Ask HN: Have you ever left tech to do something completely unrelated? - <AUTHOR> What was the experience like? Do you regret it or feel happy you did it? <comment><USER2> I quit a couple weeks ago. I've been a developer for about ten years and I could probably do a lot of different types of development jobs if I really wanted. These last three years though I just loath working on development teams. I decided if this next programming job didn't work out I should quit programming. ...thats was TWO jobs ago, lol.

After that I took a break and lived day to day. I worked pretty much all day and night for months and it felt so much better than working in tech. For example, I would flip cars by buying broken ones and fixing them, I built a table and sold it at a flea market, I drove for Lyft, I drove for Doordash (which by the way was great for getting me out to see new places since I'm a bit of a loner. I'm serious, it was good for my mental health). I started work on a patent for an invention I intend to sell. I learned how to use Blender to create 3D models so I could 3D print a case for the afformentioned invention. All while being high as a kite whenever I wanted (and it was safe, of course).

So when this last job didn't work out I wasn't nearly as afraid. You know, I've basically been pretending anyways. Like that meme of the dog in the house on fire. But being a programmer and making more money doesn't magically make me happier.

Right now I'm flipping cars again. After I flip a few I'll drive for Lyft. My long term goal, the only one that matters, the only one that is going to get me into the life I want, is completely unchanged. In fact, hustling like this lets me optimize for bootstrapping a business with my invention. I'm not afraid of failing. Ill get up and try again. There's no point in pretending anymore. I want a better life than this. Programming is not going to get me there.

<comment><USER3> May I ask a bit more details of what you didn't like about development teams? I am feeling very similarly to you in the sense that I see Uber drivers and grocery store clerks and feel truly envious of them and am considering taking one of those jobs once I reach a certain level of financials (disclaimer: I have done plenty of blue collar jobs in my youth so I know what it feels to do manual labor).

<comment><USER2> I hate how knowledge matters less than social standing. I could read ten programming books and work hard at improving myself as a programmer but it wouldn't ever matter. The only thing that matters is the heirarchy on the team. Plus it's a pyramid. Fight it out at the bottom until a hand reaches down to you from above and pulls you into a senior dev or management position. No thanks. I hated having some other person tell me what my skill level and self worth were. I know my skill level and self worth and rarely as a developer did I ever get to live up to my potential because either I was in a feature factory or I was on a project with constraints that forced me to write terrible code. I hated looking through other people's god awful code and being judged because I had a hard time understanding it. Like they always measured and judged me with the wrong metrics. I hated going into meetings and being an expert (or at least best in the room) on some topic and having other people not listen to me. I hated not being listened to when I was trying to improve code or feature quality. I hated code reviews where the only point was to make the reviewer feel like he'd accomplished something by forcing me to make some inconsequential change. I hated the little bs politics people play about what comes back as a bug. I hated not being respected as a human but just being the stupid programmer who turns all of our genius ideas into reality. I hated not being able to use my own brain eight hours a day because I was renting it to someone else. I hated two hours a day in rush hour traffic. I hated sitting inside in a dead quiet room on a beautiful day. Perhaps more than anything I just hated working in a terrible code base.

If you wait until you're financially ready you might be missing out. Part of dropping the golden handcuffs for me was living with less. I wasn't living sustainability anyways and it was better I dealt with it before I got too old and found myself unable to deal with the change.

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I originaly went to tech school for computer programming, cnc, cad/cam c++. After third tri-mester i was done and later became a butcher.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure I would call it quitting tech, but after studying computer science at university and dabbling in some start-ups that went nowhere, I was a property developer for a while.

Learnt an incredible amount from it, not least how punishing physical labour can be (demoliton, being the first and probably least-skilled job on a project, made up most of the hands-on work I did — the rest was left to professionals).

I'm not a founder (yet), but now working at an early stage startup, I'm finding so much that carries over to the business of tech. Assessing the market potential of properties available for auction, the poker game of the auction itself, making profit projections on the back of extremely shaky estimates of the time and resources needed to complete a project, the difficulty of scheduling myriad interdependent tasks, to be carried out by a small army of subcontractors.

On that last point, an especially memorable lesson was learned after uncovering hidden structural instabilities that needed immediate repair (huge cracks in the back wall of a 100 year old row house, caused by an undersized window lintel, covered by a suspiciously low false ceiling — I'm sure there's a lesson in there about hiding mistakes). Dealing with the cascade of jobs that had to be rebooked was extremely instructive in the need for slack in a schedule.

Clear specification is another thing I now value highly. I taught myself to use architectural CAD software in frustration at a number costly mistakes, which traced back to misinterpretation of imprecise verbal instructions or freehand sketches. Especially when people are proud of their abilities, they're inclined to read between the lines of the directions they're given, which won't necessarily line up with your vision — especially if you haven't actually communicated that vision.

I could go on, but in short: absolutely no regrets. And something I'll almost certainly do again, when I hopefully have more capital to work with, and can hire a project manager to execute my vision!

</comment><comment><USER6> When I was 25 I quit because my current role wasn't giving me any more opportunity to progress, and I'd just sold a house after a relationship ended, so I had the financial freedom to coast for a few months for another opportunity. I spent about 6 months working in a bar, which paid considerably less but was a lot of fun. I ended up going back into tech within a year or so, but the experience helped me appreciate the balance between pay and enjoyment a lot more.

In short, it's worth taking a pay cut for a less stressful, more enjoyable job, provided the pay cut doesn't introduce another avenue of stress into your personal life.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm currently slowly building up a print shop in my basement. For now, it's just something to keep my retired dad occupied, but should it be successful I'll have no qualms about jumping in to it full time.

</comment><comment><USER8> Importing wine (Italy->US) and writing a book. Not exactly ready to leave tech, but a setting the bases...

</comment><comment><USER9> Not yet but have plans to leave tech and do fish farming someday.

<comment><USER10> Where? And why?

Can you give details like ocean/lake/pond and species?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> When I hit 40s I plan to retire as a lawyer.

<comment><USER12> What kind?

<comment><USER13> patent troll</comment></comment></comment>


You've Either Shipped or You Haven't - <AUTHOR> http://scraplab.net/2010/07/17/youve-either-shipped-or-you-havent/ <comment><USER2> This is a big reason why it's important to promote tinkering at many levels of society, whether it's by holding those Maker Faires, or producing TV shows about modding your motorcycle, or giving seed money to lots of first-time startup founders, or whatever.

If you do any amount of engineering or building, you will learn a _lot_ about how the process works. On the flip side, if you have never tried to engineer anything you'll be prone to magical thinking. Too many people's mental model of engineering seems to be drawn from Green Lantern comics: If a gadget cannot do a certain thing, it must be because its builders don't have enough will to succeed. They need to _want_ it more!

The extreme example of this problem is in science. Just about nobody in society has actually done any experimental science. Being a fan of science, reading lots of books about science, visiting science museums, or conducting demonstrations of basic procedures doesn't count. It doesn't teach you what it's actually like to explore a problem where the "right answer" is not known in advance, and every data point costs money or time, and there are more knobs than you can afford to turn, and it's hard to resist cherry-picking the data, and your first _N_ hours of work have to be thrown away after you find the boneheaded systematic error.

<comment><USER3> > The extreme example of this problem is in science. Just about nobody in > society has actually done any experimental science.

This. A thousand times this. It takes like three weeks of screwing around to get something remotely valuable, and oftentimes a summary takes just a paragraph that people look at and say, "Well, yeah, duh, that's obvious isn't it?"

<comment><USER2> One can't say this enough: After your work is done, you are going to look at it, at the product of _years_ of herculean effort, and you are going to say "Damn! This is _completely obvious_. How did this take me so much time?"

Only then will you truly grok Feynman's joke about mathematicians: "Mathematicians can only prove trivial theorems, because any theorem, once proved, is trivial."

(When I first read that at age fifteen or so, it was humor. Now it is _dark_ humor. Still funny, of course, but with richer overtones.)

Only then will you understand how James Clerk Maxwell's life work can simultaneously be one of the top ten intellectual feats in the history of mankind and something that most undergraduate physics majors learn in a semester or two.

<comment><USER4> Do they? I'm not a physicist but I wonder why a friend of mine (PhD in physics @caltech) decided to take a sabbatical and "dedicate a full year" to study Maxwell equations. I'll ask him more about it...

<comment><USER2> Oh, I don't mean to say that undergrads _finish_ understanding Maxwell's equations. I took about six semesters' worth of material that basically boiled down to the equations, and I came nowhere near reaching the limit.

But it is true that we routinely use the equations to solve problems that were very difficult intellectual struggles for Maxwell. A big problem is that Maxwell was encumbered by his mathematics and notation - everything he did was later refactored to be more straightforward. The dev, grad, curl stuff we use today came later. We have Oliver Heaviside - a man whose name is now more famous from _Cats_ lyrics - to thank for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Brings to mind a great Teddy Roosevelt quote

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

<comment><USER6> Like :)

<comment><USER6> Why the down vote? I don't understand. I just liked that quote.

<comment><USER7> Because you can express that sentiment with an upvote, a comment should probably have more substance than just the fact that you "liked" the parent comment.

<comment><USER8> Absolutely true. But -4 on both those comments seemed a little extreme too.

<comment><USER9> I can understand the first comment getting buried. That's really the only way to discourage the behavior. On the other hand, we could be more welcoming to new posters who clearly have good intentions.

I was surprised to find there is no mention of this in the HN comment guidelines. Maybe it could be added?

Apologies for continuing with the meta.

<comment><USER6> But if I up vote, that doesn't let the person know I up voted it. Aren't we supposed to let people know that I care? I am not sure anonymous up voting helps so much. It only says your link is popular, but you never get to see who liked it, and then you can not find out who they are. Because you never see their profile directly.

Are we supposed to only find new HNers by reading through all comments? Isn't that kinda counter productive? We being startup founders and all, we have so less free time anyways.

Also,is there some way I can see who up voted my links?? Maybe I don't know of it, and that features exists, kinda like some other features on HN, which are intuitive, but not mentioned specifically, and you end up finding them by just noticing them or by some other post.

As a matter of fact, I found up voting this way. And yes, I can be considered new, because I really used to be crazy busy (Being a first time entrepreneur (founder and a single programmer) did that to me). Besides I didn't really feel like I had anything to say, so didn't used to comment much.

(No prior active forum-ish experience, HN is the first, and sadly the only one I can be regular at even now. I am sure other good forum-ish communities exist like HN....some day....)

<comment><USER10> > But if I up vote, that doesn't let the person know I up voted it. Aren't we > supposed to let people know that I care?

I can appreciate where you're coming from, but it's a tad egocentric: 99% of the time, knowing the username of someone who upvoted you just won't matter that much, and would just be a distraction. Suppose a comment with 60 upvotes also got 60 replies saying nothing but "I like" or some variation. That page is now flooded with what is effectively spam, making it harder for people who are trying to contribute to and/or read the discussion.

If you want to stand out, just telling someone that you liked what they wrote isn't going to do that. You've got to write something worthy of notice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Right on point. Yesterday, we went to Romano's Macaroni Grill. My dinner was delayed by an hour, and the manager apologized. And I was not angry. I understood. I got it. How tough it could be to make things run perfectly.

I think we learn a lot of humility and patience, doing our startups.

(We did get a free dinner, but somewhere deep inside I wanted to do something nice to him. And although I usually never have dessert, I ordered a Tiramisu, and paid 34% tip on it, to show them indirectly that we understood.

Before when I was a student, I would have just taken the dinner free as if I was entitled to it. )

</comment><comment><USER11> I like the sentiment that people who have built something are sympathetic to other builders.

Other than that, there is no substance to this article. It's first place on HN because it give you a warm and fuzzy feeling. It's pandering, pure and simple.

<comment><USER2> Even if we neglect what I thought was the obvious subtext of this article, what we see here is not mere pandering. It's _coaching_.

It took me far too long to understand how important coaching is. To the dispassionate observer, a coach sounds like someone repeating the very, very obvious over and over again. Why, really, do people like the Williams sisters need a coach? Don't they understand as much about tennis and tennis training and winning tennis as anyone on earth?

And then you find yourself in the middle of the competition, and you're tired, and you're stressed, and you're at risk of losing your game, and you find that it's really good to hear the voice of a coach or a teammate, carefully drawing your attention to the specific very, very obvious thing that you need to remember right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sorry, but the reason that Apple tends to get so much flak is their arrogance, not the ignorance of the common people. In fact that article portrays a certain kind of arrogance, too (even though it does not come from Apple).

</comment><comment><USER13> The critic's work is valuable. As a maker it might rankle but as a consumer ready to dish out hard earned cash it is extremely useful. Unfortunately your blood, sweat and tears does not entitle you to success.

<comment><USER14> Thats true to a certain extend, but as a consumer (god I hate that term) I wouldn't be here without the makers - without the critics I would have to spend a bit more time finding the right products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It remembers me of another article, about producers and consumers: "The Single Most Important Career Question You Can Ask Yourself" [http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2008/05/18/the-single-most- impo...](http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2008/05/18/the-single-most-important- career-question-you-can-ask-yourself/)

 _If you've been reading startup blogs for years and never started anything, it's time to accept that your tendency is to be a consumer. It's not to say you can't break out of that classification by starting something, but if you haven't done it thus far you're not likely to do it soon without some external motivation (maybe this post?)._

 _If you have 50 software product ideas and your hard drive is littered with folders containing 30 lines of code from each, you tend towards being a consumer (or at least a producer who has trouble finishing things)._

 _And if you figure out that you are a producer, stop daydreaming about the day you'll make things happen. Start making it happen in the next 30 days, or forever hold your peace._

Once again, is the ability to ship something the major distinction.

<comment><USER16> And this reminds me of a talk, by Sophie Houlden, called "computer games are awesome, but you suck because you haven't made one yet, you lazy bastard."

<http://www.sophiehoulden.com/blog/?p=84#more-84>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The list of things an individual hasn't done is always quite a list. This doesn't preclude them of having a valid opinion, as this article implies.

You've never been a soldier so you can't comment about war? You've never been in jail so you can't comment about incarceration?

</comment><comment><USER18> This was a swift kick in the pants that I need to ship! Thanks :)

</comment><comment><USER19> I do know what it's like.

I became a lot less harsh in my attitude towards companies I deal with after I started working on a software dev. team.

However, I'm still seething with hatred for management. Maybe if I'm an exec someday, I'll learn to empathize.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is this a motivational message for the Diaspora folks? There are probably equally meaningful binary decomposition criteria for most everyone else, like "you've either put on clean socks this morning, or you haven't"

</comment><comment><USER21> great point. It's worth mentioning this applies to pretty much every field and especially to things that have had a lot of effort put into them.

Cooking, acting, coding, shipping, public speaking, being a doctor, pretty much everything.

Perhaps the better statement would be -

You've either produced something of quality and stood behind it or you haven't.

</comment><comment><USER22> There are 10 types of people, those who've shipped and those who haven't.

</comment><comment><USER19> I haven't.</comment>


Commentary: Evidence Points to Another Snowden at the NSA - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-intelligence-nsa-commentary-idUSKCN10X01P <comment><USER2> It's a filler/fluff piece. The tools date from 2013. Snowden said it himself 'The undetected hacker squatting on this NSA server lost access in June 2013. Rare public data point on the positive results of the leak.' [https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/765513662597623808](https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/765513662597623808)</comment>


Ask HN: What software (desktop or SaaS) can you not live without? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Python: A general purpose scripting language that is fast enough for most of my use cases.

SSH: Access to remote servers.

SSHFS: Mount remote file systems over SSH so that software without direct support for SSH can still edit remote files.

</comment><comment><USER3> software:

photoshop

sublime text

chrome

terminal (not a specific one)

saas:

github</comment>


Technorati's Tracy Williams is alive and safe in a local hospital - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=233810070014718&id=160644534031945

<comment><USER2> I haven't been able to read this status update (it keeps timing out for some reason), so I'm just going off the title here. *

The downside of these hugely public, and permanent, appeals for information on someone is that everyone will want to know every detail of what happened, will discuss it, and dissect it publicly.

Imagine a situation where someone in our technology community quietly embarks on a suicide plan, as many people do every day. Once the word has gone out and a public search starts, there is an enormous pressure to go through with it successfully. Knowing that you're going to step back into a shitstorm of thousands of people asking what's happened. Which is going to encircle your name for a long time, if not forever.

I'm not saying there's anything to learn from this - it's just something to consider. I am in no way questioning the judgement of friends raising the alarm. It's just that strangers will feel, rightly or wrongly, that having read, and perhaps spread, an appeal that they are entitled to know the details of the outcome.

* I have absolutely no idea what's happened in this case.

<comment><USER3> Or if she fell victim to a crime - sadly more likely for a woman gone lost in a bar.

<comment><USER4> Or was in a car accident. Or had a heart attack. Or any number of other possible events which would result in someone being unconscious and treated at a hospital.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't really want to intrude on her life to ask just what happened---it's not any of my business---but I _would_ like to know if, whatever did happen, the technorati/HN/FB/etc publicity helped find/save/help her.

</comment><comment><USER6> From the Facebook comments:

Timothy Joseph: _Thank God! I'm so happy to hear this! What a great company to have done this. I wonder if my employer would have done this for me._

That is an interesting question. If someone where I work (ClearChannel, owner of over 850 radio stations, and dozens of high-profile websites like RushLimbaugh.com and GlennBeck.com) went missing, I wonder what company resources would/could be used to aid in a search effort.

</comment><comment><USER7> Thank God. I'm not used to stories like this having this kind of ending, so this is a welcome sigh of relief.

Seeing how her friends and coworkers cared enough to start a massive online campaign to help find her reminded me of the importance of making connections and having people in my life who are looking out for me.

<comment><USER8> God had nothing to do with it. Pretty sure of that

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not all missing people stories have a happy ending. I have a relative who's been missing since Sept. 16, last seen in Riddle, Oregon. More info at <http://findmark.org>. We recently realized that he had his iPad with him. If you have any ideas on how we could use it to find him, I'm all ears.

<comment><USER10> I assume you've already checked this, but just in case you haven't: is Find My iPad setup? If so, and if you can get access to his Apple account, then you can track it that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thats great to hear. A little surprised it took 3 days to find her in a hospital. Hope she is okay.

<comment><USER12> She may have only just checked in recently.

<comment><USER13> I wondered myself why it would take so long to find someone in a hospital -- that she checked herself in recently makes a lot of sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So what happened?

<comment><USER15> While lots of us are nosy enough to want to know, the answer is that it isn't any of our business. If she wants to say, she will... presumably after she gets out of the hospital.

<comment><USER16> OMG EVERYBODY HALP!!! MY FRIEND IS MISSING.

[everybody attempts to help]

OMG EVERYBODY THAN KYOU SO MUCH MY FRIEND IS SAFE!!!

[everybody: YAY! Gald to hear it - what happened!]

NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS YOU NOSY JERKS!

\----

Yeah screw that. People will feel less inclined to assist - because they feel that they are an excluded outsider. If you are not told the outcome/reason for the situation in the first place - you are then further removed from the person/situation in question. Thus, you will have less emotional tie with the situation. Without any emotional tie - you will not help situations like this in the future.

The call for help is highly emotional "Our friend, and trusted colleague, who is a great and nice person is missing" -- you feel compassion here, as you would hate togo missing yourself - and you know how great you are as a person. So, you'll assist in this case through _empathy_.

Take that empathy away, and it gets worse for everyone.

<comment><USER17> When someone asks for help, you either give it, or you don't. Your aid ought not be contingent on what you get out of it.

<comment><USER18> It shouldn't be. But it is. People want to get "paid" in information.

<comment><USER19> Yes. And empathetic yet rational beings can then remind themselves that they have no right and no need to have the information, and can quietly let it pass.

<comment><USER18> Of course. But they still want it.

A nice person would ask, but not press the point. A rare person would not even ask. And some will demand to know.

<comment><USER19> Some won't ask. We can't control the world, but we can influence this community. And I think it would be nice if people here chose to be empathetic and rational human beings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Its a nice story - when people don't show up for work I think the usual attitude of the employer is to do nothing but blame the employee and penalise them to the maximum extent possible. This is less true in the privileged roles most web people have - but lets say you are 90% of the population who work in manufacturing, service industries etc...

Just saying.

</comment><comment><USER21> Have any of these _all points bulletins_ for a missing person ever worked? I'm not trying to be a smart ass, just curious if this method has been affective in the past.

<comment><USER22> The official ones seem pretty ineffective. A child went missing 300miles from here a month ago, the freeway signs were all announcing an amber alert. But the first thing the police in the next state - less than 10miles from his home - knew about it was when it reached the national news, apparently only federal crimes require contacting neighboring forces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> So glad to hear this news.

</comment><comment><USER24> All this banter reminds me of... .../missy.html

glad she's safe</comment>


All-girl engineer team invents solar-powered tent for the homeless - <AUTHOR> https://mashable.com/2017/06/15/diy-girls-solar-powered-tent-homeless/ <comment><USER2> Good job for them. A mobile, clean place to stay will make a big difference to some.</comment>


The cure proposed for the crisis of the humanities is worse than the disease - <AUTHOR> https://www.chronicle.com/article/There-Is-No-Case-for-the/242724/ <comment><USER2> It is long and rambling and I took to skimming after a while.

The _liberal arts_ are called such because they are _liberating._ They are freeing and empowering. They teach you how to get things done.

As a homeschooling parent, I gave my sons a humanities education defined thusly:

 _An education in the art of dealing with the inconvenient, inescapable fact of your own humanity and that of the people you are surrounded by._

Language, poetry, expressing yourself, dealing with your feelings and that of other people, knowing the wisdom contained in classical stories, having some background information on the foundations of the society you live in. These are some of the pieces and purpose of a humanities education aka liberal arts.

If you don't really understand what the humanities are about, reading up on The Clemente Course in Humanities is eye opening. They set out to teach humanities to poor people and found that it allowed many of them to escape poverty.

Here is their website, though I read a book about the origin story years ago:

[https://clementecourse.org](https://clementecourse.org)

<comment><USER3> While this is an interesting definition of humanities, how does it tie into the university programs discussed in the article? Do you think these programs have value, both on research and teaching fronts? Do you think their structure makes sense? Do you think your definition of humanities is reflected in the university and are you arguing for them to reflect your view of the humanities more?

Glancing at the website you linked, I can agree with some of the things they're aiming for (reasoning is a useful skill that isn't always straightforward to learn), but that's much different than figuring out how to education a populace in a rational and economic way AND balancing this with doing work worth studying in the first place.... much of which is addressed in the article.

<comment><USER2> It isn't "my" definition. It is the original definition of liberal arts:

 _But the liberal in liberal arts and liberal education does not stand in contrast to conservative. Rather, it derives from the Latin liberalis, associated with the meaning of freedom. Liberal, not as opposed to conservative, but as free, in contrast to imprisoned, subjugated, or incarcerated. Free citizens studied the trivium and quadrivium as part of their liberal education, as these skills were considered the ones that would enable them to function successfully as free citizens in society._

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer- sheet/wp/2015/04/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer- sheet/wp/2015/04/02/what-the-liberal-in-liberal-arts-actually- means/?utm_term=.80025148cc39)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A summary of the article's thesis (in my view), since it seems most lost the patience to read it:

The humanities is a culture based around the activities of reading works, thinking deeply about these works, then constructing criticisms of these works. The humanities should not have to justify their existence. They do not exist as some wish they did to further activist ideologies or to further traditional church views. The humanities should not have to justify its existence for its secondary or tertiary qualities (cognitive benefits, discipline). The humanities have created a class of people with similar tastes and ideas, and expulsion from universities won't make the humanities go away. Humanities exist because historically people have found value in this form of inquiry and these tastes, and people will continue to find value in these activities, so the humanities will continue whether universities accept them or not.

</comment><comment><USER5> As a sometime English major, I'm biased, but the main objective (or perhaps side-effect) of the humanities, in my experience, was to teach one how to write. Regardless of "truth," "values," pottery, or poetry, modular, well- structured arguments were the main thing I got from that degree. Attempts to justify the actual content of humanities studies seem futile, if valiant, and nobody has been good at articulating deeper aims for English, at least. (I found anyway that I was able to write A papers without reading the material.)

(At any rate, this author might have taken a more Orwellian pen to their monograph.)

<comment><USER6> I would think a dystopian bent on the humanities would be much worse. They only exist to hide the real sins of the sciences' use (death, destruction, greed). Yeah, there is no justification... there is no science way to prop up the humanities. But if humanities teaches you to see in new ways, then you have to acknowledge that there's a hermeneutically useful set of tools on which science got based.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> An insufferable read. Just reading this makes me want to abolish the humanities...

<comment><USER6> Why was it insufferable?

<comment><USER8> The article has 50+ paragraphs, and so few of them actually direct the reader towards the main point.

<comment><USER6> What was the articles main point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Life isn't just about doing what puts food on the table. Though, Paul Ryan and Newt Gingrich would like us to think that.</comment>


Why does Microsoft Windows 10 have so many bugs? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9kn8_oztsA <comment><AUTHOR> Or read the article instead: [https://www.revyuh.com/software/jerry-berg- microsoft-overloo...](https://www.revyuh.com/software/jerry-berg-microsoft- overlooks-bugs-windows-10/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Does it mean that the company cut software testers to save cost? But why run all instances in the same virtual environment?</comment>


How to Build a Mini Supercomputer for Under $100 - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjpb78/diy-computing-cluster-esp32-raspberry-pi <comment><USER2> Its about 0.6Mflops * 6 = 3.6GFlops at best. A modern graphics card has about 1000x the performance.

</comment><comment><USER3> Step 1: redefine supercomputer.

</comment><comment><USER4> Clickbait.</comment>


Securing Blazor WebAssembly Apps - <AUTHOR> https://auth0.com/blog/securing-blazor-webassembly-apps/ <comment><AUTHOR> Learn how to secure Blazor WebAssembly applications with Auth0.</comment>


It's Magit the Magical Git Client by Jonas Bernoulli – Kickstarter - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1681258897/its-magit-the-magical-git-client?ref=8o67af <comment><USER2> Jonas has been pouring his soul into Magit (and many other OSS projects) for many years now [1]. The project has reached an exemplary status with excellent code quality, documentation and support. Many thanks to Jonas and other Magit contributors!

If you have been reaping the benefits of Magit, and haven't yet got a chance to say thanks, this is an awesome chance :)

Even if you are not using Emacs, but have wished that Magit were available on your favorite editor, then also it would be good to pledge in this KickStarter. See why[2].

And if you haven't yet heard of Magit, check out the KickStarter page!

Good luck Jonas!

[1]: [https://github.com/magit/magit/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/magit/magit/graphs/contributors)

[2]: [https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/magit-for-non-emacs- users/](https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/magit-for-non-emacs-users/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great tool. I give to the project via patreon</comment>


Identifying influential spreaders in complex networks - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.5285 "we show that, in contrast to common belief, the most influential spreaders in a social network do not correspond to the best connected people or to the most central people (high betweenness centrality). Instead, we find: (i) The most efficient spreaders are those located within the core of the network as identified by the k-shell decomposition analysis. (ii) When multiple spreaders are considered simultaneously, the distance between them becomes the crucial parameter that determines the extend of the spreading." <comment><USER2> I've always thought something like this would be a great business model for networks like Foursquare. Don't give a free beer to the mayor - he's going to come to your bar anyway. Give a free beer to the person who, when she visits, ends up drawing in five of her friends.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.scribd.com/doc/26321251/Identifying- influential-s...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/26321251/Identifying-influential- spreaders-in-complex-networks)</comment>


No-permission Android App Gives Remote Shell - <AUTHOR> http://viaforensics.com/security/nopermission-android-app-remote-shell.html <comment><USER2> So there's a way to establish two-way communication with an Android device, without enabling any permissions. But it's a very obvious system (works by launching intents, just like every other Android function), so it's hardly something that would work in any kind of stealth mode. Interesting hack, but not really as serious a vulnerability as the name might suggest.

</comment><comment><USER3> So you demonstrate a confused deputy attack on Android? This is hardly news.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not very interesting if you don't tell me how it's done...

<comment><USER5> According to the linked presentation the app sends data by opening URLs in the web browser (which is obvious to the user unless the device is locked). It receives data by having the browser open URLs using a custom URL scheme (which can apparently be registered without any permissions).

<comment><USER6> What was that python reverse program and if that's running then the device is in debug mode (since it's an emulator maybe it's always in debug mode?). So I'm left wondering what does this prove?

<comment><USER7> The python program was simply the server the attacker sets up. It could be run on any machine connected to the Internet and then accessed by the shell program from the user's device. The emulator and server were run on the same machine to make it easier to record the screencast, but the method works just the same on a real device and a remote server. There is nothing really difficult about how it is done, it is explained in the linked presentation, it is just a nice demo of it.

<comment><USER6> I guess I need to go back and review the whole presentation, I stopped about half way through. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Laurene Powell Jobs's Organization to Take Majority Stake in The Atlantic - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/business/media/atlantic-media-emerson-collective-majority-stake.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=7&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F07%2F28%2Fbusiness%2Fmedia%2Fatlantic-media-emerson-collective-majority-stake.html <comment><USER2> I'm curious if Bezos and Powell Jobs got into media as an investment or as philanthropy? With the current state of the industry I'd believe the latter before the former.

<comment><USER3> Activism. I'm curious why downvoters think their acquisitions aren't a form of activism. For instance, their coverage of an Amazon monopoly is very sparse, even given the recent Democratic economic policy statements which mention monopolies frequently. Billionaires wanting to control the press isn't exactly a shocking idea. Is buying a newspaper and controlling their output more or less offensive than Theil's funding the Gawker suit?

1\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/11/11/at- th...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/11/11/at-this-point- amazon-really-might-as-well-just-buy-the-postal-service/)

2\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/2014/10/15/stop-amazon-really/)

3\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/amazon-isnt- technica...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/amazon-isnt-technically- dominant-but-it-pervades-our- lives/2017/07/19/977df402-6cb2-11e7-abbc-a53480672286_story.html)

4\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/01/30/amazo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/01/30/amazon- wants-to-send-stuff-before-you-order-it-are-other-retailers-doomed/)

5\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-amazon-getting- to...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-amazon-getting-too- big/2017/07/28/ff38b9ca-722e-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html)

<comment><USER4> How do any of these links demonstrate that Bezos is controlling the Washington Post's output?

<comment><USER3> To me, saying "Bezos doesn't influence Wapo's output" is like saying, "Oculus will remain an independent entity inside Facebook." Not something I'm inclined to believe. Why should one believe that the billionaire (and new richest man in the world) at the helm of a major monopoly isn't influencing WaPo's content?

<comment><USER4> "I don't believe it" is not very convincing evidence. Oculus and the Post are not really comparable, nobody (statistically) cares how independent Oculus is. Even if you want to look at this from a purely business perspective - editorial independence is part of the product. It's also what ensures you can attract real journalists.

<comment><USER5> An organization is not independent of its owner. This is a tautology.

<comment><USER6> He was talking about _editorial_ independence.

<comment><USER5> Whoosh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A much better media investment than OZY. Glad to see tech money stepping up to back real news organizations in America at a time when we desperately need them to do their work well. More research into the fiasco in Washington, and across America, is one way to help get us out of this mess.

<comment><USER8> More representation of people from different backgrounds and philosophies in the media is one way to help get us out of this mess.

The further concentration of 'voice' in our society towards an already hyper- powerful few will only make things worse.

It amazes me how much supposedly egalatarian-minded people are happy to amplify power imbalances if they think it'll be their kind of people holding the whip.

<comment><USER9> This isn't an either-or situation. Both your issue, as well as the parent's, are true

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting that it includes The Atlantic but not Quartz.

<comment><USER11> I didn't realize Quartz was incubated by Atlantic until you're comment prompted me to look into what made that interesting.

As a potential reason why it may not be included I found that it (Quartz) was being shopped for sale in late 2015-2016[0]. My guess is that they ended up selling Atlantic media instead, or Quartz is still for sale/being sold.

Agreed, interesting they didn't include it.

[0] [http://fortune.com/2015/12/11/quartz- sale/](http://fortune.com/2015/12/11/quartz-sale/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Maybe not the best place to seek life advice but I trust you guys - <AUTHOR>

"My name is Christian, I'm unemployed and I live with my parents.". I probably don't deserve anyones attention, but please, bare with me for a moment. I should add that I'm nearing my 24th birthday, live in Europe and my real name is Failure.
Programming is about the only thing I can do that doesn't turn me crazy. I realized that too late. I was sitting on a high horse for too long, yet nothing but an unpaid internship was necessary to attend college.
With nearly no friends, terrible grades, disappointed parents, never having felt the embrace of a women not just giving a rats ass about me and terrible anxiety I never got that internship, or done anything else with my life. I jumped from pastime to pastime, never really mastering anything. I learned to love the computer. Python and all the web development stuff stuck with me.
All I used my knowledge for was downloading porn in more and more efficient ways. Now I love webscraping.
My friend said that he has never met anyone who was as good at soaking up knowledge as I was, as good a programmer I am. I fell too low to know whether he's right. I only know one thing. Change is in order.
My sadness has turned into desire. If I had the money to travel, I would have the energy to climb Everest and die. I sprung up, shaved, did 50 push-ups, nearly died thinking about a girl that probably hates me for sleeping with her because who wants to remember that guy living at his parents. I browsed trough the paper looking for a job. Too many requiring a car, an education and a lot of flaky stuff. Even thought about working part time as a courier, which would barely be enough to pay my debt in about a year and for health insurance. I have no fricking idea how "working" even works. But I know that I have a lot of stuff to catch up to.
Getting a domain that doesn't scream idiot, a github account filled with projects, an identity. I don't know where to begin and what needs to be done. What would you guys do with this amount of free time? <comment><USER3> Christian, I am going to be blunt with you. All of us giving advise is not going to help you. You are going to feel good about for a day or two - <USER2> asked for advice and that's the first step to solve problems. But you won't be taking any action. You are there thinking I am trying to solve my problems, but you aren't. (been there, done that)

The only way you can change is to change yourself - discipline yourself. Change your routine. Change your diet.

1) Why don't you have more friends? 2) Why don't you have an idea about 'working'? Have you never worked before? Why? 3) Why think about a girl who judges you based on your current situation rather than the person you are?

I am not sure if I should apologize, but if I were beside you, I would ask you something similar to 'shake' your current thought process.

Fellow HNers: I am genuinely curious to know - what's the relation between living between parents and failure? Why are people living with their parents associated with failure? What if I work a decent job and earn well, but live with my parents?

In the 'east' - mostly asia, it's not looked down upon if you live with your parents. From what I hear from friends, it's similar in Russia and parts of eastern Europe too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I won't take action. But talking to my friends about what I can do and what he thinks of me taking a job as a courier is more than I did before. Even going out of the house several days in a row is something I usually don't do. Even if it doesn't work, it's the longest streak of clarity I've ever had.

> What if I work a decent job and earn well, but live with my parents?

Independence is a great trait. That's the only reason I could think of.

1\. Fear of rejection. Hard to meet someone if you're home all day. 2\. Yes, never did. Alway required social interaction. Some days I was too anxious to even leave the house. 3\. Love me for who I am sounds great, but relationships require a certain base

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you can program, then you can probably get paid to program. Make a list of _every person_ you know: friends/acquaintances, family, old coworkers, Internet connections, etc. Ask each one if they have any programming/web development work you could do or if they know someone who might. You are concerned you won't be able to work, and I bet you will have some difficulty learning how to sustainably apply yourself to someone else's problem for days or weeks at a time. You're just going to have to stick to it. I recommend finding a client or a job that has you working at their office if possible, or finding a new cafe/restaurant/coworking space from which to work when you do get work.

What I'm suggesting isn't easy to do, but it is possible and requires nothing that you currently lack.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like you may have a underactive thyroid (Hypothyroidism), do you have any of the following symptoms, have they persisted for more than 2 weeks ?

fatigue, exhaustion, feeling run down and sluggish, depression, difficulty concentrating, brain fog, unexplained or excessive weight gain, dry, coarse and/or itchy skin, dry, coarse and/or thinning hair, feeling cold, especially in the extremities, constipation, muscle cramps,

Your doctor can give you a very simple blood test to see if your thyroid is underactive. I would suggest seeing a doctor.

\---- <http://thyroid.about.com/cs/basics_starthere/a/symptoms.htm>

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed I have, but subclinical which is why I never got any medication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Porn can create/maintain different thinking patterns, underhabituate you for normal real-life cues. By withdrawing and resensitizing your dopamine circuits you might jumpstart your motivation, getting more fun and getting out of the rut. Shouldn't expect a miracle but may worth a try.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU>

good luck!

</comment><comment><USER7> Have you tried freelancing? Or maybe a remote position? What about working on a side project porn related that will generate some income for you?

I am 28 with a job (not a career) and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I taught myself HTML, CSS, PHP, I am now TRYING to teach myself Python.

You sound like you just want to give up. You have to keep going man. Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know what freelancing means, but I have no idea what steps are there between me and the freelancing job.

Side projects would be great. I thought about apps, no good idea came up. Making money with porn and advertising, doubt there is still a niche.

Already gave up years ago. I feel like I'm staring at the Game Over screen trying to get my character up to the playing field again.

<comment><USER7> I believe it might be as easy as setting up an account on a freelancing website and searching for projects you feel you are capable of doing. Maybe you can also set up a PayPal account so you can receive payment.

I think there is still money to be made in porn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. I used to be like you. I probably still am. Only that I don't have the luxury of living in Europe.

I can only offer one piece of really generic advice, because that generic advice actually worked out for me: _Go out and network!_ User groups, meetups, forums, whatever. Just put yourself out there, online and offline, and try and score that first project.

<comment><USER9> This. A million times this. I was surprised by the effect that going to ONE meetup group had on me. I was more motivated, intrigued, and I was even able to make a few valuable connections. If you go to a few AND you can already program, you should seriously find work in no time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Stop complaining. Go to some local dev/tech meetups. Do some freelance work and/or hack on opensource projects. Work on your self esteem. Be more confident.

Maybe, despite living at your parents, you were the best time she had... who cares anyway, YOU are focusing on the bad stuff, look at what you have not what you don't have.

<comment><AUTHOR> The only thing on your list I know how to do would be to hack on opensource projects. Github account, pull some stuff, fix bugs.

Do employers value such work?

<comment><USER10> A LOT!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I participate in a weekly (online) startup founders meeting. Everyone there talks about business and networks. If you want, you can drop by and talk to industry people. You might get a job out of it. Who knows...

If you are interested, just shoot me an email.

</comment><comment><USER12> Python is not a bad place to start expanding your knowledge wider. Google uses it for a reason. It's a good time to wake up and inject your life with new purpose. Emotional pain is a wake up call to begin a new life.

<comment><AUTHOR> What direction do you think I should go? I played around with some Django, rewrote some of my stuff in Flask with SQLAlchemy. Bit JavaScript, bit CoffeeScript (gave up on that one, don't like it). Used SASS. A bit backbone.js (thought about writing apps, never came up with a good idea). Handlebar.js and Jinja2 in the mix.

<comment><USER12> I'd suggest to find someone who needs to solve a problem (like simple webapp, or ecommerce store or represent their business with nice looking portal - whatever). Then, when you'll have a task at hand - start looking for tools to accomplish that. Not before that - otherwise you'll learn tools that are useless to you. Django is not a bad choice to learn python and actually create something useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> you're at an important point: you realize where you stand. from my experience, that's good. accept that, remember who you are.

now go do something. ask for a job. don't get too focussed on github, domains or social media. find someone that needs something you _could_ do and start there. don't be picky. try it for at least three weeks and if it sucks balls, find something new. don't quit before you've found something you believe is better. rinse and repeat.

good luck!

</comment><comment><USER14> Oh, man. You live in EU, can visit Rome or London on weekends, and only 24, and already know some Python, whooa... I really envy you.</comment>


USA lags behind EU, Brazil and China in banning harmful pesticides - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-06-usa-lags-eu-brazil-china.html <comment><USER2> Brazil's new administration already approved more than 160 pesticides in 6 months. So they are catching up quickly.

[https://g1.globo.com/economia/agronegocios/noticia/2019/05/2...](https://g1.globo.com/economia/agronegocios/noticia/2019/05/21/governo- federal-aprova-registro-de-mais-31-agrotoxicos-somando-169-no-ano.ghtml)

<comment><USER3> It's also conceivable that enforcement isn't as thorough. While China did eventually raid the factories responsible for CFC-11, it took the international community pinpointing where it was coming from.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-44738952](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pesticides are the ultimate culprits that harm human and all biological life. Unfortunately things like plastic ban occupy mindshare. Unlike plastics pesticides like Glyphosate get 'locked' into the body --- meaning your body cannot wash them out through its usual means --- resulting in cancer and what not.

<comment><USER5> Microplastics do not wash out of your body...

edit: also glyphosate is not a pesticide

<comment><USER6> Glyphosate is absolutely a pesticide. It's an herbicide, which is a type of pesticide.

And AFAICT, glyphosate doesn't pose a significant risk to humans in the amounts people would normally be exposed to. It's really quite harmless. However, it can become more harmful when mixed with other chemicals, but honestly, the other chemicals are probably more harmful than it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Because harmful pesticides are easy money and easy money trumps health. At least, that is what everybody thinks when looking at the USA.

</comment><comment><USER8> One expects the US to be behind the EU, a place generally more concerned with the welfare of its citizens than the US, where corporate profits are King.

But when we fall behind Brazil and China, too, alarm bells should be ringing -- if they weren't, already, over US infant mortality soaring past that in dozens of other countries, or life expectancy reverting to a persistent downward trend.

You don't get declining life expectancy without really concerted mismanagement and corruption at the top.

<comment><USER9> China isn't really a rule of law country, so they have the option of banning things without really banning them (the law can be on the books but enforced only very seductively that most people ignore it). I'm not sure about Brazil, but in general it is very difficult to compare a developed country with a developing one.

<comment><USER10> >China isn't really a rule of law country

I don't know about that, slightly unrelated but I'm 4 times less likely to get murdered in China than in the USA.

The population seems to adhere to laws against harming fellow humans better than we do in the USA.

<comment><USER11> Nobody cares if you get killed in China. They need to pay less if you die then if you're wounded. So they run you over again to be sure that you are dead.

Video surveillance isn't launching everywhere, because of corrupcy.

And they don't care about foreigners ( with something happens). Chinese protects Chinese, no one else. They will also work with favors above law.

<comment><USER12> "Nobody cares if you get killed in China"

Whatever evidence you're using to support this assertion, I'm sure theres equal evidence from any other country.

<comment><USER11> Here's an example, not the article that opinionated me in the past though. Since that was more a discussion about Chinese "culture", it was an fictive example there that happens regularly.

[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2123499/chin...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2123499/chinese- driver-who-hit-nine-year-old-car-killed-her-avoid-high)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> US lags behind rest of world in X, due to political inertia.

Don't wake me up please.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Such pesticides and other toxic chemicals not only cause cancer, but they also explain the increasing infertility in the West as explainable by germline damage in both men and women. This should worry you a lot. Please refer to:

[1] Assessment of Glyphosate Induced Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Pathologies and Sperm Epimutations: Generational Toxicology. (2019)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31011160](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31011160)

> The transgenerational pathologies observed include prostate disease, > obesity, kidney disease, ovarian disease, and parturition (birth) > abnormalities. Epigenetic analysis of the F1, F2 and F3 generation sperm > identified differential DNA methylation regions (DMRs). A number of DMR > associated genes were identified and previously shown to be involved in > pathologies. Therefore, we propose glyphosate can induce the > transgenerational inheritance of disease and germline (e.g. sperm) > epimutations. Observations suggest the generational toxicology of glyphosate > needs to be considered in the disease etiology of future generations.

[2] Environmental toxicant induced epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of ovarian pathology and granulosa cell epigenome and transcriptome alterations: ancestral origins of polycystic ovarian syndrome and primary ovarian insuffiency. (2018)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30207508](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30207508)

[3] The epigenetic impacts of endocrine disruptors on female reproduction across generations. (2019)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31077281](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31077281)

<comment><USER14> So what is the safer alternative to Glyphosate?

<comment><AUTHOR> Organic (natural) pesticides tend to be safer. Unfortunately, USDA has been doing a terrible job with their USDA Organic certification. It is firstly very expensive. Secondly, it is no guarantee that glyphosate is not present. This could be due to fraud or negligence. Third, it is subject to lobbying to legalize nasty synthetic pesticides as being Organic. The USDA needs to step up and do its job.

Meanwhile, I nevertheless advocate buying Organic. Use a warm solution of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in which to dissolve fruits like apples and others for 12-15 minutes. It helps dissolve a fair portion of the pesticides, but is not a substitute for buying Organic. Refer to [https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/10/nahco3-aka- baking-s...](https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/10/nahco3-aka-baking-soda- washes-all.html)

<comment><USER15> > Organic (natural) pesticides tend to be safer.

This is patently false. Natural pesticides and herbicides are almost always more toxic to humans than synthetic pestices and herbicides, in large part because minimizing human toxicity is one of the goals in the chemical research programs.

<comment><USER16> What are some examples of organic pesticides that are less safe than glyphosate?

<comment><USER15> Copper sulfate is one.

<comment><USER17> Sorry, layman here, but in what sense is a substance with a name like that "organic"? It neither sounds natural nor does it contain carbon to be called organic in the chemistry sense...

<comment><USER15> This is "organic" in the sense of "approved for use in organic agriculture." Which generally means "no icky multinational chemical firms that [average lay person] is aware of had a hand in the manufacture of it."

<comment><USER17> Oh I see, so like "organic" in quotes, not organic in the sense most people would expect it to be organic (natural etc.).

<comment><USER7> (anecdotal:) Most people all over the world think 'organic' when it's _not_ about organic chemistry or a list of 'approved' things or a label some agency sticks on things that are considered 'organic'. Organic in the sense of organic pesticides are the kinds of pesticides that you'd find in the wild, without them being man-made. That doesn't exclude synthetic replication, because if you can mass-produce that thing that was already there anyway, that's a good way making it available for more uses. That said, some 'organic pesticides' may be introducing an insect that is a predator to the insect you are trying to get rid of. While a 'pest' in 'pesticide' doesn't mean just insects, you usually have organic predators that don't harm your produce while hunting the pest that does attack it.

Say you have a fungus that eats at your corn, maybe there is another one that just eats that fungus but leaves the corn alone. Or maybe you have some insect that eats your wheat, and some naturally occurring compound exists that is bad for the exoskeleton of that insect; put compound (found naturally or replicated synthetically) on the wheat, insects will be sad/dead/gone, there ya go, organic pesticide.

Those natural, or, organic pesticides usually evolved with some specific target in mind, while man-made pesticides are more like chemo therapy: kill as much as possible without killing the produce we want. This has the downside that killing as much as possible actually kills things we don't want killed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Neural Network Zoo (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.asimovinstitute.org/neural-network-zoo/ <comment><USER2> I have always absolutely hated this diagram and think it should go away. I have also never seen somebody who understands the content of the diagram share it as a useful pedagogical tool.

For example, with CNNs, you are building up feature activation volumes based on the entire previous layer. The edges between layer N only connects to two nodes in layer N-1. What are the nodes even supposed to represent? This is not how CNNs works. This explains nothing and is actually just confusing.

This entire diagram should be re written using the block diagrams from the actual papers.

<comment><USER3> My experience is that this is only shared by people on LinkedIn who have no clue what they are talking about.

<comment><USER4> To add an anecdote: I've only seen it in professor's labs before and have been looking for it for a long time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, this article came up at the time and in 2017. And I even see a little comment I wrote back then in the helpful link dang provided.

It looks very different to me now than then. Mostly because for various reasons I actually know what all those networks are. And a fair percentage aren't normally considered neural networks at all (Belief networks, Markov Chains...). Other models are quite old (Kohonen networks, so old I studied them at school in the 90s), other things very broad categories that other classes may or may not fit into (feed forward network, autoencoder).

So the categories are essentially an incoherent mess or a useful cheat sheet for going through the literature, take your pick.

I see this now, where back then I just saw an impressive/incoherent mess and that makes me feel like maybe I'm learning something in my personal research project.

</comment><comment><USER6> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12751585](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12751585)

2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965159)

</comment><comment><USER7> Note that while the article is originally from 2016, it was updated:

> [Update 22 April 2019] Included Capsule Networks, Differentiable Neural > Computers and Attention Networks to the Neural Network Zoo; Support Vector > Machines are removed; ...

The poster image is also updated.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for sharing. I remember designing my first neural network, my notepad was full of theses dots everywhere. The dots x lines representation helped me a lot visualizing what is a layer, what is a input, what is the output of that layer.</comment>


Physical reality of string theory demonstrated - <AUTHOR> http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/07/06/physical.reality.string.theory.demonstrated <comment><USER2> I am not an expert and it's been a while, so please feel free to correct me.

There are two contexts the string theory is talked about. First, it is by most considered the most promising theory of fundamental interactions (a.k.a. the theory of everything in press and blogs.) Second, it has been shown about ten years ago that there is an equivalence between some version of string theory and some field theories. The second part makes it possible to use string theory for calculations in quantum field theory. It is not related at all to whether string theory is indeed the correct fundamental theory. (It also means you can't kill string theory: even if some other theory, say loop quantum gravity, is the correct fundamental theory, you can still use string theory for calculations in the quantum field theory.)

As far as I understand, the new results the OP mentions are derived using the latter technique, i.e., applying string theory to obtain results in regular field theory. As such, it has nothing to do with demonstrating physical reality of string theory, at least not in the most obvious sense.

The original article: <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1174962>

<comment><USER3> My limited understanding of String theory suggests it is closer to a scripting language for describing possible universes than a unified theory. It's interesting as a branch of mathematics, but you can make it say just about anything by playing around with some assumptions.

IMO, saying string theory applies to some process is closer to saying you used Pearl to model fluid mechanics instead of discovering a fundamental law of the universe.

PS: Which is not to say it's useless. Having a better model for high temperature super conductors opens many doors. With proper verification this could easily be Nobel Prize worthy.

<comment><USER4> God hacked a lot more than fluid mechanics in perl. <http://xkcd.com/224/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It says the phenomenon was explained, not predicted. It's an interesting choice of terms.

I wonder if there is a difference?

<comment><USER6> There is quite a difference.

Einstein swore that his very own equations dealing with quantum mechanics had to be wrong because it described a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, which goes against all logic and seems impossible. This led him to believe that the equations were almost right, but with an error somewhere. To quote him, ""I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation should choose of its own free will, not only its moment to jump off, but also its direction. In that case, I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist"

It wasn't until a few decades later that we observed quantum entanglement in a lab... showing that the equations had in fact been right, even though Einstein had thought they were wrong.

The story in the op is a little different. A weird phenomenon is observed but unexplained... now an equation explains it, but you have to wonder if the equations were made to fit the observation. The best way to test this is to use the equations to predict some unknown and unobserved outcome, then see if the actual result meets the expected result.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Quite amazing! Thank you for that, string theory starts to look more and more like it has 'legs'.

To have actual physical phenomenon explained by string theory (and apparently not in any other way) gives it a lot of weight.

<comment><USER8> Explaining phenomena is only one step. What I think is more important for a theory to have legs, is the ability to make predictions using the theory.

<comment><USER9> It's not a theory until it can make testable predictions.

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't quite say that because it implies we must have the ability to test it. A better thing to say is that a theory must provide falsifiable predictions, even if we don't have the ability to actually test it today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just throwing this out there: is it the first time a calculation based on string theory has been published in Science because the string theory community prefers arXiv?

</comment><comment><USER12> It's certainly interesting that mathematics created in the course of the string theory research program are finding application in the real world.</comment>


Ask HN: Which new laptop optimizes (1) keyboard and (2) display? - <AUTHOR> In the market for a new laptop. I care most about (1) the keyboard and (2) the display. What laptop in today's crop of new machines optimizes these two together? i.e. this is an AND not an OR <comment><USER2> This almost certainly isn't the answer you wanted, but: [https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/](https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Lenovo Thinkpad xcarbon

<comment><USER4> I haven't been up to date with the newer models but I'm not quite satisfied with my 2016 X1 Carbon keyboard. I just feel like I want a tiiiiny bit more travel.</comment></comment>


Wanted: More science and math teachers in the US - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1229/p02s01-usgn.html <comment><USER2> I would love to teach - I have a B.S. in Computer Science and I have 20+ years working R&D in the tech industry. I approached our local school board to see if they could use my services (free of charge) to teach programming/technical skills in their new computer lab. I was told to basically come back after I had a MS in teaching. The very next day, I picked up the local paper which complained that they couldn't find any qualified teachers. The problem is not that they can't find qualified candidates, its their outdated qualifications that are a letting down our children</comment>


Ask HN:  Most desired skill set in Silicon Valley? (RoR, PHP, MySQL, etc.) - <AUTHOR>

Hello fellow Hn'ers.  Via Southwest wifi on a flight back from San Jose, let's get a consensus on the most desirable skill sets in Silicon Valley for which companies are looking to hire (RoR, PHP, MySQL, etc.).<p>Directions:  Leave only skill sets; up-vote if skill set already present, add skill set as comment if not present. <comment><USER2> You realize that this is a terrible way to do a poll, since vote totals are hidden?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll>

<comment><USER3> True that it's not ideal, but he'll be able to see totals since they are his comments.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, but that's still useless for the rest of us. Plus, why bother when there's built-in poll functionality that's so much easier to use?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hadoop

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> MySQL

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> RoR

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> PHP</comment>


Should Living in an Apartment for 34 Years Give You the Right to Stay There? - <AUTHOR> http://sfist.com/2015/10/28/does_living_in_an_apartment_for_34.php <comment><USER2> > In San Francisco, when you rent an apartment, you can stay for as long as > you continue to pay the rent and abide by the terms of the lease. A tenant > does, in fact, have a right to live in a place forever (not given by God but > by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and mayor), and can only be > evicted for "just cause."

Well there's the problem, the law needs to change. A landlord should be able to periodically review and increase the rent. That's how it is in Australia, and residential leases are typically for 12 month periods. If the tenant doesn't like the new terms they can make a counter offer or move out, whereby the owner may have a vacant property for some time and have to wear the costs setting up a new lease.

</comment><comment><USER3> No. Next question?</comment>


Show HN: Blogshare - <AUTHOR> http://blogshare.in/top Hackernews for various category of blogs. <comment><USER2> Guys, have a look at source code of its pages :)

191 script inclusion.. that's the record in my memory.. sick guys..

And you probably paid many thousands $$ for this..

<comment><AUTHOR> Its telescope project built with Meteor.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Privacy platform for cloud aware apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.selectiveshare.com

<comment><USER2> I don't understand what is this, a protocol, a software, a service?

But there is something missing in the internet today, and this website remembered me of it: private group data. Not 1-on-1 data, but data from a group, accessible only to the people in this group. Well, forget about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback.

This is a service to provide cloud sync for private data, both 1-on-1 and between groups. It is intended to be used by app developers as their cloud storage platform.

The difference between this and existing options is that Selective Share enforces client-side encryption. Unencrypted data won't be accepted for storage.

We will provide a client-side library that handles all the encryption and sync details which allows the app developer to work with local files only.</comment></comment>


Coding Summer Camp for Underserved Youth in East Palo Alto - <AUTHOR> http://www.stanforddaily.com/2014/07/25/stanford-students-create-programming-camp-for-east-palo-alto-students/

<comment><USER2> CodeCamp can make anyone, of any age or any background, excited about coding. As a mentor at CodeCamp, I could not have asked for a better job!</comment>


Social Networking Advertising - It Will Be Even Harder than we Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.charleshudson.net/?p=453 <comment><USER2> Using the "request for some restaurant recommendations" example; couldn't potential advertisers put a coupon some where in the "conversation" that might sway the requester to visit their restaurant instead of the other options?</comment>


Acorn User Magazine October 1985: Birth of ARM - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/LZ0Q2WL

<comment><USER2> The age of the article is evident:

> _" The performance of this chip --which worked the first time-- was > undoubtedly..."_

Those were the "bad old days" ("good old days"?) when millions could be spent developing an IC and when it was manufactured, it wouldn't work. In 1985, we really didn't have EDA verification and synthesis tools, and tons of stuff was still done by hand.

<comment><USER3> True as far as it goes. It's not common that a chips simply doesn't work, but because of the complexity of chips, even with those tools chips still have page after page of errata.</comment></comment>


Hover adds "Auth-by-Email" - Thanks HN - <AUTHOR> http://help.hover.com/2011/07/08/hover-adds-no-hassle-sign-in-announcing-authenticate-by-email

<comment><AUTHOR> ...and special thanks to mmatants!</comment>


Simplest Phones Open to 'SMS of Death' - <AUTHOR> http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/tt4RLwhKbz8/ <comment><USER2> _"The problem is these problems aren't easy to fix."_

Can't the Telcos just scan all SMS messages and filter out the ones that contain the malicious sequence of characters?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the problem there is the word "just".

<comment><USER3> _I think the problem there is the word "just"._

I pay a lot of attention to how much a boss or a client uses the word "just". Be very afraid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would imagine that most exploits like this, at least if black-mailing the telco is the objective, would be launched through an SMS gateway. There are a limited number of those onto any carrier network, and I suspect that any telco would rather shut those down temporarily than surrender to blackmail. Maintaining the integrity of their relatively closed network and the phones on their network is a lot more important to them than maintaining Twitter's and Twilio's access to said network.

</comment><comment><USER5> Link to the actual talk [http://events.ccc.de/congress/2010/Fahrplan/events/4060.en.h...](http://events.ccc.de/congress/2010/Fahrplan/events/4060.en.html) the presentation will probably be posted here.

</comment><comment><USER6> Any solution that requires end-users updating the firmware on their phones is a completely useless and broken solution. If it isn't an auto-update, it is not going to happen, unless they go to use their phone and it says "sorry, you have to bring it to AT&T to have your phone updated before you can make a call."

Yeah, AT&T is going to go for that.</comment>


Ask HN: Want a startup idea? Sort my Twitter's stream - <AUTHOR>

I follow 170 people, and there are 88 people who follow me.
Whenever I open up my twitter, I get a stream of [re]tweets which I have no time to read, let alone click on the links see what the heck:
    "#nodjs #opensource #awesome #ipad #3d http://t.co/X3sZ3 #instapaper"
is all about.
What I usually do, is looking quickly at the 10-20 newest tweets, see if there is anything interesting or not.
This way, I miss at least 95% of the tweets in my stream, but what else can I do?
I think I am not the only person who have this problem, I think this applies far beyond twitter, and relevant to the way we are going to consume [social] media in the near future while trying to get some things done, build some things and deliver them from time to time.
The signal vs noise ratio is just getting bigger (on the noise side) and there is not yet proven technology to filter that noise and show us only what we want. <comment><USER2> I mostly keep up with my stream as a part of my wake up ritual, but Twitter does have problems. One important question, however, is how much room Twitter gives you to change things. There was a mention a few days ago saying Twitter has rules about what you can do.

Two obvious changes I'd like to see?

1\. The ability to search my own history and that of my friends for when I want to find a link someone posted a week ago about whatever.

2\. A better way to view conversations. Maybe vertical, going down as the conversation progresses, with new branches coming in as new people contribute. All I know now is when a flurry begins, making sense of it in one timeline (with broken reply links from shoddy and experimental clients) and not necessarily following everyone in the convo to begin with, is a pain.

</comment><comment><USER3> You're hitting on a point that I've touched on before. For the most part Facebook's search is pretty weak, but I've had a number of times where I have specifically searched for keywords within my friends (e.g. who is going to a certain festival).

Hashtags are a great thing that came out of Twitter...and now I'm just surprised twitter hasn't implemented a way to sort/recall certain mentions in your feed. Anybody want to step up?

</comment><comment><USER4> What if you logged into "MySuperDuperTwitterSummary.com" and everytime you hit your home page there, it gave you a summary of everything you missed since the last time you hit the home page, organized in a one-page, above the fold format. Links at the bottom would take you to previous reports.

The challenge would be two things - on the back end, summarization/threading/categorization and then on the front end presenting an effective information design. I think you could get 90% of the way on the backend by leveraging hashtags.

Anybody know of something like this that already exists?

I have to confess I am completely swamped by Twitter and don't keep up either.

</comment><comment><USER5> I believe that there is a chrome extension for this.

If you can't reply (and I can't find it myself), I'll make it for you.

Edit: to clarify, I believe that there is a chrome extension that does this _inside_ twitter.com

</comment><comment><USER6> An open source project called ThinkUp is trying to do something similar to this. However, right now you have to host your own copy.

<http://thinkupapp.com/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Does this help? <http://www.readevery.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://www.my6sense.com/>

<comment><USER9> They are popular so I tried it, but I didn't find their sorting helpful. And their login process is annoying.</comment></comment>