academic work is shared only with a particular scientific community, rather than policymakers or businesses, which makes it entirely disconnected from practice.

...

This new PhD would see students go out into the field and talk to practitioners from day one of their research, rather than spending the first year (or more) reading obscure academic literature."

So... do industry research? Let's be clear: a PhD is a training program for research. As such most research done during a PhD is generally not that impactful, certainly not to go beyond fellow academics and to non experts. In my experience most people who go into it don't have much of an idea of what they want to do afterward -- they mainly know they enjoy research and are interested in the topic. AFTER a PhD is finished they can go on and try to influence society using their skills, or not.

<comment><USER12> > AFTER a PhD is finished they can go on and try to influence society using > their skills, or not.

Exactly this. The primary skill developed during a PhD (for me, and those around me), is knowing the difference between:

1\. solutions that can be pulled from literature (bake),

2\. solutions that should be easy to assemble from existing solutions (buy),

3\. what technology requires a small-to-medium delta above and beyond the bleeding edge (build)

All those are research, but far too often (3) is what everyone targets.

<comment><USER13> If all three of these are research, what is engineering?

<comment><USER14> I guess research deals with solutions under ideal conditions while engineering deals with real life constraint solutions?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A lot of this seems ridiculous:

> Mental health issues are rife: approximately one-third of PhD students are > at risk of having or developing a psychiatric disorder like depression.

The baseline percentage of the population which experience depression (and other mental illness) each year is known to be pretty high -- and highest in for people in their 20's. One third sounds fairly normal; at any rate, there is a burden here to show that this is an exceptional proportion.

> For instance, a PhD in Germany is supposed to take three years, according to > university regulations, but most students need five years to complete one.

If you are starting from an undergraduate degree, you probably need at least two years to take the PhD intro classes. One year to start a research program might work in a subject like the author's where your papers are chats about social implications, but there are plenty of subjects where even the data collection is going to take longer than that.

> In the US, meanwhile, the average completion time for a PhD in education > sciences surpasses 13 years.

These programs are dominated by people who are working teachers, working on PhDs part-time.

> One study found that for every 200 people who complete a PhD, only seven > will get a permanent academic post and only one will become a professor.

Being a professor is only one possible goal and for some fields, it isn't even the primary one.

<comment><USER16> According to this website, the baseline for depression in America is 6.7%.

[http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/depression](http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/depression)

1/3 is not normal at all.

<comment><USER17> Ive theorized the people getting a PhD are not your average american. Most college grads finish school and go into industry.

My peers who went onto get PhDs without going to industry were... different. Not necessarily super smart, but not the best socially or in leadership positions.

I can think of 3 people that were getting their PhDs in engineering, but I thought they were average students at best. One was an average to below average working with me on labs. Another was just a goofy weirdo, I couldnt be friends with him because he'd shoo me away. Another was somewhat a brainiac, but to a fault, He'd get As, but didnt really have friends from what I could tell.

I imagine lots of this is correlation not causation, and that things are different at big names schools.

<comment><USER18> My experience was the opposite. The people in my PhD program (at an upper-tier state institution) were far better thinkers in my field (biology) than the people in my major at an upper-tier liberal arts college (who, granted, were largely pre-med).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >This new PhD would see students go out into the field and talk to practitioners from day one of their research

I don't think this applies well to all fields of study. I have my Ph.D. in physics and there are loads of people researching problems that don't really have counterparts "in the field." I'm assuming "in the field" means industry or possibly a government service. I would think the same is true for mathematics at least.

>I research how to mitigate the social impact of hydropower dams.

Of course in this case, contact with people in the industry makes lots of sense. In fact, I'm not sure how this research would be conducted without this contact.

I certainly have gripes with academia but I don't think there is a monolithic motivation for students. For me, I think of academia as having the goal of advancing human understanding of the universe. Whether or not that has a social impact is probably up to some debate. I believe that one of the cool things about academia is allowing some people the ability to pursue ideas and work on problems that don't have obvious, short-term impacts.

<comment><USER20> > I certainly have gripes with academia but I don't think there is a > monolithic motivation for students.

Well, there is chasing funding. In your area of the universe, does the money follow worthwhile problems?

<comment><USER21> Funding is simple. It's all about experience and prior use. Funders fund what they did before, what the fundees did before, and did they use up the funds from last time.

<comment><USER20> My question stands. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Replace 'academic kudos' with 'the metric which we measure to check if you are improving society' and the issue becomes more apparent.

>A PHD should be about improving society, not chasing the metric which we measure to check if you are improving society.

It seems to be Campbell's law in action. Of course you can determine a different metric to use, or just tune the current metric some, but you'll eventually see the same problems emerge, maybe worse, maybe better.

I also think this issue shouldn't be viewed in isolation of other related issues, such as how the current system discourages reproducing the research of others and of publishing trivial results (we tested to see if we found this unexpected thing and we didn't).

Figuring how who is a good scientist, given that some theoretical good scientist could spend a decade chasing down an issue that ended up being nothing, is not an easy problem to solve. Tenure is one attempt to fix it, but it largely just re-frames the problem into deciding which scientists deserve tenure.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law)

>Take my example. I research how to mitigate the social impact of hydropower dams. My core paper on this topic has been cited three times so far. I read in the promotions guidelines at my university that if I want to be promoted from assistant to associate professor I need to accumulate significant citations. As a result, I have now published a paper in which I reviewed 114 definitions of a current academic buzzword, circular economy, to propose the 115th definition of this term.

>In academic terms, this paper is a hit: it's been cited 39 times since its publication. It is in the top 3% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric, a tool measuring a paper's influence among academics on social media. People I've never met before come up to me at conferences to congratulate me. But I'm not celebrating: this paper symbolises everything that's broken in the academy. Academics love definitions, not solutions.

This feels like the pure distilled essence of Campbell's law.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand how it's possible that a "social scientist" thinks that he has identified the great problem and its solution in every other academic discipline. Well, actually I do understand that, I've been around sociologists. I wonder if there's any chance that people that simply feel something about a tiny corner of the whole picture start speaking just for themselves. Maybe he's realized that his field is organized BS, but I don't think that makes a case for destroying modern science in order to build this society where laypersons decide what is worthwhile knowledge and what's not, in the newspapers. That's a great recipe for going back to those several centuries in which the rationale of doctorates was "improving society" as well.

<comment><USER24> > people that simply feel something about a tiny corner of the whole picture

Why is this about the author's feelings? There are plenty of links in the piece to underlying data sources, and these show that the problems mentioned don't vary a lot by discipline. For instance: [http://phdcompletion.org](http://phdcompletion.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I disagree totally. A PhD should be about curiosity and asking the most interesting scientific questions you can think of, also known as 'basic research'. You have the rest of your career to have as much impact on society and commerce as you want.

Unfortunately, the social impact factor has been creeping in, in the form of more 'applied research' funding which is not fundamental and does not move scientific knowledge forward. The government has limited role in funding applied research, since industry is better positioned to understand what applied research is important and has a strong incentive to fund it.

Academia is imperfect, but the genius of the system is that letting scientists chase down interesting things _does_ end up improving society dramatically in the long run.

<comment><USER26> Who is paying to support you while you explore some curiosity of yours? A PhD program is not a summer camp, it's a social tool and the public is paying money in order to grow the human knowledge base. I don't get this attitude, appreciate the fact that the public is giving you grants and funding because the alternative is you get nothing.

<comment><USER25> Perhaps you misunderstand. Scientists should study important _topics_ (virology, human genetics, materials science etc.), but within that, research direction should set by scientists not bureaucrats.

Many people share your view, though, and it's a shame. We have all of private industry to focus on short term benefits. Grad school is one place where the grinding expectation of immediate return-on-investment can be suspended. PhD students take low compensation hoping they can use curiosity and passion to direct their research. Increasingly, that's not the case.

>> appreciate the fact that the public is giving you grants and funding because the alternative is you get nothing.

This is cutting off the hand to spite the face. Taxpayers get an _unbelievable bargain_ for the work of PhD students and postdocs. Gutting research funding won't hurt them for long, they'll easily move on to much higher paying work, it's future society that will suffer.

I'd argue you get the best and most significant contributions to society in the long run with stable government funding of basic research. Don't believe me? Ask Steven Chu, Nobel Prize winner and energy secretary:

[https://www.amacad.org/multimedia/pdfs/wsjoped.pdf](https://www.amacad.org/multimedia/pdfs/wsjoped.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It is true that people chase citations, but only because they are a surrogate for _impact_. If you are doing research, the goal is to do research that matters and citations are one way to measure that people cared about the work (of course, once something becomes a measure people start optimizing for that instead of the original objective).

A PhD is a degree in doing research. When students start, it is true that many think they want careers in academia. Many then realize that academia isn't what they want after a few years in and seeing how their advisors live, realizing salaries are lower, and realizing how competitive it is. There are plenty of amazing career doors that open with a PhD besides being an academic... any career that requires the ability to conduct, interpret, and/or communicate research.

The comments about meeting practitioners are pretty foreign to my experiences doing a PhD (in AI) and being a scientist. If anything, when I meet people in industry they often think non-practical research isn't worth doing even if it might have long-term value.

<comment><USER28> > "It is true that people chase citations, but only because they are a > surrogate for impact."

I think the author would agree, although he is making the distinction between impact in academic circles vs impact in society. His claim is that impact in academic circles has become out of touch with impact in society.

> If anything, when I meet people in industry they often think non-practical > research isn't worth doing even if it might have long-term value.

Is there a way to measure how much non-practical research ends up having long- term value? Intuitively, the marginal utility of a 115th definition of a circular economy doesn't seem worth the academic man power yet that is what the author is being incentivized to work on because citation culture in academia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Great idea! Pay me for improving society rather than chasing academic kudos and I'll gladly spend my time doing that instead of writing grants and papers.

</comment><comment><USER30> > _Although 80% of science students start their PhD with the intention to > pursue a career in science, their enthusiasm typically wanes to the point > that just 55% plan to continue in academia when nearing graduation_

These seem like different questions to me. There are plenty of ways to "pursue a career in science" that don't involve academia.

</comment><comment><USER31> This article has some true observations, but the conclusions seem to go in a totally wrong direction.

Writing a PhD is a very ambitious endeavor. You will inevitably have your downs and crises, because research is hard. This is independent of the research topic. Now asking that the PhD thesis should not only advance research, but also 'improve society' will only increase the pressure.

The author also has the purpose of a PhD wrong: this is your research journeyman time, and delivering the PhD thesis is like creating your masterpiece as craftsman (in the original meaning where you create a fine piece of work which earns you the right to call yourself master of a craft). The real, unsupervised research career starts after PhD. This also means that it would be a very bad idea to start with high-risk research. Do this as PostDoc, when you have acquired all the necessary skills.

Not focusing on publications is the worst advice one can give aspiring academics. Research is about advancing _shared_ knowledge, and the only way to do this is to share your results. If you don't manage to publish, either your results are not relevant, or your work is not considered sound by your peer researchers. Successful publishing in reputable venues validates your research, and is the most effective way to disseminate new insights. I agree that the publishing system is broken. You have to work around that by choosing the right venues. This is another academic skill you need to learn.

If you really want to improve society and feel insufficient if you 'only' improve your research field, then don't pursue a research career. Better go work for some non-profit organization, or found one.

</comment><comment><USER32> What are the politicians there for then?

I'm not being facetious here. Politics is one of the primary avenues of bringing about social change. Ditto civil service.

A PhD should be about novel contributions that increase the sum total of human knowledge.

<comment><USER28> Ok but we shouldnt pursue knowledge haphazardly for knowledge sake. There are an infinite number of interesting avenues of inquiry we could send our academics down that would be completely useless. The paths we choose should be guided by the needs of practical application. How else can we value information if not practical application?

<comment><USER33> "Practical application" is the domain of the engineer, the business person, the sales department, etc. Science and pure curiosity are one and the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Great! Except that if you stop chasing those kudos, you will promptly find yourself unemployed and thus unable to do any research at all.

<comment><USER33> Exactly, while imperfect, these kudos are one of the only measures of academic ability.

<comment><USER34> That's not even close to true.

However, these "kudos" are the principle measure of academic ability/productivity used by those making hiring and funding decisions so...barring a top-down change, we are stuck with them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A PhD should primarily be about learning how to do research in your chosen field, not the research itself.

<comment><USER35> That's what the diploma was for once ... (at least in Germany).

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> A PhD should also be about being honest in ones arguments in the popular press. PhD's in Education may take 13 years (is that the median?) because most students are part time. In good graduate programs that provide guaranteed funding for students, 4-6 years is customary (and funding sometimes runs out at year 5). It's hard for me, as an academic, to trust an author who twists statistics to make his case.

And what does it mean to improve society? Basic biomedical science rarely promises improvements, but has given us revolutionary technologies (the structure of DNA, the genetic code, cloning, transgenic animals, etc, etc). The essence of basic science is that you do not know what you are going to learn, or whether it will be useful. You cannot plan unimagined discoveries.

Should graduate students start doing "research" sooner? That is certainly the standard in biomedical research, where very few courses are required. But the consequence is that students know a lot about what they have done, and very little about other disciplines. How does a graduate student in biology become a computational biologist without learning programming and algorithms?

The comments about having research experience are spot-on. And many of the frustrations people describe could be reduced by learning more about one's advisor before joining the group.

</comment><comment><USER16> I agree that the PhD system needs some rethinking but I don't think focusing research on more 'practical' problems is necessarily a good idea. I have seen 'practical' research going on in industry labs and I think it often falls into a no man's land of neither being practical nor advancing the state of knowledge in any meaningful way. Citation counts are problematic in some ways, but they do approximately measure what the research community thinks of as important work. I agree they seem to suffer from overly promoting "what's in fashion." OTOH, there is benefit to having a community of researchers all focusing on one topic at a time so that ideas can be exchanged and build on one another. Just like with startups, for some good ideas, it may just be that they are being proposed at the wrong time or haven't found the exact right form yet.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Most academic work is shared only with a particular scientific community, > rather than policymakers or businesses...

The university where I am currently doing my PhD has a very heavy focus on the outputs of a PhD contributing something worthwhile not only to academia but also to industry or the world. It isn't a massively high ranking university but it does force academics to think practically as well as theoretically. We are required to have an industry (non-academic) advisor on our supervisory panel who helps guide the research so it can be useful and not just gather dust once finished.

</comment><comment><USER37> A corporation should be about improving society, not chasing shareholder value.

<comment><USER20> Well, that'd be great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I totally agree with the problems of academia chasing citations, but the solution sounds odd to me. There are plenty of applied master programs aimed exactly at what is proposed: engaging with the professional community and fixing simple stuff.

But I still think some people should be isolated from the daily torment of humanity to push us forward. Maybe we just need less PHD.

<comment><USER5> At least here in Sweden there are also PhD programs where you do your research at a company and split your time 50-50 between that company and the University.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One thought I had about this was related to a book I was reading recently about the Math Olympiad. It was discussing how in the US the way math is taught never allows the students to struggle with any hard problems. That experience of going up against something potentially intractable is totally foreign to most students, even at the undergrad level I suspect. When you throw someone into a totally new environment where their life revolves around doing something they have never done before, it is kind of a shock. I think part of the solution here would be to introduce harder problem solving earlier into the standard curriculum. For this reason, I would be curious if PhDs in Russia or Eastern Europe, where the school systems are known for being more mathematically difficult from an early age, suffer from the same level of problems that exist in the US system.

</comment><comment><USER39> Basically every human endeavor "should" be about putting the general good over the individual good. After all, it's in one's own selfish interests for that to be the state of affairs; there are far more people not-you doing things than people who are you doing things, so you stand to benefit more if all those not-you people are doing work that indirectly improves your quality-of- life. ;)

The (sometimes literally) million-dollar question is: how do you align incentives to bring about that desired end-state? Ph.D's are not unique in struggling with this age-old conundrum; if the government is willing to pay for robotics research for drone warfare but nobody is putting up the cash to pay for nursing-care robot research, then we can make some pretty firm predictions what kind of robots we'll see mature and reliable in twenty years.

<comment><USER33> I posit that "one's own selfish interests", which can include pursuing a research topic for the "general good", is a major driver of scientific inquiry.

The evaluation of whether "general good" is advanced when answering a scientific question is subjective. Might I remind you that our foundations of probability - a pillar of mathematics and more - was furthered with the intention of winning gambling games? Or that our understanding of the limits of human physiology - how much force a skull can withstand, time before death under hypothermia - was furthered by Nazi scientists at the expense of Jews and other minorities?

While born out of sin, these two examples of science unequivocally better the "general good" \- now...

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Fourier or newton did not persue improving society, and they did.

<comment><USER41> To my understanding, Newton was motivated by trying to decode the Bible among other occult studies which he thought would unlock some mystical knowledge of the universe for humanity. So in that respect, he did sort of pursue improving society? Albeit perhaps in a misguided way. But hey, it yielded massive benefits

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The only real rot I see in the PhD track is the dangerous imbalance of degrees to jobs in certain areas (not STEM usually, although STEM is pretty uncompromising for tenure track). IMHO in the humanities the PhD is some kind of sick ponzi scheme, where advanced degrees serve to subsidize tenured faculty's careers with little to no hope of going on to anything of their own. (I know STEM isn't _much_ better, but it's a _little_ better, especially with industry being willing to assume some risk.) But I've got friends $100K in debt for an art history PhD, and that's craaaaaaaaaazy given what awaits on the other side.

<comment><USER43> I don't know a single reputable program that makes you pay for a PhD. Typically the salaries are subsidized through the school, that gets it's money from taking a cut of stem grants, donations, masters tuition, and undergraduate tuition. Saying that most humanities professors get their salaries by doing some sort of ponzi scheme of charging their advisees is just spreading misinformation.

<comment><USER44> That is mostly true for reputable programs. But there are a lot of unreputable Ph.D. programs. They may even graduate the bulk of PhDs.

And even some reputable programs will let some people "buy their way" if they don't qualify as for a fellowship/funding.

<comment><USER45> The annoying thing, is since there are more unreputable programs out there, all the stats about PhD students are heavily skewed by those students. Basically this rhetoric about 1/1000 phd students landing a job, or phd graduates being $100,000 in debt, or 9/10 students drop out or have mental health issues, are not about the usual PhD program we think about at universities that are household names and hear about in the news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I don't understand this system at all. Only 1 in 200 Phd student ends up becoming a professor, yet in college we have classes of 200-250 students per professor. And some of the older professors have been teaching the same class for many many years, without attempting to change the material. They are just repeating the stuff the already know, over and over again. It seems for me a waste of human resources, for me, to put some of the smartest people in to such repetitive task. Instead, I think the hiring bar for academia positions should be lower, the classes should be smaller, and the student should receive more customize experience.

</comment><comment><USER47> The reason I completely hated my phd program:

\- it was incredibly political, much, much more than companies I worked at.

\- most students were just trying to tweak some equations and get the hell out of that place.

Overall it was a very unhealthy environment and wasnt worth It.

</comment><comment><USER48> Academic kudos should be realigned better with scientific achievement.

Academic kudos translates directly to money (tenure, research funding) and power (gatekeeper positions) and that makes it microeconomics problem. Highly competitive person with high scientific achievement may not be the best person to judge and distribute kudos of others.

We should find a way to quantify kudos distribution to create good incentives. Researchers should get impact factor for mentoring, accepting papers to journals or giving voting for tenure to others who produce high impact studies after they get the tenure.

</comment><comment><USER49> This could literally be said about any other human endeavor. I mean, Comcast should be about improving society, but I don't see articles in the Guardian shaming _them_.

</comment><comment><USER33> Academia has always been, and always will be, about new knowledge. The article laments the pursuit of citations but fails to note that it is today's primary quantitative measure of new knowledge - though imperfect.

"Improving society" as academia's objective will have its own set of misaligned incentives, potentially much worse than the pursuit of "academic kudos". How would this be measured?

</comment><comment><USER50> You all are kind of scaring me a bit...

I just finished my Bachelor's and am starting my Master's this month. I have no formal research experience, but I planned to dive in during my Master's. For anyone who has done/is doing there PhD, if there is any advice you all could give me in order to get the most out of this next year before I apply for PhD programs, that would be great.

<comment><USER51> Apply straight to a PhD program. Don't pay for a graduate degree.

<comment><USER52> I disagree. A Masters with thesis is more directed, a good way to learn how to do research, and not hinged on a novel contribution for a successful defense. My PhD went much faster and smoother because I had learnt the ropes and decided it was something worth doing.

I think part of the problem is people jumping straight into PhD without any research experience. I watched quite a few students struggle when taking this road.

I do agree that it's a problem if grad school costs money, but a large stipend is only really available in STEM or medicine.

<comment><USER51> In my experience PhD candidates always get paid, and Masters don't. They do sometimes, but you aren't priority and guaranteed. I do always suggest getting the Masters on the way though. 5 years is a long time, and if you decide it isn't for you, well you come out with something (and it was paid).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> To be a psychologist in Canada, you have to earn a PhD. It's neither about improving society or chasing kudos. It's just a job.

</comment><comment><USER54> Great, I can play too! Corporations should be about improving the public good, as they used to be [0], not chasing monetary value. Your turn!

[0] Not just "in my day"-ism. According to "We the corporations", demonstrating this was originally part of the legal requirement for many governments' approval of articles of incorporation.

<comment><USER54> (I forgot to link to "We the corporations", which is an interesting book, and far from the screed its name suggests: [http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294993473](http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294993473) .)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> "They would finish their PhD when they have made a difference in the real world."

By that metric, most fundamental discoveries in the last 200 years would not have been enough to finish a PhD.

Even Hamming's error correcting codes took 10+ years for Bell Labs to implement it. And even then it was because they had no other alternatives and were in a bind.

</comment><comment><USER56> The two aren't mutex. And _publish or perish._ The suggestion is that academia should be utilitarian and short-term focused. This will never happen. It's tantamount to saying "we should get rid of archeologists because they aren't a profit-center department."

<comment><USER33> ^ this guy. exactly.

Measuring the utility of academia is futile. If anything should be said about utility it is that empirically, the average ROI on academia from the point of view of The State is always net positive: economically, culturally, socially, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> How much of this argument should apply to more theoretical areas of research like pure mathematics?

<comment><USER58> I used to be in a math PhD program. Probably would still be if not for some life circumstance.

I think it is worth taking a hard look at the value all of this mathematical research actually produces.

I understand how number theory has been useful to cryptography. I understand how branches of pure math can have a surprising influence.

But when these examples are given by pure mathematicians, it often strikes me as anecdotal and motivated reasoning. Where are the hard numbers? Where is the cool-headed evaluation?

They very much want the NSF to continue giving them grants so they can keep funding their mathematical interests. Because it personally and immediately benefits them.

It may be true that 80% of the mathematical research that is valuable to society is done by 20% of mathematicians. In this case, not much can be lost by reducing research funding.

This is how I look at it: Funding mathematical research means your society is wealthy. When the vast majority aren't worried about putting food on the table, it is a privilege when you can get paid by them to pursue your mathematical hobby. A hobby that has some relatively low chance of impacting society.

<comment><USER59> Your claim we could reduce mathematics research misses one big step -- that we can tell, in advance, which mathematicians (and researchers in general) are doing the "useful" research. In my experience that is very hard to predict. Also often researchers are "standing on the shoulders of giants", so the people who look most real world useful are extending earlier, "not useful" research.

<comment><USER54> In perhaps pithier words, accepting abnry's figures

> It may be true that 80% of the mathematical research that is valuable to > society is done by 20% of mathematicians. In this case, not much can be lost > by reducing research funding.

, you can probably get 80% of the return by cutting the _right_ 80% of research; but, if you cut the _wrong_ 80%, then you might be left with just the 20% return on the remaining 20% of work, or 4%.

(Also, there're lots of ways to cut the wrong 80%, and only one way to cut the right 80%.)

<comment><USER58> Meritocracy. The mathematicians at Princeton University are going to be producing potentially more valuable pure math research than a professor at name state university 145.

I don't know what the exact figure is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was less than 25% of math PhDs who go on to get a research job in math. How much are we funding these students here? I was on the receiving end of some NSF money for a semester. Was it worth it for the NSF? I barely contributed much. Granted paying a grad student is relatively cheap. But I wouldn't hold it against the NSF if they were more stingy.

It may be that we really are funding the right amount and the benefits to the whole ecosystem are great. But I want someone to give a cool-headed discussion of the numbers, not some vague persuasiveness motivated by job security.

<comment><USER54> > Meritocracy. The mathematicians at Princeton University are going to be > producing potentially more valuable pure math research than a professor at > name state university 145.

On average, maybe … but, if we just axe those at NSU 145, then we're _definitely_ not going to be funding the proof of the bounded-gaps conjecture. Now, Zhang managed to prove it anyway ([https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2013/05/bounded_gaps_be...](https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2013/05/bounded_gaps_between_primes.html)), but who knows how many people at small universities have a big proof in them, if they could only get the funding to have time to explore it?

(I would also argue that this is dangerously close to the point of view that big companies obviously know something about doing business successfully, so the best way to save government money spent on business is to cut out small- business loans.)

> I don't know what the exact figure is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was > less than 25% of math PhDs who don't go on to get a research job in math.

Did you flip a 'not' there? I suspect that it's the other way around, that less than 25% of math Ph.D.s _do_ get a research job in math, or perhaps even worse. (At least, that's if by "research job in math" you mean "academic job in math with research expectations"; if you count industrial research, then maybe I believe it.)

<comment><USER58> Zhang is an outlier. From what I followed when his proof came out, there were actually very similar ideas being developed by Terry Tao at UCLA and by a PhD student at Oxford. The sort of places you'd expect. And IIRC, Zhang actually come from the top math department in China. He just had trouble getting a good job in the U.S.

It is also fair to wonder just where this twin prime conjecture is leading us in terms of usefulness. I know it's hard, but we should be able to draw direct comparisons to how something like RSA panned out. Though RSA is pretty easy to understand. Maybe a better example is elliptic curve cryptography, though I know nothing about that. Can we at least provide a road map for how understanding the twin prime conjecture will lead to useful, practical techniques?

(And yeah, I accidentally added a "not" there. Will edit.)

<comment><USER54> > Zhang is an outlier. … And IIRC, Zhang actually come from the top math > department in China.

Well, sure, and that's my point; there _will_ be outliers. They'll probably have some indicators, like coming from good schools, or prior good work, even if they are currently in lower-ranked places. Every time an outlier comes along, one can certainly _retroactively_ find something that reveals all along that he or she was going to excel; the challenge is finding the people with this potential in _advance_. (You don't want to fund only the people who _have_ done good work; eventually you'll just get an unduly privileged class of people who did a lot of good math now and no longer can.) So we should have some way of finding these outliers by evaluating their academic history and apparent future potential … and that's a grant committee. (Hey, I hate to find myself defending them! I'm an academic and grant writing is low down on my list of favourite things to do; but it's better than being told that, since I'm not at Princeton, I won't even get a _chance_ to seek funding.)

> From what I followed when his proof came out, there were actually very > similar ideas being developed by Terry Tao at UCLA and by a PhD student at > Oxford.

I don't know about the Ph.D. student at Oxford, but (although I can't find it now) I am pretty sure I remember reading a post on Terry Tao's blog in which he was much more charitable than this; essentially, his view (I believe, though I can't find it) was that commonalities could be found between his work and Zhang's, as there always can between even the most revolutionary work and its predecessors, but that Zhang's work represented a genuinely new idea and huge step forward.

> It is also fair to wonder just where this twin prime conjecture is leading > us in terms of usefulness. I know it's hard, but we should be able to draw > direct comparisons to how something like RSA panned out.

RSA took essentially from the dawn of recorded mathematics (Euclid) to about 70 years ago; it's now the prototypical example (second, perhaps, to Riemannian geometry) of apparently "purely pure" mathematics that turned out to have applications. I think that's an excellent argument for taking the long view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> A PhD is about getting paid, like any other job. This should be pretty obvious.

</comment><comment><USER61> I think changing the PhD system is a great target, but how can you identify that as the culprit without changing the professoriate/tenure system?

<comment><USER62> That system has already changed. Tenure tracks are largely phasing out as older professors retire. They are being replaced with part-time adjunct teaching positions, supplemented by big name researchers that bring in grant money and institutions can write marketing articles about. Those big names are not incentivized to stay by a tenure system, as they can easily accept positions at other institutions or in private industry to continue doing their research.

<comment><USER61> Can you give me a few examples of major universities that have moved/are moving to this system?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> A PhD should be in fact about earning a decent living and secure a better life for yourself and your relatives.

</comment><comment><USER64> Maybe the solution is to allow fewer people into Phd programs?? Not everyone needs a phd.

</comment><comment><USER65> From the comments, one of the "Guardian picks":

 _I strongly, strongly disagree. A PhD should be about science. Not about utility for society. I am pretty sure that Max Planck did not think about the utility of computers when he proposed this completely absurd, little mathematical trick of discretising energy. Still, without quantum theory: no computer, no laser, no magnetic resonance imaging...and I could go on forever.

Progress in science is necessarily chaotic - if you disallow incoherence, absurdity, non-applicability, you will kill science. The author is conceptualizing "science" (maybe he talks about engineering and not science?) only as a tool of problem solving for the society - that is actual the role of science in Orwell's "1984" and that was the role of science to a certain extent in socialism. By making science teleological, one makes science ready for totalitarian abuse. Thank you very much!

By the way, comparing PhD systems from different countries is absolutely rubbish. In Germany, it is already rubbish to compare PhDs from different faculties from the same university...._

</comment><comment><USER66> Bizarre. This is coming from someone presumably embedded in the grant-writing machine that is modern academia. How do grant proposals justify their cost, exactly? Academia would be healthier if some back slaps at the next conference was all it took I think

</comment><comment><USER67> 100%

</comment><comment><USER68> No. PhD should be about truth, research and advancing knowledge. Knowledge/science shouldn't be politicized.

It's such an absurd assertion when you consider that different people have different ideas on how to improve society.

</comment><comment><USER69> Wait. Incentive structures in academia are screwed up? No. It can't be.</comment>


Please critique How It Works page for new startup - <AUTHOR> http://get.vinylmeplease.com/how-it-works/

<comment><USER2> It should say "sounds cool" instead of "sound cool".</comment>


The Anatomy Of Search Technology: Crawling Using Combinators - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/5/28/the-anatomy-of-search-technology-crawling-using-combinators.html

<comment><USER2> Ok, I'll bite. From the article:

      Now let's see how combinators (which we discussed in the previous blog
      posting) might make doing some of these computations easier.

So, how are they defined in the previous blog posting?

      A combinator is an atomic operation on a cell of a database that is
      associative and preferably commutative.

No, it's not. A combinator is a function with no free variables. Even the example is wrong:

      "Add(n)" is an example of a simple combinator; it adds n to whatever
      number is in the cell.

If "Add" was a combinator, the cell would have to be one of the parameters of "Add". Otherwise, the cell is a free variable.

To be clear, I'm just complaining about the misuse of the term "combinator", since it's a word with a strict mathematical definition and no other common- language interpretation (like "function" or "operation" have). I'm not commenting on the actual content of the article.

<comment><USER3> The initial value of the cell is (eventually) one of the parameters of add(n) -- when you compute the final value. Before you get to that point, the various add(n) operations aimed at a given cell are combined. In the diagram in the first posting in the series, 18 add(1) operations on the same cell turn into a single add(18) operation. It's only then the cell is read (or the bucket is merged) that the final value of the cell is computed.

<comment><USER2> I understand, but I still think it's iffy calling it a combinator. Maybe calling it lazy evaluation (sort of) would be better?

(I'm not sure if you saw my edit before you replied. I added the last two sentences only a few minutes before your response.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found this to be a remarkably bad article. Out of this you'd learn nothing whatsoever about what it takes to build a moderate-scale (10 million pages) never mind large-scale web crawler.

<comment><USER3> The goal of this article was to only talk about how combinators make crawling easier. If you'd like a more general introduction to the topic of crawling, I provided some references in the 3rd paragraph.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk's Latest Proposal: A Website Named 'Pravda' to Rate Media Credibility - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-latest-proposal-a-website-named-pravda-to-rate-media-credibility-1527116737 <comment><USER2> Any way to bypass the paywall? Or a substitute link?</comment>


IPhone once again tracking users with iOS 6 - <AUTHOR> http://www.southgeek.me/60

<comment><USER2> This is apparently some kind of online-radio program where people are discussing some articles they read; the articles they read are listed at the bottom, and are probably more directly useful... in this case:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/ifa-apples-iphone-tracking- in...](http://www.businessinsider.com/ifa-apples-iphone-tracking-in- ios-6-2012-10)

</comment><comment><USER3> May I say - Garbage. I include both the article (which saurik has pointed out) and the folks discussing it (people actually listen to podcasts of people taking about articles?)

iOS 6 ad tracking is anonymous (better than iOS 5 where the UUID could be discovered and used for tracking which is identifiable), EASY TO TURN OFF (contrary to the moronic opinion of the article) and logically organized (it's not PRIVACY related since your identity is never known).</comment>


Best alternative to f.lux - <AUTHOR> https://iristech.co/best-alternative-to-f-lux/ <comment><USER2> Kind of funny, reading about flux4 being "bloated with not needed features" on a site that has css christmas lights and javascript snowflakes...</comment>


Why we like photos so much - <AUTHOR> http://blog.loom.com/why-we-like-photos-so-much/

<comment><USER2> > _Combined with the findings of one study, which says that we consume 34 > gigabytes of information (or 100,500 words) outside of work on an average > day, it's no wonder that images come as a relief from our regular > information overload._

Can someone explain how 100,500 words is 34 gigabytes?

<comment><USER3> They are mis-quoting this study: [http://hmi.ucsd.edu/howmuchinfo_research_report_consum.php](http://hmi.ucsd.edu/howmuchinfo_research_report_consum.php) wrongly.

From the linked article:

In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day.

<comment><USER4> > 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day

Not a tremendously meaningful statistic, at least for the person consuming it. Depending on the kind of TV you have, you could consume 10X as many bytes watching the same TV show. What does that mean?

<comment><USER5> "All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."

— Carl Sagan (1934–1996)

<comment><USER4> If the bits in a video broadcast were printed and bound, it would make a formidable book. But very dull reading, I'm sure.

I remember the day Carl Sagan died. I was on irc, and when I saw the news, since it was on-topic, I passed it along to my channel. A long time ago...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This wall of text would be much more engaging if you included some photos. :-)</comment>


Facebook and Instagram Oversight Board to begin operating later this year - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/oversightboard/status/1266736657509875718 <comment><AUTHOR> Original tweet was too long. Edited for clarity. It was:

There are many significant issues relating to online content that we recognize people want the Board to consider. We're working hard to set the Board up to begin operating later this year so it can start considering cases referred by users and Facebook.</comment>


Has Amazon learned not to love APIs after all? - <AUTHOR> https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/advertising/api/detail/main.html <comment><USER2> I think they learned that giving away reviews was giving away free content, and wasn't helping drive more people to the Amazon site. Can't say that I blame them for pulling the plug on that.

<comment><USER3> Giving away facts, good for business (IMDB, Prices, etc) Giving away subjective content, not good for business (Reviews)

<comment><USER4> Care to substantiate that? For instance, IMDB's facts _are_ it's business, which is why some of those facts are reserved for paying members. Likewise, the fact Amazon has free public reviews is a big reason that people visit Amazon, just as the subjective blog posts of 37 Signals contribute significantly to their success.

<comment><USER3> True, but IMDB was acquired mostly to provide data to Amazon.com. For 15K, you can get access 'legally' to IMDB data.

As for IMDB Pro, serves mostly the film/tv industry itself not consumers, where the money is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think I've ever seen this API used in a legitimate way. I frequently see "product review" sites that are nothing more then ads and amazon reviews. Seems like by removing it, they will effectively clean up a large amount of review spam, which is fine with me.</comment>


A monitor with a built-in thunderbolt 2 KVM - <AUTHOR> http://www.dshack.net/2014/05/lg-34um95-thunderbolt-2-4k.html

<comment><USER2> The author says he wants a 4K display. 4K is 3840x2160 - 8,294,400 pixels. This monitor is only 3440x1440 - 4,953,600 pixels.

That is hardly more than a 2560x1600 30" display (4,096,000 pixels). By contrast a full 4K display has more than twice as many pixels as a 30" display.

Related:

I can't speak enough praises of the Dell UP3214Q. It is by far the nicest monitor I've ever used and gives full 60Hz with OS X 10.9.3 on a MacBook Pro. It came fully calibrated from Dell, has a solid-feeling aluminum base, awesome matte finish and provides a USB3 hub. I was able to grab one from Newegg for $2200. Now, it isn't TB2, but I'd rather have a nice, adjustable display a buy a separate thunderbolt 2 dock when one comes out.

For the price I purchased it, it is less than two Dell U3011 or U3014 displays, is better-constructed and doesn't suffer from dual-screen calibration issues. I don't consider Apple displays viable since they aren't height-adjustable and only come in a glossy finish.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author of the post. Good point– it's definitely more of a 2560p+ than a real 4K display.

I was tempted by the UP3214Q, but 32" just seems way to big for my needs, both from a desk-space perspective but also because of PPI. What I like about my retina macbook is that it's 2560x1600 on a 13" screen (227ppi) vs the Dell's 140ppi.

The other win here is just the ease of switching inputs– if there was a standalone thunderbolt/USB3 KVM, or even a well put together DP2/USB3 KVM I'd happily buy that. As far as I've seen, though, most KVMs are one or more of: USB2 only, ugly and clunky, or crazy expensive.

<comment><USER3> You can just use Synergy. It will turn off the display that the keyboard and mouse aren't on, so the monitor will hopefully auto-switch to the other input.

Failing that, most monitors have a serial command interface, so you can just tell the monitor to switch inputs when the keyboard and mouse move to the other display.

You're right though, there are no acceptable DisplayPort KVMs for less than $700.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is synergy smooth enough for gaming?

<comment><USER2> In my experience Synergy is a little wonky. It gets you about 90% of the way to what you want.

However, for gaming I would think it would be tough - I would think it would be easy to accidentally switch back to the other machine in the middle of the game.

<comment><USER4> You can hit scroll lock to lock the mouse to 1 screen. As long as you game on the synergy server machine there is no problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have one. It's the best monitor I've ever used. And I've went through a lot of monitors, including the 4K Dells.

Maybe it isn't an issue on OSX, but with a 4K 32" fonts were too small unless I upped the DPI in Windows, which resulted in blurry text/icons. Many apps aren't DPI aware in Windows.

Compared to running the UP3214Q at 125% DPI, I'd also say the total desktop real estate is similar to the 34UM95.

Also, this LG has the best matte coating I've ever seen on a display. Completely unobtrusive. It looks semi-glossy but is still effective at cutting out reflections. My old 3008WFP had such a strong anti-glare coating that it gave off a noticeable grainy/ sparkle effect on solid color BGs. The UP3214Q was much better in this regard, though I still wished the coating was lighter.

I also really, really like 21:9 for gaming (FPS are amazing to play on this thing). I don't really care about 4K anymore, at least not until a higher-res 21:9 display comes out and Windows handles DPI scaling better.

</comment><comment><USER6> "it's a very compelling alternative to a thunderbolt display, especially for those that have a lightweight mac alongside a cheap gaming PC"

This is the exact situation I've been trying to solve for awhile now, I wonder how many other devs have this same issue.

</comment><comment><USER7> But this monitor is 34", not <=27". Ultra wide screen and only 1440 pixels high: similar DPI to an Apple Cinema Display but wider (not denser).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, what I really want is 4k in 24" with this feature-set. The Dell 2414Q is almost there, but without thunderbolt support: [http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l...](http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=860-BBCD)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is daily life like with a monitor that wide? I'd be curious to try it instead of a dual setup, but the inability to angle both halves of the monitors looks like it might cause viewing comfort issues up close.

<comment><USER9> Someone posted about it on reddit and there was a lot of discussion: [http://www.reddit.com/r/battlestations/comments/24qmtf/just_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/battlestations/comments/24qmtf/just_upgraded_from_x2_benq_24_monitors_to_this/)

Also this video review: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnrxNfxRK_4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnrxNfxRK_4)

One thing to note is that is an IPS panel it has a much wider viewing angle than an ordinary TN panel. This video demonstrates via camera movement: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWXcNlh85Ps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWXcNlh85Ps)

I'm thinking about getting this screen for my game/workstation but I haven't decided yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The upcoming ROG Swift PG278Q is going to be a pretty cool monitor as well- 144hz at 2560x144o and some pretty amazing refresh rates as well

</comment><comment><USER11> I would almost certainly get this over a Cinema Display at that price range. Looking forward to reviews of this display.

</comment><comment><USER12> Are there monitors out there that allow input switching via USB? If the on- screen menus supported setting one button shortcut access to an input, I'd live with that, but the generally require some degree of navigation through an awkward menu.

</comment><comment><USER13> Your "PagerDuty" link intrigued me, then I got redirected to [https://www.jobscore.com/employer_login](https://www.jobscore.com/employer_login)

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad! Here's the actual link: [http://www.pagerduty.com/jobs/](http://www.pagerduty.com/jobs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This has a 21.5:9 aspect ratio, which is kind of terrible compared with the standard 16:10 if you're accustomed to having lots of vertical space.

<comment><USER15> Actually it has the same or more vertical space than any monitor you can name in the sub-4k category. It just has an extra monitor's worth of width.

<comment><USER16> In fact, you can use it as 2 1720x1440 5:4 aspect ratio monitors, which is better for some use cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, this looks amazing. Looks like I might be kicking the Apple displays to the curb.</comment>


Fake goods are proliferating, to the dismay of companies and governments - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15610089&fsrc=rss

<comment><USER2> Timing wise, I thought this was inspired by the fake Intel i7-920 CPUs, but they're not even mentioned.</comment>


Top 10 reasons to upgrade to Mac OS X Lion - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/20/top-10-reasons-to-upgrade-to-mac-os-x-lion/

<comment><USER2> Has anyone tried the new mail app? Have you tried integrating Enigma/GPG?</comment>


How does your company secure freestanding monitors against earthquakes? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all.  This has been on my mind lately, since around our office I see more and more people doing the stand-up desk fad and putting their expensive Apple monitors on basically wooden Ikea platforms.   (and we are in Bay Area earthquake territory)
Seems to me in an earthquake, all of these expensive monitors are ripe to be toppled from a large height, straight off those platforms since they're completely top heavy.   Not like the old days when at least the desk formed the majority of the nearby surface below, or CRTs were just unmovable.
Do you have any specific way of securing monitors like this?  Or have you thought about what to do?
Would be interested to hear your comments. <comment><USER2> Living in Costa Rica I've experienced some pretty big quakes including a 7.6 - equivalent to 3rd biggest in 150 years in California - and a bunch of 6.x's. My monitor wobbling is usually my first indication there's a quake, but I don't think there's enough horizontal momentum or force to make it fall over.

</comment><comment><USER3> Every standing desk platform we have here use the VESA mount attachment to the height adjustment arm and then that is screwed through the desk itself. If there was an earthquake that is one of the few things I knew wasn't moving.

I'm not sure what you mean "Ikea platforms?"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Ikea platforms", as in this very makeshift stand! [http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30279816/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30279816/)

</comment><comment><USER4> it just so happens there are products designed specifically for these types of problems. A quick google search found this one[1], although this isn't the exact product we use where I work. It is similar. Of course it doesn't do much if the entire desk topples over.

[1][http://www.lowes.com/pd_281280-10318-4520_0__?productId=3030...](http://www.lowes.com/pd_281280-10318-4520_0__?productId=3030195)</comment>


Multiple Firefox Profiles (How To Video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5oubQ4kggs

<comment><AUTHOR> Full disclosure: I made this!</comment>


Wufoo showcases a bunch of awesome API Contest entries - <AUTHOR> http://wufoo.com/blog/#post-4162

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm especially excited because my three entries to the contest are included in the showcase, including two of my first open source projects, a Python API Wrapper and a Java API Wrapper.</comment>


Manhattan Story Mashup - Pervasive Game - <AUTHOR> http://infosthetics.com/archives/2007/05/manhattan_story_mashup.html <comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.storymashup.org/> Official Site. <http://research.nokia.com/events/storymashup.html> Nokia Sponsor Site.

I have a new found interest in these types of games. I think they are great fun.</comment>


When slaves and free men were shipwrecked together - I-M-S http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21683979-what-happened-when-slaves-and-free-men-were-shipwrecked-together-lu00e8se <comment><AUTHOR> Fascinating tale. But why no pictures at all? Just a drawing.

Here's google maps' view:

       https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ile+Tromelin/@-15.887665,54.518924,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1s51527737!2e1!3e10!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2Fproxy%2FiMhyFUkn4LJgwo9p8DjAUZt0vlqw-WwVhSy_sTrUodfRWDx5vbsokN0DWBptPTKfGrd8C4cokaPA8UYgxRRoPlzLlFJcuQ%3Dw203-h134!7i1000!8i661!4m2!3m1!1s0x223214bebf13fbd7:0x7691448fcb61642d?hl=en

<comment><USER2> Linked + google earthed and zoomed in: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ile+Tromelin/@-15.8926233,...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ile+Tromelin/@-15.8926233,54.5226545,1845m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x22326be19257779f:0xa87dedc462b1ef20)

<comment><USER3> Why does an island which is barely long enough to support a runway need a runway?!

<comment><USER4> Because flying a three-man team to such an island is often much cheaper/easier/safer/faster than boating them in. And when people are hurt, getting them out by plane is the only life-sustaining option. Broken bones do not do well in small boats. (See the OP for issues surrounding getting people in and out of this place by boat.)

A more extreme example would be oil rigs (tiny island) that are serviced more often by helicopters than boats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _One of [the women]—oddly, on an island with no men—held an eight-month-old > baby boy._

What oddly? There were men on there just a year prior, in August of 1775:

> _Why had only seven castaways survived, when 14 had been spotted weeks > before? It seems the newly marooned sailor had tried his luck as a latter- > day Castellan. With the help of the now-natives, one assumes, he had > salvaged whatever could still be used from L'Utile's wreck and built his own > Providence. Sails were improvised from birds' feathers. Unlike Castellan, > the unnamed sailor had taken some of the slaves: the last three men and > three women. Also unlike his predecessor, he failed to reach Madagascar._

The article even speculates that the white sailor was the father.

I'm also not sure why it says "14 spotted weeks before" \- according to the article, over a year had passed since the 14 were spotted.

<comment><USER6> I think the "oddly" was meant to be from the perspective of those who first encountered the women, not from the perspective of the writer or the reader. Maybe it would be clearer as "surprisingly" or "at first surprisingly".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it incredible that they maintained a fire for 15 years, just from wood from the shipwreck.

<comment><USER8> It is indeed incredible, given the tiny wood supply, but maintaining a fire continually has historically been a very common practice. Simply put -- starting a fire is a pain. The easiest way to light your own fire was off your neighbor's fire; the easiest way to light a fire when traveling was to preserve a smoldering ember of your previous fire and carry it with you.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but like the parent comment I would not expect a single ship's wood, of which a portion was used to make a 33-foot raft and some must have been lost to sea or be in unreachable locations to be sufficient to keep the fire going for _15 years_. I suspect there were other sources, such as the shrubbery, or dried seaweed, or something. That they would have any original wood left to burn at that time to even make it look like they've been using it as a primary source for 15 years seems amazing to me.

<comment><USER10> It just so happens that over the last 2 winters I've been burning a scrapped wooden boat in my fire stove so I know how much fire you get out of a boat.

The boat in question was a 15 meter long oak on oak boat. It lasted 2 winters for 2 homes with a fire stove, and we didn't even burn it all.

There's an amazing amount of wood in a boat, particularly around the keel. The framing, keel and other structural elements are made of really heavy timber. On top of that good wooden boats are (were..) built of slowgrown oak that is incredibly dense. One large piece would last for 6-8 hours in my stove and give off a lot of heat.

It doesn't seem unlikely to me that a 25-30 meter boat would last for 15 years if you the goal was primarily to keep the fire going, only getting it really big/hot when needed.

<comment><USER11> "It just so happens that over the last 2 winters I've been burning a scrapped wooden boat in my fire stove"

Well played, sir.

<comment><USER9> Definitely (but not as well as this[1], which is pure gold). I left it open that I could be wrong, and I'll graciously accept the word of someone with real boat burning experience that my expectations are way off. ;)

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > It was Castellan who had made the decision to scupper L'Utile by cutting her > rudder in the hope that more men might be saved.

Why would that improve their chances? That intuitively seems like a bad idea, but the people who know what they're doing thought otherwise.

<comment><USER13> That sentence as written is nonsensical. I think they meant "scuttle" (intentionally sink), not "scupper" (a hole in the side wall at deck level to drain water off the deck).

The principle of scuttling the ship is to remove the buoyancy so that the ship settles firmly on the bottom (which is shallow because it is grounded) and does not get pounded to bits as the waves pick it up and slam it back down. This helps keep the ship intact and allows the people more time to get off.

<comment><USER14> A contemporary account states "Il y a eu de si violents coups de talon que la barre du gouvernail a fait sauter le tillac de sa chambre, malgré six barreaux en plusieurs endroits, et qui fit déterminer Mr. de Castellan a L'aller couper luy meme." which roughly translates to "There were such violent blows to the rudder, the tiller burst through the deck of its room, despite six bars holding it in place, and Mr. Castellan made the decision to cut it."

(From the document linked at the bottom of this page: [http://www.histoire- genealogie.com/spip.php?article1533&lang...](http://www.histoire- genealogie.com/spip.php?article1533&lang=fr))

<comment><USER13> That makes even more sense. The waves would be slamming the ship onto the bottom which would be attempting to drive the rudder through the ship every time. This would threaten to break the ship up very rapidly.

By cutting the rudder free, it would no longer be breaking the ship up, but it would leave a major hole where the rudder post came in, resulting in scuttling the ship.

<comment><USER14> I think the part about "scuppering" is just some nautical-sounding nonsense that the author of the article threw in. If you read the account I linked to above, it's saying they jettisoned the masts, then cut the rudder, then threw the cannons overboard, but despite these the ship eventually broke apart. Like you say, it sounds like they were trying to stabilize it to reduce the damage, but my impression is they were trying to make it lighter and less top-heavy rather than intentionally sink it.

<comment><USER15> In British English if something is 'scuppered (often someone's chances) it is destroyed or sunk. I assume the author was going for this verb usage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This island provided the basics for life and yet could not sustain it. It's sobering when we consider sending people to a planet that is entirely hostile to our existence.

<comment><USER5> > _This island provided the basics for life and yet could not sustain it._

The very bare minimum of basics - hardly any water, and hardly any food. But it did sustain over a dozen people for over a dozen years, with basically scraps of the ship they came in!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's a French documentary about the island, with plenty of video footage: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzKblzJBz6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzKblzJBz6U)

</comment><comment><USER18> This article is full of misnomers.

First of all, the "slaves" were actually kidnapped Africans. They had yet to do a day of forced labor and had not yet undergone the years of conditioning it took to turn a free man into a slave.

Second, the "free men" were actually slave traders. Yes, there was a ban on slave trading at the time, but that didn't stop them.

If you're interested in learning about what happens when kidnapped Africans and free men come into contact, study what happens when slave ships came into contact with pirate ships. As a general rule, pirate ships were egalitarian, as it helped preserve social harmony on the ship. And the composition of the crew was usually multiracial. Over 60% of Blackbeard's crew was black. Oftentimes, when the pirates took control of a slave ship, they would take the goods they wanted, free and arm the kidnapped Africans, and let the ship go on its way.

<comment><USER9> Well, if you want to get into misnomers, calling all the "free men" slavers may be going a bit far. The vessel was not nominally a slave ship, it was a side business of the captain, and speculating on whether the other crew and/or passengers that signed on to a ship sailing in seas where slave trading was banned knew that slaves would later be brought on board at a separate port is hard to do accurately without a lot more information.

<comment><USER19> Ignorance is not a defense. Also, it would still be considered aiding and abetting. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiding_and_abetting](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiding_and_abetting)

<comment><USER9> Ignorance _is_ a defense against aiding and abetting. You can't abet something if you don't know about it. You can unknowingly aid it, but any legal system that prosecutes people for their role crimes they had _no_ knowledge of is not a just system.

Some non-enslaved/kidnapped people of the ship may have had no knowledge of the cargo, or if they did, may not yet have had an opportunity to notify authorities at a port after learning. Calling them slave traders before they've had an opportunity to show their side one way or another is no different than calling the kidnapped people slaves before they've been actually put into slavery.

To be clear, I believe most the people on the ship probably would not raise any alarm over the situation, at least not enough to cause legal trouble, but if you are going to be pedantic about terminology in this way, it only makes sense to do the same in all cases brought forth, unless you are using terminology to manipulate the perspective (this is not an accusation).

Note: Edited slightly for clarity and typos.

<comment><USER19> Notice the "Also" in my original comment. It is meant to be read as 2 distinct sentences.

I am not a lawyer but I do know that people are held responsible for the personal belongings they carry, say on a plane. I know that I cannot carry a prohibited item on a plane and claim that I didn't know how it got there. Which is probably why they make you say that your bag was not touched by any strangers before you board your flight.

The captain of a ship should be held responsible for the ship and it's cargo.

<comment><USER20> > _" I do know that people are held responsible for the personal belongings > they carry"_

Actually there's strong legal precedent in the opposite direction. From page 14 of [0], _" a defendant cannot knowingly acquire or possess that which he or she does not know exists"_. This sentiment is common in US law -- you can claim to not know how something got into your possession, and if that claim is reasonably credible, you'll typically be let off the hook.

[0] [http://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2012/May12/70opn12....](http://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2012/May12/70opn12.pdf)

<comment><USER19> >"a defendant cannot knowingly acquire or possess that which he or she does not know exists"

I read the above line several times carefully.

Here is the meaning I made out of that sentence, one cannot claim that they knew exactly how they got a certain object and then say at a later time that they did not even know such an object exists.

This is a different scenario than accepting responsibility for your personal belongings (say while flying) and then claiming that you don't know how it got there.

In the former case there is evidence that you got that object.

To summarize, my understanding of in flight carry on rules are you are aware of the things you are carrying and would be held responsible if you are later caught with a prohibited item.

<comment><USER20> > _" one cannot claim that they knew exactly how they got a certain object and > then say at a later time that they did not even know such an object exists"_

But it can happen in the opposite order. I recall at least one professional athlete [0] getting caught with drugs in his bag at the airport, and having the charges dismissed because (supposedly) his friend had used his bag and left the drugs in it, without his knowledge. The claim "I didn't know that existed" (ie, drugs _in the bag_ \-- knowing drugs exist in general is not the same as knowing drugs exist within your bag) is compatible with the later claim "given that it does exist, I'm certain as to where it came from" (knowing someone else had used that bag during the prior week).

In the context of this thread, it's quite possible for (some of) the crew of a ship to be in the dark as to what cargo might be onboard, and therefore to not _knowingly_ possess contraband or be involved in slave trading. _" Ignorance of the law is no defense; ignorance of crime is one."_ [1] As kbenson rightly pointed out, it's not "aiding and abetting" if you don't know crime is happening; it's only "aiding and abetting" if you're trying to help someone commit a crime. As the link you yourself posted says, _" It is necessary to show that the defendant has wilfully associated himself with the crime being committed"_ \-- not merely that he helped someone who happened to have committed a crime, but that he intentionally, knowingly, chose to participate in crime.

[0] [http://espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1906525](http://espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1906525)

[1] [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40709114/ns/us_news- weird_news/t/i...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40709114/ns/us_news- weird_news/t/ignorance-law-no-defense-ignorance-crime-one/)

<comment><USER19> Hmmm... I read the espn article and nowhere it says that the drug possession charges were dismissed.

So my statement that passengers are held responsible for thier possessions in their carry on still holds.

<comment><USER20> > _" nowhere it says that the drug possession charges were dismissed"_

Type "Carmelo Anthony drug charges dropped" into google [0].

Your statement is mostly correct, but the ways in which it's wrong are significant and relevant for this thread. As kbenson and I have both pointed out, ignorance _is_ a valid defense in US law, and was a valid defense in many legal traditions of the past. You may have heard the phrase "harboring a _known_ fugitive" \-- someone who provides shelter to someone they _know_ is running from the law can be held culpable for aiding and abetting, while someone who provides shelter to somebody who _happens to be_ running from the law (unknown to them) is treated as a victim. The generalization holds -- a person who _knowingly_ helps someone pull off a crime is culpable, while a person who _happens to_ help someone but didn't know they were helping a criminal is innocent.

Without more detail, we don't know how much of the crew of the ship in question might fall into either category.

[0] [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/nuggets...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/nuggets/2004-11-17-anthony_x.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When I saw the headline (including the publication) I expected a reference to The Admirable Crichton. But the story didn't really support that, and the tone was too somber anyway.

</comment><comment><USER22> Sounds like a good plot for a movie :)</comment>


Hacker News Security - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com/security.html <comment><USER2> Okay, I'll bite. With no updates since April 2017, why re-share this today and now?

Here is a link also to the legal page, last updated February 2017. Why am I sharing it? Also a mystery for others to solve, I guess. [https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/](https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Today is the day I found out this page existed, I thought it's fascinating, and figured others might find it interesting too.</comment></comment>


Do we have too many JS frameworks? - <AUTHOR>

It seems good people just keep writing more and more of them, I could not help but wonder, is it because people can't find what they look for in an existing framework? I would just fork it add my missing feature and do a pull request...  why so many good developers spend all this time on what might be sometimes re-inventing the wheel, just in a nicer package? are there other reasons than pure programming need? or is it just done for fun / education purposes? <comment><USER2> This happened with most frameworks throughout the years. We're still trying to figure out what we need from a JS framework, and we haven't figured out the balance to be good enough for everyone. Backbone is minimalist, ember is opinionated, knockout and angular have solutions that look really good for the enterprise and a particular subset of apps, and a few others trying out interesting new ideas.

This is really the second generation of JS frameworks, and there's likely a third one coming up that will consolidate the best ideas we've found so far with more batteries included. (I've been tempted to pull together a metaframework over backbone with a few essential plugins and great documentation, but my startup comes first.) (Note: Take my idea! I don't mind! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Tempting :) but same reasons here...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do we have too many editors? Seems like good people just keep writing more and more of them.

Do we have too many programming languages? Ditto, after all.

Do we have too many books? Too many songs? Too many paintings? Clothing designs?

Yes, it's fun, educational, a personal achievement, relieves a creative urge, and even, sometimes, profitable.</comment>


Change My View: the world is failing - <AUTHOR> Tell me; What are we doing right, vs, what doing wrong? Are we doing well, or doing wrong? <comment><USER2> If you are interested in how the world is doing -over the long term-, check out 'Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress' by Steven Pinker. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Now) "It argues that the Enlightenment values of reason, science, and humanism have brought progress; shows our progress with data that health, prosperity, safety, peace, and happiness have tended to rise worldwide; and explains the cognitive science of why this progress should be appreciated." It has its detractors, so apply your own grain of salt where needed.</comment>


Speaking JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://speakingjs.com/es5/ <comment><USER2> I hate books with contents like: Variables and Assignment Values, Booleans, Numbers, Operators, Strings,Statements, Functios, Exception Handling, Strict Mode, Variable Scoping and losures, Objects and Constructors, Arrays etc... there are milions books like that. I require from book to introduce me into new language in a manner where i don't have to suffer due to going throught dry facts and definitions. Give me pure examples. I want to create something useful during lecture of book about programming.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Books that focus on teaching syntax and common use cases really fall flat for me. The best programming books teach you how to think in the syntax of the language. Eloquent Javascript [1] does a good job of that and is also free.

The best programming book at teaching a practical contemporary language in depth while teaching you to think with it is Metaprogramming Ruby. That's a great read for anyone considering writing a book to teach a programming language. And the best book I've ever read on thinking about programming comprehensively is SICP. Which again, I would recommend reading at least half of if you are going to write a book teaching a language.

1\. [http://eloquentjavascript.net/](http://eloquentjavascript.net/)

<comment><USER4> Hey, I stumbled across a post of the author of eloquentjavascript that he's crowdfunding second edition of the book. My question is - how current is the first edition? Is it suitable to teach me JS, considering it's quite old? I'm not a good programmer. I know a bit of python, mainly for statistical tasks and some automation/scraping.

<comment><USER3> It's a great intro to Javascript. It's not going to teach you the most current webdev libraries but if you start with a strong foundation in Javascript (which you will get from Eloquent Javascript) you should be fine applying your knowledge to using popular libraries.

<comment><USER4> Thank you! Thanks to marijn too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 'Eloquent Javascript' ([http://eloquentjavascript.net/](http://eloquentjavascript.net/)) and 'Learning JavaScript Design Patterns' ([http://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/bo...](http://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/book/)) are the best resources so far.

<comment><USER3> I second Eloquent Javascript. It's the book I recommend to JS beginners. Secrets of the Javascript Ninja by John Resig & Bear Bibealt is another good one once you get past the terrible title.

I will checkout Learning Javascript Design Patterns on your recommendation. I bookmarked that book a while ago but forgot to return and give it a read.

<comment><USER5> Yes about Javascript Ninja, you are quite right. No doubt, its one's best companion for getting firm grip on cross-browser compatibility issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Recently found this :

[http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101s/sicp/](http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101s/sicp/)

SICP in Javascript.While the coding style is a little bit old school this should be linked in every javascript book / blog about learning Javascript. This stuff is just awesome.

I would gladly pay 30 bucks for a revised paper back version.

<comment><USER7> Also see _Higher-Order Javascript_ by Sean M. Burke which is a "JavaScriptish companion" to Mark-Jason Dominus's _Higher-Order Perl_ book - [http://interglacial.com/hoj/](http://interglacial.com/hoj/)

<comment><USER6> thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This book deliberately omits talking about Javascript in the browser, but the only reason I want to study Javascript is for its use in a browser context!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a matter of deliberate focus! If you are interested in browser stuff, you can either combine Speaking JS with the content on MDN [1] or buy a different book. I like the books by Nicholas Zakas and "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide".

[1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I never knew that NaN is not strictly equal to itself in JavaScript (so NaN === NaN => false). Very interesting.

<comment><USER10> I would be surprised if it were. All languages I know says NaN == NaN is false.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it possible the author is getting more revenue from that little ad on the right side then from actual sales?

Is it common for O'Reilly authors to release their books this way?

<comment><USER12> I strongly considered the approach of releasing the contents of my recent book online with Mining the Social Web 2E [1] but instead decided to pursue what I felt was a standard OSS model: release a really high quality version of the source code that's optimized for easy learning in IPython Notebook format (optionally packaged as a turn-key VM) on GitHub [2] with the book being a form of "premium support" for the codebase if people want to learn more or dig deeper. I touch on all of this somewhat in the book's blog's "book as a startup posts" [3], and it seems to be working well so far.

I'm increasingly becoming interested in the prospect of releasing the entire contents of the book (both prose and source code) in IPython Notebook format so that you could read and work in the book seamlessly as "executable paper" like this full-text sampler of Chapter 1 [4] if it were hosted on Wakarii or a similar platform that offers a free tier. It really seems to me that this is the future of tech books: _learning platforms_ with prose and example code integrated seamlessly.

[1] [http://amzn.to/GPd59m](http://amzn.to/GPd59m)

[2] [https://github.com/ptwobrussell/Mining-the-Social-Web-2nd- Ed...](https://github.com/ptwobrussell/Mining-the-Social-Web-2nd-Edition)

[3] [http://miningthesocialweb.com/category/book-as-a- startup/](http://miningthesocialweb.com/category/book-as-a-startup/)

[4] [http://bit.ly/IW3cbc](http://bit.ly/IW3cbc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anybody else getting 404s?

<comment><USER14> I saw some tweets yesterday from which I inferred there have been some DNS propagation issues. I notice the IP is an S3 one so I tried.. [http://s3.amazonaws.com/speakingjs.com/es5/index.html](http://s3.amazonaws.com/speakingjs.com/es5/index.html) and it seems to work, so might be a good temporary workaround.

<comment><USER13> thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Rate our startup: getdenso.com (It's TiVo/Instapaper for web video) - <AUTHOR>

Right now it's invite only, but we'll do our best to respond to your request within the hour!<p>Unless of course there's "insane demand" ala Google+;) <comment><USER2> Sometimes when I'm on my iPhone there are videos that I want to really see, but can't because they're not playable on it for different reasons. I then forget about them. So maybe something like this for mobile phones would be cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can actually email that link to email@example.com (from Mobile Safari) and it will bookmark that video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really like the basic feel of the product. Just a couple of points:

a) I don't want it to send me an email every time I bookmark a video. I see no way changing the email preferences?

b) I archived one of the videos & now it is no where to be seen. Am I looking in the wrong place?

<comment><USER4> a) Fair. We'll sort that! c) You're not, we need to enable that too. Originally it was delete, but we're going with a more Instapaper-y vibe. You might want to go back...

<comment><USER3> Great! Just out of curiosity:

a) Why is every video added to a download queue by default, instead of keeping it on-demand?

b) Any legal consequences of allowing users to download copyrighted videos illegally uploaded on youtube & other video sites? Think music videos, tv series.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://getdenso.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> If you guys could also hook this up with <http://www.plexapp.com/> so I could watch things on sofa that I'd saved while via mobile. I'd be a very happy guy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Plex and Boxee are both very much in our plans!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It looks better than MediaMall's PlayLater. Very nice. Not sure if I'm seeing this correctly, but "And watch when you want, offline!". OFFLINE!? On any device? How?

<comment><USER7> Once you've bookmarked a video, you'll see a link to add your personalized podcast to iTunes.

So you can sync with your iPad / iPhone, etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How do you differentiate from Radbox (radbox.me) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> You should try it out ;) but we _think_ we have a killer iTunes integration feature which lets you watch your videos on your iOS devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Any connection with the Japanese car components manufacturer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope :) Denso means "transmission" in Japanese (which is sort of what we do), but yeah the car component company did come up during our research.

<comment><USER10> actually that's exactly what i was thinking about when i saw the name. denso spark plugs!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> innovative product!! keep up the good work.. i like the interface design :)

</comment><comment><USER12> how about an invite please?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there, we've cleared all pending invites. If you haven't received one yet, please mail us at firstname.lastname@example.com and we'll sort you out. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> does it work on the ipad??

<comment><USER4> It does, we currently have an iTunes podcast approach but a native app is coming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> love it ;-) Been using it for just a month now :) Convenient on the go podcast!

</comment><comment><USER14> easy to use and very convenient!

</comment><comment><USER15> firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER16> very good quality videos, easy to use and very convenient! love the service

</comment><comment><USER17> You need a way better name. waylive.com is for sale!

<comment><AUTHOR> domain squatters on HN, wow.</comment></comment>