Expertise in the Age of YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://behavioralscientist.org/expertise-in-the-age-of-youtube/ <comment><USER2> As a finish carpenter for a number of years and having to deal with fixing homeowners attempts at doing their own remodel efforts based on them watching youtube videos, I've come to general law regarding expertise or 'how to' videos. There's an inverse relationship between quality of video and accuracy of information (or maybe just usefulness of information.)

The majority of good polished videos have the least accurate or useful information. These I've surmised are people that would rather be into video production or youtube stardom than they would being actually good at the subject they profess. Alternatively, some of the worst grainy, shaky cam videos I've seen, usually on the jobsite, are some of the best practices, tricks of the trade or just informational rich videos you can get. These are people that are not into being youtube stars and are just part of the 'sharing community' as it maybe was originally envisioned. But as Rumsfeld said, there's known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, and when you're a homeowner watching how-to videos, its very difficult to know what you should know.... so most of them go by, instinctively, the quality of video production as their guide to what they should be doing.

Sure there are great craftsmen with great video quality and there are some really poor craftsmen with poor video quality but these are not the bulk of what's out there. What rises to the top of search offerings seems to be equally what's been marketed (poor craftsmen, high quality, "please like,share, and subscribe") or what's been organically liked (poor quality, high craftsmanship).

For the tradesmen out there dealing with homeowners, its now sometimes a bit of an uphill battle after homeowners have done their 'youtube' research and have determined how hard the job they've asked you to bid is going to be.

<comment><USER3> As a die hard Jack Of All Trades handyman, I can't overstate how incredible a resource YouTube has been for me. You need to come at it with at least a small baseline of knowledge of what you're trying to attempt, good shop hygiene/safety habits, patience, a "measure twice, cut once" attitude, and so on. But once you get in the right mindset, there is just so much to learn there. I credit online resources for helping me to learn:

Basic carpentry. I've built several pieces of furniture around my home including a pretty nice poker table (so, upholstery too). I built a 12'x6' shed in my back yard on a foundation that's not going to sink or slide over. Drywall and ceiling repair. Re-did a bunch of baseboard trim and only me and someone who knows what they're doing can find the mistakes. I know my limit though. I'm probably not going to attempt kitchen cabinetry or replace my roof for example.

Basic plumbing. Gutted and replaced bathrooms and kitchens on multiple houses. Repaired a busted spa back to like new. Re-did sprinkler systems. Cautiously working my way up to gas lines--don't want to blow up my home.

Basic car maintenance and repair. Everything from oil changes, brake pads up to replacing intake/exhaust systems, replacing a power steering system, light bodywork.

Metal and fiberglass work. I'm building a single engine kit plane in my garage. Online resources have been vital, and there's no way I'd have gotten anywhere on this project without them.

You need to have a good filter. You're right that the highly polished "Brought To You By Tool Company!" productions with the generic 80s porn music soundtracks are pretty bad, and the "Hey Guys! Like And Subscribe" bros are always the worst. Find the videos without background music and with bad lighting and sound quality where the person is actually grunting and doing the work in real time along with you. They're usually the best.

<comment><USER4> Do you have a list of videos/channels you've found useful for these projects? I would find it useful and I'm sure others would appreciate it as well.

<comment><USER3> No particular channel I follow. I just do searches for whatever task and look for the lowest budget video I can find.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Skillful coaching is important, but a big part of it is simply accountability: knowing that someone will check on your progress at regular intervals and that you need to do some work in between interviews to not look like a fool.

That's the concept behind the "accountability partner": someone who is not an expert into what you're trying to achieve, but who bugs you regularly to make sure you're moving forward.

After searching for "accountability partner as a service" I couldn't find anything other than weird marketing websites that looked more than a little scammy, so I built a simple tool that sends me an email everyday for each task defined in the system, and that lets me record progress by responding to those emails.

The concept is akin to Jerry Seinfeld's productivity hack: "don't break the chain", meaning you need to do something about your craft every day. If you skip a day, the chain breaks and restarts at zero.

The effectiveness of this is surprising; the accountability system can't assess the quality of the work in any way and isn't even a person that I could disappoint, but having to respond to an automated email every day to log my progress and store ideas, etc., pushes me in ways I would never have expected.

<comment><USER6> I do this with my team with github issues. They get a daily reminder of issues older than 5 days. We are not getting more done, but we are more aware of what needs to be done and close issues that are just a nice to have. Accountability works well with people, unfortunately most companies just say accountability is important but don't put any real process in place to make it happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love that information is so freely and readily available, and it's one of the reasons why I genuinely believe younger people these days are growing up more intelligent than the older generation (except maybe when it comes to social skills).

The downside is that this means keeping a steady job is becoming increasingly more difficult. The moat that protected the job security of highly advanced professionals is rapidly deteriorating due to this democratization of information. Credentials mean less today than they ever have in history. Specialists will have to be on top of the ever-expanding spigot of new information in order to remain competitive and justify their fees in a time when anybody can just search Google/Youtube for the answer.

None of those would be problems if workers weren't financially dependent on their jobs, such as if we had a universal basic income. But since most of us our financially dependent on our jobs, we're basically in an arms race against each other to the bottom. Stay at the bleeding edge, or get replaced by a more financially desperate harder working 20 year old from an Asian country who learned everything you know from Youtube / the internet. Many will instinctively deny this now, but just watch how this continues to play out over the next 10-20 years.

<comment><USER8> I call what you're describing "information asymmetry"; a small amount of people holding all of the information. Much of our society's modes of productivity depend on many people not having access to information. How can you repair your car if there is nobody to show you how? I guess you'll have to take it to a mechanic!

But the internet completely destroyed information asymmetry, many people have access to lots of information now. I don't need to take my car to a mechanic or pay someone to teach me, I can watch a YouTube video on how to change my oil.

The side effect of the destruction of information asymmetry is that a LOT of people depended on it, and they are all going to have to figure out where they stand in the new marketplace of information. I think we're also seeing huge social movements because people are reading stuff online and reflecting about their city/state/government and saying "hold on, what you're doing isn't right, I've read about why you're wrong". The Arab spring, occupy wall st, the european refugee crisis, the Hong Kong protests, the Chilean protests, basically any major social movement in the last 20 years could be argued to have been triggered by the internet.

<comment><USER9> > I don't need to take my car to a mechanic or pay someone to teach me, I can > watch a YouTube video on how to change my oil.

This is historically why reading comprehension has been such a big deal. This information has _always_ been widely available, in a maintenance manual you could borrow from your local library.

<comment><USER10> This point has stunned me recently. I purchased an air conditioner and furnace recently and thought hey I wonder what is in the massive manual. It turns out a lot! The same is true for most of the appliance and machine manuals I've looked at. What scares me from using said manuals is my lack of the basics in plumbing, electrical, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it's especially interesting to look at how quickly people master a brand new field too, since it seems the timespan between a new hobby getting started and people making professional quality works in said area has gone down significantly too.

For instance, my go to example are video game mods and ROM hacks. In the olden days, these communities grew quite slowly, and it took a fair amount of time for people to get to understand the workings of a new game's engine and how it could be built upon.

And you can see this if you look at Super Mario 64. In it early days, mods were really basic, and even the fanciest ones looked super primitive by today's standards:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgLc0rPRs3U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgLc0rPRs3U)

It then took years to go from stuff like that to more advanced original game mods like Super Mario 64 Star Road, and even longer before ASM coding became something many people understood and used for custom enemies, bosses, gimmicks, etc (like in Kaze Emanuar's current works).

Now contrast to Super Mario Odyssey. It took just months for mods to get made for that game, and under a year for fancy looking ones like this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss7unbD4yHg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss7unbD4yHg)

And even that's a slower example. Since then, we've gone from seeing modding scenes take years to develop, to seeing them a week or two after release, to in some cases seeing mods getting made BEFORE the game officially hit store shelves altogether.

Seriously, Smash Bros Ultimate got mods before the game was available to buy, all based on leaked copies posted online.

Outside of games, same thing happens in web development too. New framework pops up, professional looking sites/apps/whatever get made in the first week. It's gotten to the point that those jokes about looking for 'rockstar ninjas in [new programming language here]' may not be jokes anymore.

But yeah, the quality baseline goes up significantly quicker now.

<comment><USER12> But those examples seem to be the result of more frameworks and tooling and boilerplate code that is already available that people can just build upon rather than delve into the inner workings and figure stuff out - rather than people learning to become experts much faster.

<comment><USER13> 0 to 1 is the hard part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This speaks to me. I do a bunch of DIY work on my cars and various maintenance on my house, thanks to youtube videos, that I highly doubt I would have ever had the skill or confidence to tackle in a time before the internet. Many of these things are literally less work to do myself than the hassle of getting someone else to do it, let alone the cost. But in an earlier time, absent knowing someone who could teach you the skill, it just wouldn't have been an option.

Despite the problems platforms like YouTube cause (or enable), I certainly wouldn't want to do without it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have been starting the process of learning hand woodworking by watching the likes of Paul Sellers. It is amazing how much knowledge there is available on YouTube about craftsmanship. Combining YouTube with niche web forums multiplies the learning power. I'm already able to dimension boards with nothing but a hand plane, a combination square, a depth gauge, and winding sticks. I'm just at the start of my journey but I'm so thankful YouTube and all these creators are out there to introduce me to this new hobby!

<comment><USER16> paul sellers is great! such a gem. check out wood work web, johnathan katz moses, pask makes, izzy swan and jackmanworks... as well as some of the older videos from William Ng. they are all quality!

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the pointers, I like Essential Craftsman too, a bit of philosophy with some great technique and history thrown in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm interested to know how other developers on HN prefer to learn. I really like just running into a problem and Googling my way to a solution. I read snippets of docs, blog articles, SO answers, etc. and then try to piece together an understanding. I have a hard time incorporating videos into my ad hoc learning.

What is your preferred method of learning new tools, techniques, etc?

<comment><USER19> I'm the same way. I find that choosing a project that inspires me takes me much further than just saying "I want to learn X, let me follow a tutorial".

On a related note, I just read nassim taleb's anti fragile which has a section arguing that most progress comes from people tinkering with things to get something they can sell or to solve some problem they have rather than academics trying to understand things from basic principles. I don't agree with it entirely but that and my way of learning has led me to value experiential learning much higher than society does currently

<comment><USER20> Tutorials on youtube are generally terrible for learning because they don't show you any of the design decisions, mistakes, thought process etc. As if what stood between you and programming Tetris in Rust was not knowing the order of keystrokes. Udemy has (a few) authors with much better motivated examples I find.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In college I met a friend who had a MacBook whose keyboard layout was assembled using the Dvorak layout (this was in 2009). Roll forward a couple of years and I had met another friend who used his OS to map QWERTY to Dvorak. Inspired, I spent a few days during Christmas break learning a new keyboard layout. It's still what I use today.

Roll forward a couple of more years and I'm working on my Ph.d. and have the thought that someone must have done more optimization on keyboard layouts: Meet [http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx). That inspired me to learn QFMLWY, something I have yet to do.

Roll forward to a few months ago and I'm experiencing some slight wrist pain; a coworker uses a Kinesis Advantage and recommends it. In true punk style (and unhappy with the Kinesis' outdated appearence), I endeavor to find a superior product. I stumble upon the Ergodox EZ, a fully-featured workhorse. I quickly become frustrated at my reduced typing speed and seek out a better solution. Cue Plover and the OpenStenography project. Learning stenographic typing is my next life goal.

This is a niche path involving one skill set: Improving the human-keyboard interface. And, it involved real-world interaction with people and the resources that people on the internet have provided. I'm convinced that either only in-real-life (IRL) or only online interactions would have inhibited my growth in this domain.

I'm sure that this same concept applies to every web development framework or conlang or beauty style or any human endeavor. As an aside: These ideas are also related to why I'm confident that an artificial general intelligence developed in the vacuum of the internet will not succeed relative to a competing technology that is able to benefit from both offline, interactive experiences and also online information trawling.

<comment><USER22> > I stumble upon the Ergodox EZ, a fully-featured workhorse. I quickly become > frustrated at my reduced typing speed and seek out a better solution. Cue > Plover and the OpenStenography project. Learning stenographic typing is my > next life goal.

I've been using the Dvorak layout since 2009. First on a TypeMatrix 2030 USB for a long time and currently with an ErgoDox EZ Shine that I bought like a year ago or something (wow, time flies! I thought it was only a year ago that I bought it but I looked it up in my e-mail archive and it was in fact December 2017 that I bought it) and have been using since then. Right now I am typing on the QWERTY keyboard of my MacBook Air, just because of where and how I am sitting at the moment. But I love my ErgoDox and use it a lot.

Here is my custom Dvorak based layout for ErgoDox EZ that I created basically recreating the position of most of the keys that I was used to with the TypeMatrix 2030 USB that I had, and with a couple of minor but important modifications.

[https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/ergodox- ez/layouts/ENb6/lat...](https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/ergodox- ez/layouts/ENb6/latest/0)

This layout has been working perfectly for me and I am very happy with it. It's mostly looking the same now as when I first created it (that link is for the most recent version, the one I am using now).

Some things to note about this configuration and about ErgoDox EZ in general (for the benefit of others ITT):

\- In the typical position of caps lock I have Escape when I tap it, but Control when I hold it. Awesome!

\- This whole layout resides on the keyboard itself. I have all my computers set to US standard layout and am able to have my layout work always on all of my computers across all operating systems with no configuration or anything. This alone is worth like a couple of hundred bucks at least, seriously!

\- The previous keyboard that I had, you know, the TypeMatrix, had hardware Dvorak support too, but I always had to press a button on it each time I unplugged and replugged it, or woke my computer from sleep, or turned my computer back on after having shut it down. It's actually _surprising_ how annoying pressing that button each time where I needed to, which wasn't always (because back them I was remapping the keys to Dvorak in software on most of my personal computers), but often enough that it got annoying. None of that B.S. with the ErgoDox! :D

Prior to purchasing the ErgoDox EZ those two years ago, I too had looked a bit at stenography tools and projects. My conclusion back then was that it seemed useful, and was interesting, but cost prohibitive and time consuming to learn, with the added factor of uncertainty that I have no idea if writing code with stenography methods would actually be faster or in other ways better than my current means of writing software.

Anyway, if you do end up learning stenography and use it to write code I would love to hear about it and I hope you post about it to HN then.

<comment><USER21> I took a look at your configuration and there are definitely some things that I'm going to steal. Where's your shift key, though?!

> This whole layout resides on the keyboard itself.

This was a game-changer for me. No toggling between DV and US, anymore.

Regarding stenography for coding, I will probably only use stenographic typing for software documentation (prose). The main use for stenographic typing will be blog posts, emails, HN comments, etc.

With the ability for the Ergodox EZ to emulate a serial port , I can use Plover+Ergodox EZ as layer 1, say, and Dvorak as layer 0, without needing to change anything at the OS or application level when I do this (Dvorak will be seen as a USB HID which Plover won't see and steno-mode will be seen as a serial connection, which gets processed by Plover and forwarded to the OS).

<comment><USER22> > I took a look at your configuration and there are definitely some things > that I'm going to steal.

Glad to hear that :)

> Where's your shift key, though?!

The main shift key is on the left side, below the "Esc / Ctrl" button. Additionally I have a secondary shift key on the opposite side that is activated when holding it pressed, but I actually never use the secondary shift key, only the main shift key. Same with right hand side ctrl, I never use that one either, and layer 3 is empty so I don't use the activation key for layer 3 either. Other than that I use all of the buttons on layer 0.

The other layers have quite a few keys that I don't use however, so I should probably update my config to reflect that.

While I am at it I am going to rearrange the Fn keys a bit, because I always struggle to remember where I put F12 exactly so I end up counting from the known position of F1 up to key F12. And the situation where I need F12 of course is when I am going to do something in BIOS/UEFI settings on some computer and like you know you only have like 2 seconds to press the correct key :P So I should make it so that I have F12 at the natural position that is the very top right corner.

Actually, let me go ahead and do that now real quick.

Here: [https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/ergodox- ez/layouts/PBKjJ/Zq...](https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/ergodox- ez/layouts/PBKjJ/ZqWv6/0)

This one now has the unused keys removed, and layers 1 and 2 merged, as well as the () and {} and [] quick-access keys repositioned because while I've been using the [] and the {} quick-access keys a lot I've been a little bugged by my choice of position for them. After making the modifications above I flashed that config to the ErgoDox, meaning that what you see there is matches exactly what I use which is now all that is on my ErgoDox and none of the keys that I thought might be nice to have but which I never use :)

> Regarding stenography for coding, I will probably only use stenographic > typing for software documentation (prose). The main use for stenographic > typing will be blog posts, emails, HN comments, etc.

I see, makes sense.

> With the ability for the Ergodox EZ to emulate a serial port , I can use > Plover+Ergodox EZ as layer 1, say, and Dvorak as layer 0, without needing to > change anything at the OS or application level when I do this (Dvorak will > be seen as a USB HID which Plover won't see and steno-mode will be seen as a > serial connection, which gets processed by Plover and forwarded to the OS).

You have me convinced. I do type quite a lot of prose text too, and I knew vaguely that someone was using the ErgoDox EZ for stenography, but I didn't know how and I didn't know that Ergodox EZ could emulate a serial port. Do you have any links about how to set this up for Plover with the ErgoDox EZ? Otherwise I am sure I will figure it out eventually :)

Edit: Actually, tab is missing from the layout in the web UI for some reason. Put it back in place and changed the link in this comment to point to the version that has tab put back in place.

Edit 2: Made some small adjustments to the positions of some of the keys and flashed the modified to my ErgoDox EZ. Updated link and some of the text in this comment surrounding that link.

<comment><USER21> Apologies for the delay. I rarely log in to HackerNews. Thanks so much for getting back to me.

> Where's your shift key, though?!

 _palmface_ I had meant <kbd>Tab</kbd>. But, you addressed this in spite of my mistake at the end of your response.

When I get Plover running with my keyboard and can toggle between modes successfully I'll send you a link to my explanation to get it started. From the looks of things I'll be cobbling together a few different sets of instructions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've been working on my YouTube educational channel html/css/design ([https://youtube.com/FollowAndrew](https://youtube.com/FollowAndrew)) for a bit now. Pickup is slow, but it's been fun helping a greater audience learn new skills!

<comment><USER24> I mean this in the kindest way possible, but do you think it's appropriate to teach such new CSS selectors? I just bounced around the slider on your featured video and I'm seeing stuff that only hits 85-90% on caniuse.com which is unacceptable for the apps I typically do. I still have a lot of IE11 that's used in large corps, etc. I'd LOVE to use things like grid-template but I can only imagine the fallout - I've only just been able to start utilizing basic flexbox.

It may just be different audiences/userbases, idk.

<comment><USER23> That's a pretty good question actually, and difficult to address. I try and push new concepts/tech as a way of education on what's coming.

For edu channels it seems it's a balance of teaching core concepts and also teaching what's "popular" to keep folks interested.

You have to make a cutoff at some point with caniuse, as I suppose to get 100% coverage we'd still be doing table-based layouts or float hacks. The old adage of "know your audience" will eventually dictate the tech.

<comment><USER24> > That's a pretty good question actually, and difficult to address. I try and > push new concepts/tech as a way of education on what's coming.

Thanks =) ... I'm always disparaged with HN when you say something that can be viewed as not supportive. (even -1 votes feels like "oh come on guys!")

I think the thing that scared me the most out of that video was using things that are approx. 90% globally supported for layout.

Totally agree with "know your audience". Specifically, I teach the habit of look it up on MDN, then caniuse, then have VMs/devices ready-to-go and test it even further.

Simple rendering/functionality issues have turned into legal action against my past employers. Ex: if you cause even a 5-10% drop in ecommerce conversions due to what shoulda been a simple CSS fix, and that goes unnoticed for a month, that's a potential lawsuit/termination with _very_ "black and white provable damages". Unfortunately, I've lived this =(

It's worth noting that I work on conversion-based web solutions that are "mom and pops" small, all the way up to "if it's down for 1 minute we just lost thousands of dollars"... but really I've learned to be incredibly careful with both. Every solution I build online at some point means $ even if it's non- direct conversions (ie: purely informational, no sales online sales funnel, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> One project that anyone reading Hacker News ought to not be afraid of taking on is that which involves under-sink plumbing. There are so many valuable instructional videos on YouTube that will show you how to do the work correctly. If you mess up, the materials are inexpensive and easily replaceable. The risk of doing the work incorrectly is relatively low. The greatest cost is of personal time. You'll end up making several trips to a supply store if you aren't prepared.

It's a valuable skill to have that will save you thousands of dollars over a lifetime. Give it a try next time you need work done.

<comment><USER26> pro tip: clear out under the sink and TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE PIPE WORK _before_ taking it apart.

It is a fun and interesting puzzle project putting it back together blind. It's not impossible. But it is tedious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A superb reflection on the accelerated potential technology affords learning.

I would add an additional note that the choice of topics to dive into is now both more vast and accessible than it has ever been.

Not only can you learn what you want to, but you can stumble across that which you'd never thought of or scarcely knew existed and discover more about yourself along the way.

When you search for things to learn you're merely bolstering your predisposition, but when other things emerge before you and stick, something altogether more interesting is taking place.

<comment><USER28> I so often discard internet real educational value [0] but it might start to have an impact.

Even if I'd think fablab/shop per city or neighborhood might be more efficient, it's still great.

[0] to me the only good thing there was khan academy which was basically video tutorial you can rewind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > And it feels like a category error to ask which accountant, or political > pundit, is the Greatest of All Time, but the answers surely matter more for > the human project than the ones for Scrabble or League of Legends—where data > and answers are readily available.

It feels like a category error because it _is_ a category error. Competitive games have a finite set of explicitly defined rules and win conditions; jobs do not.

> Even small changes along these lines would be a big deal. Imagine if each of > us got as good at our jobs as the average teenager is at Fortnite.

I think the average person is already probably better at their job than the average teenager is at Fortnite; it's just that the "win conditions" for an average person at a job are significantly more complex and can vary quite a bit between different people and situations.

For example, besides whatever people themselves consider to be a "win" at their jobs, there's also things like this: [https://dilbert.com/strip/2012-05-29](https://dilbert.com/strip/2012-05-29)

</comment><comment><USER30> Me and my friend are fixing, renovating old bikes as a hobby. A rule of thumb is that each repair requires watching 2-3 youtube videos first.

We are joking that people no longer are flying to the Moon because NASA have lost all of the videos of how to assemble a rocket. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER31> What "absurdly demanding online game" is the author referring to in the first paragraph ? He mentions Overwatch later in the article but in another context so I'm not sure that's the one he meant.

<comment><USER32> Probably Fortnite, though all the players surely haven't "internalized its mechanical nuances to Ph.D. level"

Mexico Population: ~128 million

Fortnite Peak monthly players: 78.3 million

LoL peak montly players: 111 million

Fortnite total accounts: 250 million

you can say whatever you want if it's a blog article

<comment><USER33> > you can say whatever you want if it's a blog article

I just want to de-normalize that a bit: blogs should strive for high standards, even though some don't. They are a major form of information these days!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I love imagining what Johnny5 would be if it had youtube.</comment>


Facebook Recruiting III - Keyword Extraction - <AUTHOR> https://www.kaggle.com/c/facebook-recruiting-iii-keyword-extraction <comment><USER2> _The winners, the people who provide the best set of predictions based on an analysis of a database of millions of text questions, will get jobs at Facebook._

Actually, it looks like the winners will just get interviews at Facebook.

I think Kaggle is a very interesting site and company, but I think it's a stretch say they hold "data science" competitions. Most of their contest are extremely limited in scope to applying machine learning to pre-sanitized data sets. This really covers only a small part of what practicing data scientists do.

<comment><USER3> Kaggle is an interesting site. But the cynic in me says these contests/competitions are just a cheap way of effort harvesting. For a pittance, the companies sponsoring these contests are getting tremendous value in return. If you are a statistician/analytics person, there is no reason to let your value and skills get commoditized in this manner.

<comment><USER4> Last I heard, Kaggle charges $10,000/month for a competition.

<comment><USER3> The dollar equivalent of the value the companies get in return would be an order of magnitude more than what Kaggle charges the companies/clients that sponsor the contests.

<comment><USER4> That doesn't mean it's "cheap", for the same reason Oracle isn't cheap or a private plane charter isn't cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How will this "baffle normal people"? If by normal people you mean people who aren't data scientists, then sure, it will. It'll baffle them in the same way the bar exam will baffle "normal" people, those who aren't trying to practice law.

Anyway, this sounds like a great way of candidate hunting, and a refreshing solution to all of the "interviews are broken" posts that have been around lately.

<comment><USER6> businessinsider articles are written for those with the attention span and IQ of goldfish

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why don't the moderators of this forum at least write a notification of the changed title and link? Some of the comments here don't make sense as a result.

<comment><USER8> Not only that, the whole purpose of this submission makes no sense as a result. It used to be a businessinsider.com article with proper context, explaining what Kaggle is, why Facebook was using it, and what StackExchange is. It was a journalism piece, maybe a bad one, but it fit the criteria of why we read articles.

Now it links to Kaggle directly with a title that makes no sense whatsoever and provides absolutely no context. So instead of getting contextual information intended for mass consumption (an article), we got nothing of value. Great job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Did past competition winners end up with a position at Facebook?

<comment><USER10> I don't know for sure, but I think it was only good for an interview. There wasn't any kind of legally binding language in the contest rules, and the fact that I received a ping from Facebook recruiters despite finishing past 50th place in the competition makes me feel like it was a fishing expedition. It's money well spent for Facebook when you consider that they probably aren't paying more than 50k to Kaggle to host the competition and probably get at least two hires out of each one.

<comment><USER9> I understand that it was only good for an interview and does not guarantee a job. I would still like to know if Facebook did indeed hire someone (and not just "call for interview") via the Kaggle gate. Basically, I am looking for an all and out success story.</comment></comment></comment>


Is Google Knol failing? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/poor-google-knol-has-gone-from-a-wikipedia-killer-to-a-craigslist-wannabe/

<comment><USER2> Is it failing? I think it's a little late for that question. More like "why did it fail?"

I understand the nature of a company like Google is to cast your net wide, devote a small amount of resources to a bunch of products and hope some of them take off. That's what Knol is part of and that's fine. Google's mistake has been not improving or shutting it down before it became an embarrassment.

Given that I consider articles like this to be exactly the level of mockery they deserve.

<comment><USER3> _Google's mistake has been not improving or shutting it down before it became an embarrassment._

Yes. But there was probably too much corporate inertia to shut it down within forty-eight hours after it was opened to public posting, by which time it was a huge embarrassment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Knol is Google trying to Cuil Wikipedia

</comment><comment><USER5> Honestly, it took me this headline to recall that thing exist at all…

</comment><comment><USER6> Well...here, courage is being scared of embarrassment but doing it anyways. nice try, G.

</comment><comment><USER7> _Why Google's online encyclopedia will never be as good as Wikipedia_

<http://www.slate.com/id/2200401>

</comment><comment><USER8> God, I hope they shut it down. It was immediately populated by SEO freaks who kept looking at PR flowing from a google.com domain. And it made me feel like I had to do it, and I hate doing shit purely for SEO reasons.

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh, yeah Knol. Is that still around?

</comment><comment><USER10> Google what?

</comment><comment> onreact-com Google just needs to downrank Wikipedia a little and it fails. I guess Google Knol will sooner or later rank above Wikipedia. We all know that Eric Schmidt has denied that "don't be evil" has been ever an official motto of his corporation.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, but Google Knol does not and probably will never match Wikipedia for sheer scope and variety of content. You can't outrank Wikipedia if you aren't even competing with it.

Knol has ~300,000 articles in total, many of which are instructional on specific subtopics. Wikipedia has 3 million articles in English on every topic. Not only is Wikipedia much bigger, it also has a more specific focus (creating an encyclopedia).

<comment> onreact-com Yeah, but you can outrank where you already have an article. ;-) Once Knol ranks above Wikipedia more people will notice and contribute.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just the name was bad enough to doom it, IMO.</comment>


A majority of millennials now reject capitalism - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email <comment><USER2> I think this sums it all: ""The word 'capitalism' doesn't mean what it used to," said Zach Lustbader, a senior at Harvard involved in conducting the poll, which was published Monday. For those who grew up during the Cold War, capitalism meant freedom from the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes. For those who grew up more recently, capitalism has meant a financial crisis from which the global economy still hasn't completely recovered."

<comment><USER2> In my opinion Capitalism is not the perfect system, it's better than the alternatives. That, however, doesn't mean we should not criticize and try to amend any wrongdoings that Capitalism has evolved to have.

<comment><USER3> Capitalism is perfect system. The thing is that there's no real capitalism anywhere in the world.

<comment><USER4> There is no "perfect system" in the same way that there is no "perfect algorithm", unless you can define the goal.

What is the best sorting algorithm? Is it the one that sorts a random list in the shortest time? Or the one that uses the least memory? Most likely we'll pick by balancing a few important metrics, which leaves us with "optimal". Far from perfect.

If we're discussing Capitalism vs Socialism, instead of criticizing the opposition for ignorance (like every comment below the WashPo story), let's accept that different groups are optimizing for different goals. And there are so many competing objectives: efficient distribution of wealth, national economic growth, safety net for unlucky/disadvantaged, protecting shared resources (environment), etc etc etc.

<comment><USER5> Sorting arrays is such a capitalist concept. All array elements should be treated equally. There, sorted in O(1).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> An important distinction to keep in mind: capitalism != free market.

From the article [http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbli...](http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2016/01/capitalism- vs-markets.html)

> They are, in fact, two different things: capitalism is a system of > ownership; markets a method of exchange. Although the two have sometimes > gone together, this need not be so. Crony capitalism in which a few > monopolies or cartels run much of the economy gives us capitalism without > markets. And market socialism would give us markets without capitalism*.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure how "free" a market can be if you're not free to acquire capital.

<comment><USER8> There is a button directly at the top of this page: "apply to S2016 YC batch". Boom! Capital acquired.

There are other ways, too.

<comment><USER7> I agree with you. That's why I'm questioning GP's idea of "Free Markets without Capitalism" for any reasonable definition of "Free".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am in favor of socialism, and if I was forced to choose between "socialism" and "capitalism" on a survey I would pick socialism. But this does not mean I reject capitalism. I am generally in favor of free markets and private property. But I want taxes on externalities (eg. pollution), and I want enough wealth redistribution to prevent the kind of extreme inequality we see in America and similar countries. Countries generally considered capitalist already have some taxation and wealth redistribution. The question of "capitalist" as the article calls it vs. "socialist" is a matter of degree, not a binary choice. I think we should move further towards the socialist side, but that does not mean I want a centrally planned economy and everybody to have exactly the same wealth.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't be quick to dismiss them as ignorants. Just looking at the markets the past few years, how they are and how they react, it doesn't seem like capitalism is trustworthy. There is no direction and often no reason behind it. If capitalism is a means to achieve national interests, it's not clear whose interests it serves anymore, it's too globalized.

<comment><USER8> Capitalism serves the interests of all market participants, including general public. As every consumer-faced business owner knows, rich and well-developed middle class is absolutely necessary for good sales and healthy profits.

"National interests" don't care about public welfare. They only care about outcompeting other nation states, both in wartime and peacetime. Public interests are routinely sacrificed by governments for the sake of such competition.

<comment><USER11> So what do you think dissolved the rich and well-developed middle class that millennials never saw?

<comment><USER8> Middle class is currently far from being dissolved. Jobs are still there, salaries are paid, taxes are collected.

As for "what caused the crisis of jobs and industrial society", the answer is of course automation (this is one thing where Marx was right). The full-blown crisis was imminent 100 years ago (which is why socialist regimes appeared), but it was delayed by two world wars (there are no unemployed in wartime), the Cold war, and rise of the clerks / bureaucracy.

Socialism was Marx's answer to the idea of automation of production, but it didn't work out 100 years ago. It will not work now as well. We have to think of something new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A man who has not been a socialist before 25 has no heart. If he remains one after 25 he has no head. — King Oscar II of Sweden

Whilst that's a variant of an older quote there is generally an expectation that 19/20 year olds are going to be more revolutionary than their elders. As a 30 year old who grew up during the 90s capitalism had vanquished communism and was rapidly improving quality of life around the world. Economic growth was assumed and student radicalism went through one of its quieter patches and began to focus much more on equalities and access rather than economic issues.

Today's youth are perhaps returning back to a more traditional model of rebellion against their parents. Be it the 1930s elite becoming communist at Cambridge, French students in the 60s or US students in 1970.

<comment><USER11> Alternatively, a rebellion against a system that screwed our parents (loss of labor jobs, mortgage crises) and is now screwing us (student loans, mass youth unemployment, climate change).

Capitalism did a lot of good and then in order to really juice it for everything it had, we let it run wild. Now we're seeing the pendulum swing back. So we agree there, but I don't think it's a matter of youthful rebellion. It's the only logical stance for our generation to take.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Corporate feudalism has ruined capitalism.

In a surreal turn of events the east coast of communist China has the strongest "pure" form of capitalism currently in existence. This has a lot to do with their scant regard of imaginary property, what westerners insist on calling "intellectual property". Capitalism only work when information flows freely. When people can make decisions based on facts. This cannot happen when information is hoarded as a so called competitive advantage, not in the long run anyway, not any more. Ad to this the degree of rent-taking on all levels and its clear that capitalism as we know it a spent vein.

</comment><comment><USER14> "By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth- getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery." -Keynes

Ironically it is (a distorted version of) Keynesian economics that is used to justify inflationism as public policy

Schumpeter would add, the middle class will then reject capitalism (presumably instead of placing the blame where it truly ought to lie).

<comment><USER15> We have very low inflation.

<comment><USER14> It's low, but it's "continuing".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Capitalism has become an umbrella term for fraud, tax avoidance and corruption.

<comment><USER8> In Panama Papers leak, who were the fraudsters, tax cheaters and generally corrupt persons? Hint: not the capitalist business owners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Capitalism Sucks!

\- Sent from my iphone

<comment><USER17> Comcast Sucks!

\- Sent from Comcast

<comment><USER5> Sure, we could all benefit from more broadband competition (and less regulatory barriers to entry from local governments). But would you really prefer the alternative of governments providing internet services instead?

<comment><USER18> In some cities/towns/regions, yes, I would.

Municipal ISPs work just fine. Governments already provide (or contract with private businesses to provide) mail, electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, roads, etc.

In an area that already has adequate service competition and coverage I don't see any reason they would want to run a municipal ISP. But state-wide laws that inhibit municipal ISPs, in order to protect the current ISP duopoly status quo, don't make sense either.

It's not like it's something that requires new taxes to run. And many utilities already have to run their own networks anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Instead of looking at capitalism vs. socialism, I think it would make more sense to look at free markets vs. unfree markets. Many businesses will lobby politicians for laws and regulations to protect themselves against competition, for subsidies, for special tax deductions etc. Private banks cooperate with the government in order to create fiat money, which primarily benefit those who are already rich etc.

You can certainly have capitalism and an unfree market at the same time. Guess that's called crony capitalism. It's a very different beast from a free market.

</comment><comment><USER20> Where do we really have (free market) capitalism in the world?

I once read something about how traffic works best when 100% regulated or 0% regulated. Everything in the middle is sub-optimal. That's what we seeing with capitalism at the moment. Everything is half-regulated. There are many people who got a big part of the global wealth and many of them inherited it from people that had it before the world switched away from kings and queens.

</comment><comment><USER21> They reject capitalism because capitalism has been turned into "crony capitalism". They hate big corporations, because big corporations go out and buy politicians who then pass favorable laws only for those corporations, but not _necessarily_ favorable to the people as well.

If this didn't happen so _pervasively_ I don't think millennials would be that mad about capitalism. To fix this, bring back real democracy in the US (and I mean that as a generic "People's voice must be heard" term, not as direct democracy or mob rule, as many often misconstrue such comments).

Relevant:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig)

<comment><USER22> If free market capitalism doesn't devolve into an oligarchy, it was never really free market capitalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

Seriously, this is stupid. It's a poll about words, not really about politics.

I'm sure almost all would agree that either complete capitalism or complete socialism would be bad. Everyone actually agrees that there needs to be a balance.

</comment><comment><USER24> One word that is conspicuously absent from this articles and the comments so far, is "SCARCITY". Both socialism and capitalism are systems designed to deal with scarcity (and often, to generate it as well, since as systems, (and the stake holders in those systems), they benefit from scarcity.

The problem we have now is to establish a new system (or systems), to deal with abondance, or at least greatly reduced scarcity. If the stakeholders of the old systems don't prevent us, eg. by declaring a very destructive WWIII.

<comment><USER25> Communism isn't based on scarcity. That's actually the whole point of communism.

WWIII, really?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> q: "do you support capitalism"

a: "not in the way it treats engineers as 'resources', and cronies, friends and relatives as 'management' as but in principal yes"

q: "i need a yes/no answer"

a: ".."

q: "so i'm putting down no"

a: "whatever".

fun fact: If the fortune 500 were a country it would have the second largest GDP in the world.

Most of you here reject or would like to run away from that institutional form of capitalism anyway to a good startup.

</comment><comment><USER27> And why shouldn't they? Capitalism, as we have it, has given them a huge amount of debt right out of school, impossibly expensive housing, declining real wages, unemployment-hidden-as-not-seeking-work, almost non-existent family formation and backbreaking healthcare costs.

I'm an instinctive libertarian, but how can you look at the current state of affairs and expect anything else?

</comment><comment><USER28> that is what young people do. 99 years ago they rejected capitalism in my old country. ~70 years ago - in China, and 20 years later during Cultural Revolution the next generation of young people in China doubled down on that rejection sending the first generation into re-education camps... "Mistakes of youth" :)

US version of the same i guess is "If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Personally, at 43, born and grown in socialist USSR, having lived through transition to wild capitalism in 199x in Russia, and living in US for 16+ years, i'd rephrase Churchill - "capitalism is the worst economical system, except for all the others".

<comment><USER29> Capitalism as it's implemented in the US, or Stalinism and Maoism as implemented in Mao's China or the USSR are not the solution, sure.

But the answer has to be a balance – one which Social Democracies have shown to be quite stable.

<comment><USER28> oh yes! i specifically mentioned wild capitalism of 199x in Russia which i immigrated from. Though it isn't about balance as a goal or a tool. It is just that the human civilization has learned through direct experience that capitalism is the most productive system while it most glaring deficiencies can be corrected [and those corrections happen to actually increase the productivity of the system] by government enforcing the rules to manage tragedies of commons and providing the things like education/medicine/welfare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Capitalism killed democracy and now technology is killing capitalism. Once technology is fully embraced, capitalism will seem archaic and cumbersome. In capitalism money rules. In democratic socialism utility rules. Take your pic.

</comment><comment><USER31> The benefit of switching between systems is that power will be redistributed. The current problem is that organisations who previously offered superior value, are now abusing their position.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is it true? I have come across many articles that most of the millennials are focus on earning and career growth.

</comment><comment><USER33> Washington Post also published an article about how millennials prefer socialism until they get jobs and it comes out of their pocket.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in- theory/wp/2016/03/24/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in- theory/wp/2016/03/24/millennials-like-socialism-until-they-get-jobs/)

</comment><comment><USER34> You can also reject sunlight if you want to. Guess who you're screwing up?

</comment><comment><USER35> I may like the market (not always), but I see no reason to like capitalists...

</comment><comment><USER36> They reject it in their 20's, they'll embrace it in their forties.

Nothing to see here.

</comment><comment><USER37> A majority of millennial's don't really know what capitalism is.

<comment><USER38> They also do not know, what socialism is.

<comment><USER10> Trying to sell the black/white view of capitalism/communism to millenials proves to be a hard sell. People travel, they see social democracies in europe and elsewhere and begin to doubt capitalism. I think american media is adapting very slowly to the underlying realities behind the rise of Bernie sanders.

<comment><USER39> Are you talking about the social democracies of Northern Europe? They wouldn't be possible without capitalism.

<comment><USER11> Nor without socialism. There are no millennials advocating USSR style communism. They're advocating a move away from unbridled '00s capitalism.

<comment><USER40> What "unbridled '00 capitalism"? More like statist, crony-capitalism intertwined with kleptocracy.

<comment><USER11> So capitalism is supposed to exist in a vacuum in which it won't corrupt the government around it?

<comment><USER40> The government should not be involved in the market in the first place , other than ensuring fair play (through simple, enforceable regulations, primarily to ensure transparency and prevent monopolies/duopolies and). No government bailouts for anybody. No corporate "lobbyists". Etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Luakit is a configurable, micro-browser framework based on WebKit and GTK+ - <AUTHOR> http://luakit.org/projects/luakit/

<comment><USER2> I've been looking for something like this all morning. The only thing I found close to making a custom browser UI is Mozilla's Chromeless SDK which is in alpha stages. <http://github.com/mozilla/chromeless>

Anybody knows anything else other than taking Gecko or webkit and doing it the hard way?

<comment><AUTHOR> What are you looking to do? It seems like there are enough of these "base" projects to work off of.

<comment><USER2> Looking to buld a custom browser for my aunt who is not tech savvy. I just installed ubuntu nd have currently made FireFox to startup automatically in the bash script. I removed the gnome panels too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like to keep my eye on these browsers. Conkeror got very close to being the sort of browser I would like to have but was just a little bit too slow compared to Webkit based browsers.

One thing that puzzles me about this though: why lua when you have access to JS engines? Would I have to use two extension languages to write a plugin which touches a webpage and the chrome?

<comment><USER4> As extension languages go, Lua is like a better Javascript. The whole design is cleaner, and it has a very high performance JIT compiler (LuaJIT, <http://luajit.org/>) for x86 platforms.

Mainly, though, I think the devs just prefer it. (I do, too.)

Also, using a separate scripting language makes the local / web barrier clearer, which probably helps with security.</comment></comment>


What are fields where we understand the engineering well but not the science? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/vimota/status/1225582224575086592 <comment><USER2> Anaesthetics.

No one can explain why chloroform and other anaesthetic gases work the way they do, but they're used millions of times every day.</comment>


Why Linus Torvalds would rather code than make money - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/why-linus-torvalds-would-rather-code-than-make-money-1112900

<comment><USER2> There's not a single line in the interview that confirms this title. In fact he says he does not code anymore today. WTF?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the interview is better than the linkbait headline imo. I'm not sure what HN etiquette is on that these days. I used to try to come up with better titles if I thought the original was poor, but they always get changed back by moderators, so it seems the de-facto rule is to use the original?

<comment><USER3> I think they get changed by the server itself, without human intervention.

If the poster has enough karma, I think the HN code should trust the user's title over the <h1>.

<comment><USER4> In addition to how error prone that would be (we'd see at least occasional weird title glitches) combined with how titles sometimes are actually changed by moderators in the other direction (as in, away from the real title, as I noticed with the recently posted article about someone just discovering malloc's overcommit behavior), a few days ago pg explicitly stated that this belief was not true (but seemed to think the idea that people thought the human moderators were so fast and accurate so as to be mistaken for computers worthy of note).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >Once Google stuff gets working, most of it, so for example [Linus reaches for the phone we're using to record the interview]... "Oh, it's an iPhone... screw you! I'm not talking to you anymore".

Linus never ceases to be a source of entertainment.

<comment><USER6> This is strange "I like the Macbook Air, but I don't use OS X on it obviously; but they did stupid things, so it's more inconvenient than a PC."

<comment><USER7> He runs Linux on his MBA, but the thing has specialized hardware that isn't fully supported with drivers and cannot be swapped out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I stopped reading when I skimmed down and hit the caption "Like David Hasslehoff in Nightrider, Linus is proof that one man can make a difference"

Paragraph 6 and 7 almost read like sarcasm.

</comment><comment><USER9> A good chunk of this article is just rehashing the same history every interview does. What a waste.

</comment><comment><USER10> oh dear - wake locks not wake clocks

but the best version i have heard is wave locks

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe he's made more money (he is not doing too badly from everything I've read) doing what he does than trying and possibly failing to run a tech company. We'll never really know...

</comment><comment><USER12> Easy for him to say; he already has a lot of money.

<comment><USER13> And yet, he has said himself he doesn't code nowadays (in the kernel at least.)

<comment><USER14> "I'm perfectly happy arguing with people on the internet because arguing is my favourite pastime - not programming."</comment></comment></comment>


New Drugs Stir Debate on Basic Rules of Clinical Trials - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/health/research/19trial.htm?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> 99% of that article tries to get you to feel sorry for someone. The remaining 1% presents a few facts:

1) Clinical trials are currently considered necessary to prove drugs work.

2) Some people think the clinical trials are cruel to the control group.

... That's it. Here's a genius quote:

\-- Some melanoma specialists familiar with the drug would have traded the data for faster access to the drug. "I know all that I need to know based on the results we already have," said Dr. Keith Flaherty of Massachusetts General Hospital, who led the early clinical testing. "My use of this drug is not going to be informed by testing it against a drug we all hate and would rather never give a dose of again in our lives." --

So, he saw some initial results, but not enough to be conclusive to any objective observer. That was enough to make his mind up. He doesn't care to follow science because he -believes- the drug will work now.

Thank goodness he's not -my- doctor.

I don't disagree about the cruelty of putting people in the control group. You're basically denying them medicine that they need. But we don't have an alternative at the moment.

It's also worth remembering that everyone that goes into a study like this is told that they have a 50/50 chance of not getting the medicine. They KNOW this going in. They choose to take that chance because their current medicine isn't doing the job... Or whatever other reasons they have. Getting upset that got into the wrong 50% is pointless. That was part of the deal.

And finally: How does he KNOW he's in the control group? Maybe the medicine simply doesn't work on him. Even the doctor wouldn't know if this were a double-blind test.

<comment><USER3> (Note: didn't read the article, just the HN comments.)

" _I don't disagree about the cruelty of putting people in the control group. You're basically denying them medicine that they need._ "

The problem is, _you don't know this until you do the trial._

I'm not up on current figures, but sometime ago a read that the efficacy of placebos in treating organic (i.e. very real and physical) heart damage was 50% plus or minus a bit (I think it was plus). (Given all the connections we know of between the nervous system and things in the body that could allow this the finding was not entirely surprising.)

They aren't entirely heartless, so to speak: sometimes they will stop trials involving life or death conditions and start giving everyone the new drug if the initial results are fantastic enough and they've got enough control evidence (including how populations not in the study have responded to the old treatment(s)).

And there are enough phase 3 (efficacy) trial failures it's clear we have to do this; the alternatives are worse.

There's also the "first do no harm" rule, which I'd argue is in alignment with this process. Giving someone a new drug that's worse than existing treatments is harmful and one sad fact of side effects is that by definition the more rare they are, the more people you'll have to give the drug to to be able to find them. At each level, phases 1, 2, 3 and general marketing you expose it to larger populations, which is the only way to find out :-(.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hello this is malignant melanoma it does not take a genious to use scientific method to compare the results without a control. The end result and time for that result is not in question. Once it sperads you are going to die in a very predicta le amount of time.

The definition of insanity to trying the same thing over and over expecting different results well this qualifies.

I am usually horrified by the lack of true controls in medical research because of poor understanding of the variables and unintentional(or gaming) results. To me this is just one more example of medicine not understanding scientific method and statistics.

Please not if you catch it early it is often trivial to effectively treat. Be aware and see a doctor befor there is noting to do.

</comment><comment><USER5> Without reading the article, but as someone who has a condition where lots of clinical trials are done, I will offer this opionion:

Clinical trials can be pretty idiotic because a) they don't control for enough factors and b) the act of qualifying for the trial can confound the results, something that seems to be completely ignored.

On a cystic fibrosis forum I belong to, one member wanted to participate in a clinical trial. A precondition was that she not be on a particular drug that she was on. So she goes to the forum and asks for non-drug alternatives so she can get off this drug and qualify for the study. If she does better during the study: Is it because of the drug being studied? Is it because she stopped taking this other drug to qualify for the study? Is it because of the non-drug alternatives she began using as a substitute? Is it two or more of those reasons and how much of the change can be attributed to each factor?

If she qualified, I seriously doubt the people making the study would ask any of the above questions. If they did, I have no clue how you could determine meaningful answers. It looks like junk data to me.

<comment><USER6> >he act of qualifying for the trial can confound the results The example you give doesn't confound the result of the trial (provided it's properly randomised) but it does make it hard to generalise the result to the general population.

What you describe is actually common — antidepressant trials typically exclude people with comorbid medical or psychological conditions, despite the fact that the rate of comorbitity in depression runs at >60%.</comment></comment>


What Tennis Can Teach Us About Technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.jonahlehrer.com/blog/2018/4/18/cxd97kh1cp8cd96msh176ktiueavda <comment><USER2> OT, but not much, the spaghetti racquet which was the actual technological advance but that was soon prohibited:

[http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/SPAGHETTI%20STRUNG%20R...](http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/SPAGHETTI%20STRUNG%20RACQUETS.htm)

</comment><comment><USER3> The last point about players in their thirties appearing in more professional matches needs more clarity. It's not that "older players are dominating the sport." It's that "the two best players of all time happen to be over thirty." This is not evidence that older players have gained an edge in professional tennis.

<comment><USER4> 4 of the top 10 are in their 30s. If you include players who are less than 2 months from being 30 that would make 6 of the top 10 (and #11 is also in his 30s).

There isn't a single grand slam winner who was born after 1988. All the 7 active grand slam winners will be in their 30s in 2 months. Currently 5 of the 7 active grand slam winners are in their 30s with the remaining 2 a couple of months away.

So it's not just Nadal and Federer skewing the statistics. Then there is also the case of someone like Wawrinka, who didn't win a single grand slam until he turned 29 after which he won 3.

The ageing effect in tennis is not a statistical anomaly but a real thing. I do, however, agree that technology's impact in this has been limited to better sports medicine and fitness allowing older players to compete longer. However, the same players who are winning in their old age today are playing significantly worse games than they were 5-10 years ago. In addition to technology allowing older players to compete, the ageing of the game seems to have a lot more to do with the changing demographics of people getting into the game, cult coaching techniques, which at least in the US have destroyed any chance of an American competing (US coaches due to parental pressure for their kids to win so they can get a college scholarship instead of developing a good game focus on styles of play that work for undeveloped teens, but not at the professional level), and changes in the surface and balls that have slowed the game down and eliminated the styles successful in the 90s which many kids grew up emulating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A good follow on to this study, along the lines of tennis, would be how the introduction of polyester strings to the pro game about 20 years ago [1] impacted the game, for younger and older players - to see if similar conclusions can be reached. For myself as an older tennis player with a well developed game, I had a much harder time adjusting to this newer type of strings than many younger players. Even though the theory and what had to be done made sense, overcoming muscle memory and ingrained habits proved very difficult - of course I'm just a sample size of 1.

[1] [http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2017/05/french-open- polyester...](http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2017/05/french-open-polyester- strings-gustavo-kuerten-roland-garros-atp-tennis/65921/)

</comment><comment> kris-s I wonder if we will ever really break out of being generationally bound for situations like this. I see this in social issues especially. Seems like the speed of change is rate limited by older generations dying and newer ones being born.</comment>


Wired presents Tel-Aviv's top 11 start-up companies - <AUTHOR> http://english.themarker.com/wired-presents-tel-aviv-s-top-11-start-up-companies-1.378957

<comment><USER2> I was fortunate enough to visit Israel this spring and be immersed in the start-up scene there for a brief time. I was blown away by the energy and excitement.

The book "Startup Nation" by Saul Singer was given to me while there, but I haven't read it yet. What I understand from talking to a bunch of entrepreneurs while there was:

\- Israeli's serve in the military between HS and college. Thus when they get to college they are more mature and ready to learn. \- Many Israeli's in their military service are exposed to "interesting" tech research due to Israel's geopolitical situation and resulting posture. \- Israel really has no export other than intellectual property/ideas. So they have invest in education, particularly in the sciences. I visited both the University of Jerusalem and Technion University in Haifa and was very impressed with the directed research I saw. \- There is a deep undercurrent of entrepreneurship due to what my friends there call "the Jewish mother syndrome": It used to be Jewish mothers would harp on their kids "You will be a doctor/lawyer". Now it's "You will be Bill Gates/Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg".</comment>


How to build a company where the best ideas win - <AUTHOR> https://www.ted.com/talks/ray_dalio_how_to_build_a_company_where_the_best_ideas_win <comment><AUTHOR> Transcript: [https://www.ted.com/talks/ray_dalio_how_to_build_a_company_w...](https://www.ted.com/talks/ray_dalio_how_to_build_a_company_where_the_best_ideas_win/transcript)

Has anyone ever worked at a company like this? How was it?</comment>


Revisiting the Google Pixel C – Better, but Not There Yet - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/9996/revisiting-the-google-pixel-c <comment><USER2> > Android itself still has issues with responsiveness and latency that bother > me

> Chrome in particular is really bad regarding responsiveness and latency

This can't be emphasized enough. The Android and Chrome teams should be absolutely ashamed of the current state of performance. On my Nexus 5X I regularly have to wait 5 full seconds or more after pressing the app switcher or home buttons before I can perform another action, while animations chug and jank. Screen transitions within apps are often delayed multiple seconds before starting. Launching apps like Twitter or Facebook or Google Maps sometimes takes 10 seconds or more. Scrolling in every app is constantly interrupted by multiple missed frames as new items load. Loading websites like The Verge is just a terrible experience as the whole page jumps up and down for many seconds while scrolling is completely impossible. It's infuriating.

<comment><USER3> One possible contributing factor is that the Android app switcher is a cluttered mess. On phones, instead of Chrome having some sort of tab manager in the app, you wind up with one entry in the app switcher for every single tab you leave open as you switch to other apps. The same occurs with the Google search app. So the app switcher becomes more a cluttered stack of browser and search history than a proper app switcher.

<comment><USER2> You can disable that in Chrome (which brings back the swipe down gesture to open the tab switcher, which is nice). However, the way the Google Search app interacts with the app switcher and back button is awful and there's no option to fix it. For example, using the app switcher to go back to a voice action result will often re-execute the action. Or sometimes no entry gets added to the back stack, so you can't go back to a results page. Or sometimes clicking something in the results opens Chrome and sometimes it doesn't. I just avoid the search app whenever possible and use Chrome.

I could go on about the clusterfuck that is "OK Google", but maybe I should stop now before I get too worked up.

<comment><USER3> Nice! Thanks for the heads up. I must have missed that when I hunted for it a while back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> An interesting story. Ars Technica [1] dug up a few months ago the the Pixel C was never meant to run Android - all the way through designed and development it was tested with the Chrome OS loaded. At the last minute, the now unified Android / Chrome OS team decided to switch it to Android as a flagship device of their new Android direction and phasing out of Chrome OS in favor of Android. Result was a mess and probably the crappiest device Google has ever shipped, which anandtech rightfully pointed out.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/the-pixel-cs-bumpy- ro...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/the-pixel-cs-bumpy-road-from- chrome-os-concept-to-android-adoptee/)

<comment><USER5> A ChromeOS tablet probably _would 've_ been a better end-product as far as a productivity tablet goes. The problem is that ChromeOS's app selection is pitiful for entertainment apps, and I suppose Google figured that no one would pay $500 for a "premium" productivity tablet when a cheap clamshell Chromebook would work nearly as well.

<comment><USER6> That has been Google's problem ever since ChromeOS went from being a "can it work?" research project to something they wanted to monetize.

If you look at the timeline, Android was poised to go "productive" with the 3.x for tablets. But at that very time the first Chromebooks hit the market, and the push was strongly towards the corporate (their unveiling even had a demo of Citrix client support).

I can't help speculate that there was some backroom jousting between Rubin (Android) and Pichai (ChromeOS) about who should carry the corporate push, with Pichai winning and Rubin moving to X-labs.

It seems that Google has renewed their focus on productive Android recently though, in large part thanks to incorporating Samsung's Knox tech and such.

This likely because even though ChromeOS is a lovely "terminal", its not a phone platform.

Bascially the corporate world lacks a proper upgrade path from Windows CE/Mobile that has been powering all manner of mobile devices. Going Android would allow quite a bit of flexibility, and choice in equipment suppliers.

It would not surprise me that as with the previous Pixel, the Pixel C is as much for Google internal use as it is for retail. As i recall, the Chromebook Pixel was in part a push to provide an alternative to Macbooks for Google employees (i swear that Google may well be Apple's biggest corporate customer, possibly tied with Facebook).

<comment><USER7> Don't forget IBM in the list of apples corporate customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I believe this would be a fantastic Linux machine. But sadly with all the closed components it's not trivial to get an ARM distro running, despite Coreboot.

<comment><USER9> They're based around a Tegra X1 SoC aren't they? I know Nvidia releases Linux for their X1 devkits ( [https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/linux- tegra](https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/linux-tegra) ). Dunno what else is in the Pixel-C hardware wise, but at least that gives me some hope. I'd consider buying one if you could put a real Linux distro on it.

<comment><USER8> Yes, let's see. It's really nice hardware. The only slight annoyance is the lack of some standard keys.

Perhaps Surface 3 (non-pro) could be a good alternative. It's x86, but getting Linux running there is tricky too. [1]

[1] [http://reddit.com/r/surfacelinux](http://reddit.com/r/surfacelinux)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So they fixed the issues of touches not responding and maybe some of the worst unexpected crashing, but the major issues remain like almost all apps still being built for phone sizes, lack of multitasking and the fact that most apps only run in portrait mode, all of which are really not acceptable on 10" tablets.

<comment><USER11> I follow you on everything else but

>> most apps only run in portrait mode

What? That's not even remotely true. I think out of the hundred or so apps I have on my Android tablet, there might be one that is stuck in portrait mode.

<comment><USER10> My apology this is what I inferred from reading review of it, on The Verge: "It gets worse with third-party apps. The Pixel C wants to be used in landscape mode, but too many apps assume that they're on phones. Popular apps like Slack, Twitter, and many more toss you into portrait mode even when the keyboard is attached."

From Ars Technica: "A new entry of late is the "pillarboxed phone app," which is made by designers that see the above issue and say "No problem! We'll put big margins on the left and right of the screen! It's a tablet app now!"

<comment><USER12> Issues like this with one of the first Android tablets/netbook-convertibles (the TF101, running original Honeycomb 3.0) drove me to develop this app:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.kjonigsen....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.kjonigsen.straitjacket)

I see from the discussion here that it is obviously still needed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a content Android user (don't own or plan to own a single iOS device though I have used iPads at work) and I replaced my Nexus 7 (2013) with the Pixel C.

So far my only criticism has been the price tag. The keyboard is pretty much mandatory to get the full experience and with the keyboard and two spare cables I ended up with ~€800 for the whole package.

Yes, some apps can get laggy (more so than they should) and it's good to see the firmware is getting some updates but it's far from "completely dysfunctional".

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm probably stupid, but I honestly don't understand this device and Google startegy...

It's called Pixel instead of Nexus, (it's running Android), so it's confusing to many people, on the market positioning side...

At the same time, on the technical side, Android team, after telling us to use Fragments to have nice tablets+phone experience for a few years, seems to not care about fragments anymore. Notably appcompat and design libraries don't work correctly in Fragments anymore... And the Google apps show this very clearly.

If Google apps are not supporting tablets correctly, why should we?

<comment><USER5> The original Google Pixel was so named for the following reasons:

1) It was developed in-house at Google

2) It reflected the hi-DPI of the screen.

Evidently they decided to turn "Pixel" into a brand, and I suppose they figured that the in-house tablet they developed warranted the title (if you look at the thing, its aluminum design does resemble the panel half of a Chromebook Pixel).

So I suppose they now use the Pixel brand to either represent that style or to indicate that it's in-house hardware.

<comment><USER6> Also the Chromebook Pixel may have been an attempt to get Google employees to use something other than Macbooks.

Meaning that it may be in part aimed at dogfooding the Android platform internally, much like how Microsoft employees run beta version of their software to root out early bugs and such.

Also offering the device for sale may provide some means of covering the expense of having them made, as usually factories demand certain minimum amount ordered before they start a production run.

<comment><USER15> > Also the Chromebook Pixel may have been an attempt to get Google employees > to use something other than Macbooks.

I think it's most likely due to Apple's weak enterprise management tools for OS X [1] and the mid-2009 cyber attack on Google (Operation Aurora [2]) which was the result of one or more Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerabilities.

[1] [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/27/google_mac_support/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/27/google_mac_support/)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Picked one of these up last week. Sending it back this week. Had I known the current state of the Android tablet experience, I would have been more upset when ChromeOS lost the Pixel team.</comment>


Ask HN: are we ready for business finance in the cloud? - <AUTHOR>

At my company we use a dated software which is a mix (or mess?) of access, excel and sql server for consolidating financial data and then for reporting this data in web based reports. The system is very unflexible and unstable, it is basically impossible to do changes or creating new reports since this has to be manually coded by the IT department. I also know that the budget for a new updated system would be in the round of EUR 100k.
My questions is: are we ready for a finance SAAS? I don't mean an accounting software, I mean a consolidation and reporting tool for business finance and controlling. A tool that allows you to build standard finance reports out of different data sources, a tool that allows you to automate tasks and basically reduce the spreadsheets mess.
The thing is: do you think companies will at some point be ready to put their financials on a secure cloud solutions? <comment><USER2> The way of the middle could be a self-hosted solution which would be like a SaaS but without giving away your confidential financial data

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have experience of this? The reason I am a bit wary of this idea is because the best selling point of finance in the cloud is that you get rid of local IT and maintenance. One way I thought to solve this would be to remotely manage the company server where the application is running, or would you think the company would not like third parties to access one of their servers?</comment></comment>


Tim Bray on the style chosen for writing the HTML5 and WebSockets standards - <AUTHOR> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/02/15/HTML5

<comment><USER2> >> So I went and read the Web Socket protocol and my reaction was more or less the opposite. I like the protocol and I gather it's already been implemented and works. But I found the spec hard to read, amazingly long and complex for such an admirably simple protocol, and missing information that seemed important.

Completely agree. I found it very hard to get to the 'meat' of what the data format actually was. Look at the following.

Here's a sample from the spec:

       The server must run through the following steps to process the bytes
       sent by the client.  If at any point during these steps a read is
       attempted but fails because the Web Socket connection is closed, then
       abort.

       1.  _Frame_: Read a byte from the client.  Let /type/ be that byte.

       2.  If /type/ is not a 0x00 byte, then the server may disconnect from
           the client.

       3.  If the most significant bit of /type/ is not set, then run the
           following steps:

           1.  Let /raw data/ be an empty byte array.

           2.  _Data_: Read a byte, let /b/ be that byte.

           3.  If /b/ is not 0xFF, then append /b/ to /raw data/ and return
               to the previous step (labeled _data_).

           4.  Interpret /raw data/ as a UTF-8 string, and apply whatever
               server-specific processing is to occur for the resulting
               string (the message from the client).

           Otherwise, the most significant bit of /type/ is set.  Run the
           following steps.  This can never happen if /type/ is 0x00, and
           therefore these steps are not necessary if the server aborts when
           /type/ is not 0x00, as allowed above.

           5.   Let /length/ be zero.

           6.   _Length_: Read a byte, let /b/ be that byte.

           7.   Let /b_v/ be integer corresponding to the low 7 bits of /b/
                (the value you would get by _and_ing /b/ with 0x7F).

           8.   Multiply /length/ by 128, add /b_v/ to that result, and
                store the final result in /length/.

           9.   If the high-order bit of /b/ is set (i.e. if /b/ _and_ed
                with 0x80 returns 0x80), then return to the step above
                labeled _length_.

           10.  Read /length/ bytes.

           11.  Discard the read bytes.

       4.  Return to the step labeled _frame_.

I think you could better write this as:

      Data is either framed as a 0xff terminated UTF8 string
      (If the first byte of the frame has a 0 high bit), or as
      a length specified byte array if the first byte has a
      1 high bit. The length is specified using 7 bit variable
      length encoding, with the last byte having a 0 high bit.

      Example: 0x00 | 0x01 0x02 0x03 0x04 | 0xff
      UTF8 string (0x01,0x02,0x03,0x04)

      Example: 0x82 0x03 | 0x55 0xaa 0x55 ...
      Data length = 0x103, data bytes follow.

<comment><USER3> Goddamn do I hate specs that try and write code in English. Specifications are for WHAT I have to implement, not HOW.

For another offender, see ECMA-262, the Javascript specification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Read Ian's response in the comments, its brilliant. I love when the author of the spec casually comments on some blog ;)

<comment><USER5> Also worth noting is Dorian Taylor's amusing troll.

<comment><USER6> I have more where that came from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A good read, good points criticizing the spec. At first, I was dead set against HTML5 because I had been waiting for wide XHTML+RDFa adoption. That isn't going to happen now. Still, if HTML5 implementations are good and support web app portability between browsers, then I am happy enough with it. I also liked Bray's point on bring patent troll problems with video codecs more into the public view.</comment>


Tell HN: Feature idea... mark the last link I clicked - <AUTHOR>

I often click a story, read it, then come back and read the comments. Or, I will read the comments, click back, and then read the story.
Either way, it often takes me a couple seconds to find the story I was reading. It gets grayed out like all the other links I have read, and there's nothing to mark that was the one I clicked.
So, how about making the last link I clicked orange or something like that? It will save me much time and make the site easier to read. <comment><USER2> why don't you open both the links in tabs? that's what I do. If I want to comment, the page is already loaded and ready to go. If I don't, then I just end up closing two windows instead of one.</comment>


The Logic of Testing and the Testing of Logic - <AUTHOR> http://www.melbourne.co.uk/blog/2012/05/24/the-logic-of-testing-and-the-testing-of-logic/ Business logic is slippery and changing (if it isn't, you're not in a business that will ever make any money). <comment><USER2> The key here for me is the emphasis on ensuring that code that carries risk (i.e. business logic) must be protected from regression – and that testing is a good way to achieve that, rather than preaching for a particular approach such as TDD/BDD/XDD.

In reality I see quite a few successful approaches of reaching the goal of protecting code from regression and giving us the confidence to change it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yep.

From the viewpoint of a maintenance programmer, every artifact (file, class, method, function, test, etc.) is like a puppy you've adopted. It costs something to make, it will cost much more to maintain, and if you don't really need it, it does more harm than good.

Per the Pareto principle, 20% of the tests deliver 80% of the benefits.

Focus attention on: (i) tricky things (string parsing), (ii) security sensitive things, and (iii) fragile things (add tests when you fix a bug)

</comment><comment><USER4> > _"So, skip all your boilerplate framework tests if you like – if you don't > feel like you need them, you probably don't. But please, please lock down > your business logic in tests. Maintain them. They're a working > representation of what's actually important."_

Business logic should always be the dominating force. This is often forgotten and the time you have 'real' users using the system it is too late to make sweeping changes.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article does a good job of separating the practical benefits of testing from the religion of it. You should write tests because they help protect you from silly mistakes, and automate things you would otherwise do by hand. Who could say no to that?

</comment><comment><USER6> Sadly, this blog post appears to me as an over extrapolated version of "write tests for your code: you'll thank yourself later". I don't see what it adds to the topic, apart from a confessional component.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair comment (though I don't see what it adds to the discussion).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > And now I see it, I don't understand why anybody could assert that writing > tests is a bad idea.

Great use of the word "assert" here - pun intended?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh my yes :-)</comment></comment>