Foxconn replaces '60,000 factory workers with robots' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966 <comment><USER2> Robots are owned, and this is key. They are productive assets, much like houses produce rent. If they become a problem, all we need to really do is tax them. This means robots will be working for the people, because that's what taxes are -- asset distribution facilitated by government.

Of course, two major problems here. First, the government, for obvious reasons, and second, the corporations that have a stronghold on the government. If the government did it's job, it would simply be re-funneling money where it needs to go; to pay for education, social services, safety, and so on. And if corporations didn't have their way, they wouldn't be able to twist laws and regulations in ways to maximize profit and avoid taxes, because that's precisely what taxes are designed to do -- cut profits.

But if history can teach us anything, it's that even when manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas and call center jobs were shipped and agricultural labor jobs were swept by undocumented immigrants, the government here didn't do much of anything, and the businesses got their way with increased profits. In turn, our labor force got displaced, but we survived because ultimately people find a way to make money.

Every non-government job is created by an entrepreneur, either directly, indirectly, or down the line. Entrepreneurship is really what has driven America. Many will take that over government and taxation (solving the two major problems outlined above), and this is the free market argument in a nutshell.

The takeaway is, if we tax robotic labor, they'd be working for us, the people. Just as anyone paying 15% in income tax is working 2 months out of the year for the USA. Or we could hustle it out and have everyone desperately seek work to save their lives. Our choice. One leads to greater inequality.

<comment><USER3> The problem with these solutions is that production moves where it's cheaper. If you tax my robots, I'll just pack up and move them to another country where they are not taxed, or they are taxed less.

<comment><USER4> This argument applies to all kinds of taxes, right? If you tax labor, I'll just move my factory somewhere that labor isn't taxed. If you tax my income, I'll move myself to a lower-tax place. If you tax my land, I'll just buy land somewhere else. And so on.

Yet somehow most countries are able to tax labor, income, land, and so on, without losing their entire populations.

Not to say that people won't leave because of taxes. Just that there are also reasons that make people stay.

<comment><USER2> The issue has a lot to do with the finances of scale. Mom and pops aren't going anywhere, and neither are you, but Apple will go to Ireland, and wealthy individuals will bank in tax havens. And hence, the wealth gap widens. Most -- the "99%" \-- stay and pay taxes. The 1% don't, but they look like they're still here. They just have one foot - the tax paying foot -- in Ireland.

<comment><USER5> An accountant recently confessed to me that many wealthy Californians do the same using Nevada. Just declare an NV home as your primary residence and make sure to document your time in NV (photos, flights, ATM receipts). CA income tax is 13.3% for the wealthy. NV is 0%.

<comment><USER6> If you are making let's say 10 mln a year, that means by lying that NV is your primary residence, you did not pay more than 1 mln in taxes. For getting back that kind of money, Criminal Investigation Bureau of Franchise Tax Board can afford keeping dedicated agent who will follow you and see how often do you actually go to NV and after couple weeks of surveillance when he sees that you do not go there much, he can get court order and:

\- Look at your cell phone location information for last several months.

\- Use Police's license plate trackers to track your car (Probably they do not even need court order for this one).

\- They can get your car's location information (I assume high income people have one of modern expensive cars and most of them have tracker in case it is stolen).

\- They can talk to your made(s) (I assume you have one, since you make 10+ mln) and pressure them to tell the true story.

Sounds really dangerous to lie about your location now days when it is so easy to check it, without even leaving the room.

<comment><USER7> You, in turn, donate $50k a year to politicians who work to cut the Franchise Tax Board's investigative budget.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is what I've been thinking for quite a while but what allot of people seem to ignore - the "AI revolution" can very well "only" hit developing nations while skipping the developed ones.

Better, smarter robots are a threat to Chinese workers, not so much to say Dutch or Canadian workers.

The west can afford and is willing to pay more even for less, just look at how many people are willing to pay 10 times the price for "Organic Fare Traded Tomatoes" or any other "artisan" goods.

The west is also not as much dependent on manufacturing and the manufacturing it does do is usually high tech, low(er) volume and highly specialized one where it both might not make sense to automate everything and where people are more than willing to pay the extra to know that something was "hand crafted".

But overall we've developed a consumer culture especially in the past decade that is pretty much focused on retro/old school craftsmanship, small scale production and "artisan" touches, it almost makes one wonder if the whole "hipster revolution" wasn't hand crafted by some cabal of shadowy figures that foresaw the "rise of the machines", because our willingness to pay 250$ for a hand crafted hemp bag on etsy is just might be the thing that would protect us from AI automation.

<comment><USER9> It is not just manufacturing that is going to be replaced by AI and Robots and it will affect developing and developed countries.

Already there are a lot of junior lawyers being replaced [0].

Check out what a former CEO of McDonald's said about robots and the fast food industry [1].

> "I was at the National Restaurant Show yesterday and if you look at the > robotic devices that are coming into the restaurant industry – it's cheaper > to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who's > inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries," the former US chief > executive Ed Rensi told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html) [1] [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/25/former- mcdona...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/25/former-mcdonalds- ceo-threatens-replace-employees-robots)

<comment><USER8> Yes things like legal discovery, medical history research and many other things can (and could be for the past 10+ years) and will be "replaced" or more like integrated with software / machine learning assist. Large firms that hire 30 new associates instead of 50 won't be a big blow to the economy, even McDonalds switching to more automation won't have that much of a negative impact McDonald's can and should be the "cheapest" option, but don't expect the local diner to automate at the same time, and don't forget that we are willing to pay more for a barista even tho when you use the same beans even 25 year old automated coffee machines produces a better and more consistent product than the vast majority of barista's out there. The Restaurant industry in the US overall employs about 15M people and that figure is expected to grow by 10% in the next 10 years even with automation.

<comment><USER10> Automating _good_ baristas in a cost-effective way is actually a pretty hard problem, but automating your typical Starbucks espresso machine button pusher is trivial -- machines that can make passable cappuccinos already exist. But people don't go to Starbucks for the coffee; they go to Starbucks for the same reason they go to bars.

I think a lot of the service sector automation that will happen in the next 20+ years is analogous. Anything customer-facing is bound to stick around as long as people have spending money, while anything that's not customer-facing will slowly become automated.

E.g. The person at the counter in a McDonalds is the _easiest_ person to replace -- all you really need is an iPad and a couple accessories. But if I were a betting man, I would bet that McDonalds will replace food prep jobs before replacing humans with kiosks in most locations.

<comment><USER11> > E.g. The person at the counter in a McDonalds is the easiest person to > replace -- all you really need is an iPad and a couple accessories.

Except that most people are _REALLY BAD_ at operating a kiosk. You want a person at the kiosk so that they can gently guide the SUV driving suburban wife with the high maintenance order gently out of the way of the rest of the customers.

The backend jobs will be the first to get automated.

<comment><USER12> Actually, Sheetz (think fast food meets convenience store; based out of Ohio and only present in a few mid-Atlantic states) has been using kiosks for ordering food for years. Granted, payment is still at a register manned by an actual person, but it's not like that's uncharted territory, either -- Chili's allows you to pay at your table without needing to hand your credit card over to your waitress.

<comment><USER10> Right, but that's a captive market. No one goes to Sheetz for food; they stop there for gas and grab something to eat while they're stopped. So making the food ordering process a bit less pleasant is NBD.

McDonalds has to compete with other chains and prices are already bottom barrel. In McDonal's case, taking human interaction out of the equation seems like a losing proposition.

<comment><USER13> In western Pennsylvania, where I'm from, people definitely do go to Sheetz just for food.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Robotics and AI have improved significantly and will continue to improve into the future. How much have humans improved over the last 30 years? People simply cannot compete, and this is a trend that cannot be reversed, or shouldn't be reversed.

Just as mass industrialization necessitated huge social change in response. The emergence of a middle class, the growth of cities, organized labor and work hours, etc.

As automation and AI continue to replace jobs and more and more people find it difficult to compete at _any_ price. I predict you will see similar societal changes in response. I don't know what those will be, and they probably will not come easy. We could see a utopian future similar to Star Trek, or a dystopian one instead.

We live in interesting times. :)

<comment><USER15> This begs the question: as human productivity is increasingly usurped by machines, what will happen to the human manufacturing population? Will we finally figure out a way to distribute wealth in a agreeable way (through, for example, basic minimum income) or will we go back to the a feudal model of living?

Interestingly, _someone_ has to purchase the goods that these systems create. Thus, giving people the funds to do so, regardless of where they come from, seems like a necessity.

<comment><USER16> Wasn't feudalism mainly a hierarchical means of controlling land and the people that worked the land? If you don't actually need peasants/serfs to do anything then you wouldn't need feudalism.

<comment><USER17> One of the drivers for feudalism was the prevalence of cavalry in warfare starting after about 700AD. Mounted knights are expensive to maintain, hence the solution of providing land grants in exchange for military service. It's a medieval version of the military-industrial complex.

The connection between mounted warfare and feudalism is controversial [1] but it's common enough that societies adopt social structures optimized for defense. There were almost certainly multiple reasons for the prevalence of feudal relations.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some might ask; well if this is the case, can we move production (back) to the US? The answer (imo) is no. The Chinese have done an amazing job building the supply chain. Need a part, go right down the street and meet the vendors, need packaging, its just down the other street. The infrastructure built to bring products to market is their real advantage here. Try sourcing a new chip in the states and then try over there. This is true not just for electronics, but also with textile production.

<comment><USER19> The answer is not 'no'. The answer is, 'It will take some investment'. There is a big difference between those two answers.

People who say it is impossible to move production from one country to another don't understand what the word 'impossible' means.

<comment><USER20> > The answer is not 'no'. The answer is, 'It will take some investment'.

That's also the answer to 'can we move production under the sea?'

<comment><USER21> Not really "some investment" is not equal to "extraordinary investment". One is possible with little change and costs, the other would require lots of change and waste.

<comment><USER22> Which one is which?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Related: Adidas to make shoes in Germany again – but using robots [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to- sell-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to-sell-robot- made-shoes-from-2017)

<comment><USER24> > The shoes made in Germany would sell at a similar price to those produced in > Asia, he said.

Interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is the angle I thought first world countries would take to get manufacturing back in-house. It still makes sense to do it if the recurring infrastructure costs (like power) are similar. However a plant may no longer bring in 100-200 workers so not much for the politicians to preach about. It is going to be a few high skilled personnel, a handful of physical workers (to replace and maintain robots), and a temporary building supervisor (required while humans inhabit the plant). Eventually second generation plants will reduce that even further with only a supervisor coming around for extreme cases.

<comment><USER26> The way worldwide logistics and shipping is constructed makes this more more or less impossible.

The supply chains are based around china, india being the primary manufactoring.

<comment><USER27> That can change. The supply chain wasn't always based around Chinese and Indian manufacturing.

<comment><USER28> Working at a 'traditional manufacturing' company that makes a lot of products in Asia, I can see that we are already starting to move manufacturing back to America (where the bulk of our customers are), despite our supply chain still being deeply entrenched overseas. I would expect this trend to continue in the coming years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The people there are really starting to feel the encroaching mass-automation of low wage jobs then :/

I hope that the spokesperson was speaking the truth when they said that the increased automation would not lead to long-term loss of employment.

But I can't imagine reeducating that much (previously) low(?) skilled employees, rather than hiring a new graduate (of which there are reportedly many) for R&D.

<comment><USER30> Not only are jobs being lost through robotics on factory floors, they will also be lost through self driving vehicles. Massive swathes of people are at the risk of facing unemployment, and I think it's going to catch a lot of people off-guard.

Increasingly to me a universal income guaranteed by the government seems like sensible policy to ease in sooner than later. I see no other option, lobbying to allow lower minimum wages or eradication of minimum wage to keep humans competitive against mass produced robotics and AI is quite frankly idiotic.

<comment><USER31> Perhaps we've overstated the benefits of linking our personal fare to the economy. Humans have lived for many years in autonomous or small tribes, living off the land. I'm not advocating a return to ancient times, but I think we can reduce our dependency towards the economy. The only thing that is really needed is land. Food is nearly free if you have the land to grow it on and the time to tend to it.

Shelter, well that's a huge variable: building your own house is almost impossible with many regulations that require a certain expertise to navigate. But once you have food, shelter—and friends/family—you're in a decent spot from a survival standpoint.

We don't have to live like the Amish, but perhaps a happy medium can be found, by being less dependent on the economy. Instead of buying 100% of your survival needs, perhaps it's possible to buy 50% of them and make the rest yourself. With the better telecommunications we have today, I often wonder about a society that's only 50% plugged in to the economy—and 50% self- reliant.

Disclaimer: I'm no macro-economist.

<comment><USER32> Here's the rub: The people who are the least dependent on getting a job in order to survive are the best positioned to succeed in the economy. They can take time to educate themselves. They can spend time networking, and building relationships. They don't have to struggle to be well fed, well clothed. They have lower levels of stress.

Contrast that to someone who is 100% self reliant. They don't have friends or family to lean on. Every day they have to figure out where their next meal comes from, where they will sleep. Basic safety is not even guaranteed. (You can't be 100% on guard, without break.) The constant demand to take care of one's basic needs slowly wears them down. They have to struggle just to stay clean and well dressed. If you live in a city, you see people like this all the time. They're not part of social support system that benefits economically successful people – and the results are tragic.

<comment><USER31> There's another point, which I should mention: the kind of job that is most suitable to part-time remote working is also the kind that happens to pay very well and, as you point out, not the lot of those who are the most dependent on getting a job.

So yes, there's a bias in my proposition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm always confused at how people pity those that work in menial, repetitive, uncreative manufacturing jobs (to give an example, see the flack that Amazon receives for the drudgery of its warehouse jobs) and at the same time worry about job loss from automation. These uncreative, "inhumane" jobs we have are precisely the low hanging fruit ripe for the picking by robots.

Of course, there is always friction in the redistribution process of the labor, but in the long run, I can't help but be optimistic about the increased human potential that can result from moving people away from menial tasks. Unless of course, you believe that some people are better off with tasks that require low creativity and human initiative.

<comment><USER34> My father was a "manager" of people doing that kind of ultra repetitive, not very smart, dirty-hands tasks. I was fortunate enough to meet some of them when I was 20 years old. This opened my eyes :

\- those people were not well educated so that kind of work was something they could do and for a decent salary

\- that was a job and they had pride in being employed and useful

\- that job was not mentally exhausting so they could think about something else or talk while working; many found that quite enjoyable, socially interesting if you will

\- they were doing different things, going from one "simple" task to another and so they all shared a knowledge ofthe build process they were involved in. They were proud of that as well.

So well, those "not very interesting" tasks were actually taken care of very seriously and with pride. So in the end the "how it was done" was just as important than "what was done".

That's why if robots take over, I can't help but see that these people will miss something they loved. You can say that's the price to pay but, go and say that in front of them; you'll understand what the "it's-logical-unescapable" kind of argument really means...

<comment><USER33> Definitely, what makes sense economically on a macro scale ignores all the micro, very human, factors involved. I have nothing to say but to be grateful for the position that I, and a lot of fellow HN'ers probably, are in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> If I'm a company making $1000 gadgets and then adopt some technology (like robotics) to reduce the cost of my gadget to $500, have I just reduced my country's GDP?

<comment> tuna-piano Great question. The answer is no. This is one of those many cases where thinking in money terms confuses the issue.

If the country had 100 people making gadgets, and now it only requires 50 to make the same number of gadgets, the country can now double the amount of gadgets it makes, or the 50 people can go make something else.

Therefore, a doubling in productivity will not decrease GDP (total production of an economy), but increase it.

<comment><USER36> By doubling the amount of gadgets in the market you are also reducing price of the gadgets (according to offer and demand). The parent's idea is not new, it was already introduced in the first chapter of Marx's Capital. The only capitalistic solution to the devaluation of work introduced by increases in productivity is to increase the demand for things: by increasing peoples consumerism via marketing, reducing the durability of the things, etc.

This vicious circle has to stop, or the planet will stop it for us. We should think about how to work less and consume less.

<comment> tuna-piano What? If people want the same amount of things but are now more productive, they can also choose to work less (which is what has happened over the last few hundred years.)

<comment><USER37> They didn't choose to work less, they fought vicious and sometimes violent political struggles against owners and government to get reduced hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Foxconn has finally been able to achieve the tolerances they need with their robots. They've been trying to do this for a few years now, but the positioning precision wasn't good enough.[1][2]

Their FoxBot robots are conventional robot arms on fixed bases. There are four standard models, differing in size and precision. Foxconn is making them in- house, for about $20,000 to $25,000. Not clear what sensing they have; the ones they've shown in public just had simple suction end effectors.

There's nothing exotic here except the scale on which Foxconn is operating.

[1] [http://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/1829834/foxconns...](http://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/1829834/foxconns- foxbot-army-close-hitting-chinese-market-track-meet-30-cent) [2] [http://www.4erevolution.com/en/foxconn-foxbot- apple/](http://www.4erevolution.com/en/foxconn-foxbot-apple/)

</comment><comment><USER39> Welcome to the automated future. As a world we are going to have to adjust to the changes brought about by automation. We need to start talking about how society will be structured with 50% unemployment.

<comment><USER40> Solution: most of the revenue generated by robots should go to welfare benefits

<comment><USER39> I like the idea, but it gets tricky, what if the robots are in a different country?

<comment><USER41> Tax the goods at the border.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> There seems to be a lot of discussion in this thread hinting at the detriment of economic slowdown. Can we all agree that ever-increasing industrial GDP, inflation notwithstanding, will ultimately be problematic?

It must be driven by either population or productivity per capita increase, period.

Industrial economies cannot continue to grow in this unregulated way forever, due to it increasing both the environmental impacts and wealth disparity. That said, information economies can grow much more aggressively without the negative impacts- but we don't have a system for adequately valuing information GDP, i.e. rewarding people for creating content.

If our society is becoming entertainment-centric (which is great, and inevitable) then we need to figure out how every person can ascertain a quality-of-life standard through providing entertainment.

Eventually natural resources and industrial production will be completely automated. Obviously the trickle-down economic theory does not hold up in that situation.

<comment><USER24> > Can we all agree that ever-increasing industrial GDP, inflation > notwithstanding, will ultimately be problematic?

I'd agree that ever-increasing GDP is not reality.

The thing we all disagree about is when a downturn will occur, and to what degree.

When you talk about a forthcoming downturn, it sounds like you think it'll happen this year. It's natural that some people will disagree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> People buy iPhones. Robots don't. At some point, replacing your workers with robots becomes replacing your _customers_ with robots, and the economy goes to hell. Are we there yet?

<comment><USER24> Give the robots enough salary to buy a phone, and program them to buy it. Problem solved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Two other recent robot stories.

Adidas comes back to Germany but with a heavily automated factory [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to- sell-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to-sell-robot- made-shoes-from-2017) and ex McDonalds executive pointing out robots are cheaper than 15 bucks an hour employees [http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/05/mcdonalds-ex- ceo-15h...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/05/mcdonalds-ex-ceo-15hr- minimum-wage-will-unleash-the-robot-rebellion/)

Automated at the bottom and outsourced at the top, going to be an interesting squeeze and I am more worried about all the screams for protectionism in trade which pretty much shut down the world the last time it was tried

</comment><comment><USER45> Not only Robots, but software can also replace workers, I know, mine has done that.

<comment><USER46> Mine too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Also reduces jumper-type suicides, due to the robots being bolted to the factory floor.

</comment><comment><USER48> I believe what makes the current iteration of technology making jobs redundant unique is the speed/frequency with which this is happening. In the past the process was slow enough for the next generation to train for the next set of skills that were required in the economy. It is very hard for a mature professional to change job tracks and certainly almost impossible for a whole society to do so several times in the typical lifespan of a person. This is what is happening with the pace of change/redundancy today and the effect that I foresee is revolt like conditions in many societies.

We are already witnessing this revolt/discontent in the US in this presidential cycle in my view. People are very angry and I fear it will only become worse in the coming years/decades as promised solutions by the new crop of leaders elected by angry people don't work out as expected.

</comment><comment><USER49> Light bulbs did not kill candle makers job. Light bulb made it possible for humans to work at night speeding up humanity's progress by several factors in more ways than we can imagine.

The dominant left narrative is to see automation as "job loss" but in reality automation is bring manufacturing back to USA. Helping Americans live in a more safer and better workplaces and rapidly increasing technological progress.

Also, people whose jobs are replaced don't just go and jump into river. They simply find some other jobs possible at lower wages thus helping other businesses get even more competitive.

</comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Stories like this make me think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Charlie's father was a factory worker who struggled to make ends meet, the irony being that his job was to screw toothpaste caps on toothpaste tubes.

After the events of the book, Charlie's father went back to the factory but as an engineer to work on the machines that do his old job. Not everyone at the factory could have received that kind of promotion. I wonder what happened to them?

<comment><USER50> I dunno. But what happened to all the people that used to till the fields until tractors and combine harvesters came along?

Thousands, literally thousands of professions have been made redundant by mechanisation and automation over the last few hundred years, but we're still all just as busy as ever.

Look at all the professions that have been created in just the last 20 years thanks to the internet. Sure automation changes the nature of work, and the type of jobs that need doing, but I've yet to see a shred of evidence that continued advances in automation are going to put us all out of a job, other than vague "this time it's different".

<comment> rm_-rf_slash What happened to the horses after cars and trains took their jobs? Sure we still keep them around but mostly just for fun. We don't need horses anymore.

If robots can farm, mine, refine, and manufacture everything, what's left for people to do? Secretary? Replaced by AI. Customer service? AI. Fast food? AI. Bartender? AI. Doctor? AI. Lawyer? AI. Accountant? AI.

Programmer?

AI.

<comment><USER50> Horses were good at one thing: dragging stuff around. Humans are a bit more adaptable.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash AI is (only currently theoretically) capable of infinitely more than a human.

Let's say you have an expert blacksmith. He comes from a long line of blacksmiths, each a renowned expert in their trade. One day, he starts teaching an AI (which has human dexterity) how to do his job, as his forefathers taught their children. Eventually the AI matches his skills, maybe even surpasses. The AI will never die. It can copy its instances infinitely. We don't need human blacksmiths anymore.

When humans began to take over the earth, the single best survival trait among other organisms was being useful to humans. How useful are we to an intelligence that never gets tired, that can manage all the resources and means of production on earth?

What if humans are seen as a net drain on the earth and its resources? What if 1% of the population doesn't need the 99% for anything anymore?

<comment><USER24> True AI is a long way off according to top ML people like Yann LeCun

We have no idea how a computer can be designed to come up with its own goals. We can teach it English, French, and Chinese, or get near perfect photo identification, but the computer cannot decide to learn to write a novel on its own. We could teach it to write novels, but there would still be other tasks it can't do. Even if a computer could self-direct 99% of known possible things in the universe, if there were one thing we could prove it would never learn, then it's not AI.

It may not even be possible and we could be stuck with humans around forever. Ug.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash I guess we'll see who's eating who's words in time.

Most "basic" AI stuff like voice and image recognition was "a long way off" for like, forever. Every "advancement" in machine learning since the 50s ended up as a dud.

Then BAM! Voice recognition is here. Not perfect but definitely good enough. Image recognition is way, way, way better than it was 10 years ago (which was only marginally better than it was 10 years previous). The current trend of machine learning is accelerating progress, not a plateau.

Just think of the Geth from Mass Effect: their creators made them to perform basic tasks and share data. As their scope widened they were tweaked to handle more work. Eventually they became self-aware before they or even their creators really understood what was going on.

Besides, why use novels as a use case? Why not, I don't know, organized crime drama? They all follow the same arc anyway: someone does something evil or greedy, rivals descend into civil war, leader(s) assassinated, vague hope for better tomorrow.

It'll be like Winston Smith in 1984, writing the same stories over and over again and changing little more than names.

<comment><USER24> > Most "basic" AI stuff like voice and image recognition was "a long way off" > for like, forever. Every "advancement" in machine learning since the 50s > ended up as a dud.

That was the general public's perception. Certain people in the field of ML knew such advances in application-specific domains such as voice and imagery would come at some point.

The difference between the application-specific solutions and general AI is top researchers don't have any real theories about general AI.

Even the OpenAI folks have toned down the rhetoric on their about page [1]. Their goal is no longer general AI, as Musk and Altman defined it at the outset. It's to contribute to existing developments. They write,

"In the short term, we're building on recent advances in AI research and working towards the next set of breakthroughs."

I can't explain my view any better in text. I've studied ML, ML researchers are nearest to AI, and they're all saying it isn't around the corner. They don't even have theories on how to make it truly general. Society will continue to see really great advances as a result of ML developments, but general AI isn't going to be one of them.

[1] [https://openai.com/about/](https://openai.com/about/)

<comment><USER51> It seems to me the amount of data available through the internet is what powered the recent advances in ML. Hence the reason data companies like Google have been making the progress.

The domain is also limited, Siri can't play Go, and AlphaGo can't do voice recognition.

I believe the ML researchers if they are saying AI is not close.

<comment><USER24> > It seems to me the amount of data available through the internet is what > powered the recent advances in ML.

Great point. This was part of it. There were other elements, all of which did not come together until a few years ago, yet their result has been expected since at least the 90s if not the 50s by some very visionary and optimistic people. The other elements were (1) having enough _labeled_ data, (2) fast enough hardware, not just to solve the problems, but also to be able to test repeatedly with different initialization weights to identify good values for these parameters (3) good enough libraries for programming the hardware, enabling more developers to easily make use of GPUs for matrix operations, and distributed computing for problems that benefit from parallelization (4) various mathematical advances whose details I couldn't do justice, but things like rewriting the math so problems are more easily parallelizable helped a bunch, (5) sharing of research. ML researchers shared their advances openly via places like arxiv.org and this led to faster advances (6) the use of patents for defense rather than offense - I believe google led the way here

Now, and going forward, yes, it's believed that those with the most data have the biggest advantage. Even so, researchers are making advances and specializing in all kinds of areas of ML, like ones requiring little data, no data or lots of data, varying degrees of labeled data, different classes of algorithms, etc. The field is growing rapidly

That's the gist. I'm definitely missing a few things

Yann LeCun [1] is a good person to follow if you're interested in a top ML researcher's opinion about AI and the media's perception of it. He frequently posts articles with which he agrees or disagrees

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun](https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The OP doesn't mention, but could it be that hedging against bad PR and government incentives for capex purchases are accelerating this.

For example, if this trend continues Apple will no longer get bad PR for supporting sweatshops. In the US there were also years (might still be true) where a company fully could write off capex purchases in the first year and not a multi-year depreciation schedule. Perhaps China is doing something similar.

</comment><comment><USER52> It seems to me until we need a real conversation of the ethics of automation and how we can do it without destroying the lives of the workers we are displacing.

A few years ago I made a vow to myself that I wouldn't work on software that puts people out of jobs. When I worked on job automation projects I would get very depressed watching people lose jobs because of me. I can't imagine the damage of something at this scale.

<comment><USER53> > A few years ago I made a vow to myself that I wouldn't work on software that > puts people out of jobs.

Arguably the whole point of software is to automate tasks that would have been done by humans. How do you avoid this when making useful software?

<comment><USER54> Who lost a job because of an Xbox game? I think you could argue that software like Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office are net positive on job growth. Software can empower people to do entirely new kinds of jobs.

<comment><USER55> Word processors somewhat help replace the typing pool. Not to mention the affect that have had on the printing/typesetting industry. Image manipulation software allows a single person to produce far more work that hundreds of people working by hand. This is the exact purpose of software: to make people more efficient and powerful in their tasks.

<comment><USER56> In general, "office automation" software (as it was once often called) combined with, over time, email, self-service travel sites, and associated changing expectations has largely eliminated whole classes of jobs. I never had a personal secretary/admin but I've had ones who handled a group of 5-10 people. And even mid-level execs had personal admins when I was starting out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Will this decrease the cost of the chips and pass along the savings to the consumers?

</comment><comment><USER58> Just in case there was anyone still left thinking that China's manufacturing advantage is in low labor costs

</comment><comment><USER59> So if it's just robots building the phones, then why build the phones in China? Maybe some tax breaks?

</comment><comment><USER60> From the picture in the article, it seems that a "pick-and-place" machine [1] that is typical to SMT operations would do the same job as the workers in that photo.

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

</comment><comment><USER61> One more reason for not opposing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world)

</comment><comment><USER62> Already happens: Capitalism destroys human labor force and goes to the next phase [http://bit.ly/1JPiUzp](http://bit.ly/1JPiUzp)

</comment><comment><USER63> and still probably a good 295 years until the these machines receive basic rights.

</comment><comment><USER64> Good for them.

</comment><comment><USER65> Did they demand a $15 minimum wage ?

</comment><comment><USER66> Robot workers of the world, unite!

</comment><comment><USER67> [https://imgur.com/gallery/7drHiqr](https://imgur.com/gallery/7drHiqr) It's happening.

</comment><comment><USER68> Guess they won't be needing the suicide nets anymore!

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

</comment><comment><USER69> Have you grown food, ever?

<comment><USER31> Yes. It's hard work. It also dispenses with the need for a gym membership.

<comment><USER69> It's not a replacement for gym membership. It's a full time job. You can't do anything else than work in the field, eat and sleep. People did that their entire lives so they can send their kids to school to have a better life and you are advocating to go back to this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Gees, I don't know. The world is ending. Give all the people free monies. It will end well. We are all brothers and humans are great.

<comment><USER70> Way to make parent's point about handwaiving.

<comment><USER69> I just realized I'm not interested in this internet back-and-forth "but you are wrong" thing. It's absolutely pointless. Hopefully we don't get to enjoy the socialism people are trying to bring back.

<comment><USER71> So what is your answer? Or are you just going to handwave it away?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> There should be laws on replacing a human worker with a robot. Certain revenue of what the robot generates must be paid to the replaced worker directly.

<comment><USER72> A bit drastic don't you think? Wouldn't it be better that whatever the person was making and now the robot makes becomes cheaper for everyone?

<comment><USER73> Money flows in a cycle.

The worker must get wages to buy the product. The company must sell product to get the money needed to pay workers their wages.

When you put robots in the mix you break this cycle. When workers/customers don't have money to be customers of employers, everybody loses. It doesn't matter if products are cheaper.

The tragedy of the commons is that corporations in seeking to become more efficient by eliminating employees are actually shooting themselves in the foot.

The change the OP suggests is drastic, but it is a valid methodology to maintain the money cycle. The only thing wrong with it, is that it is not fair. Why should someone who produces no economic output get paid?

<comment><USER74> Because otherwise they pick up a gun and rob the robot-owner.

That's the essential element that the rich folk concentrating capital and eliminating labor are forgetting. When the people have no bread, they do not eat cake. They start chopping off heads, without being very discriminating about whether they deserve to remain attached to their necks or not.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla CEO Elon Musk blasts media, pitches site to rate journalists - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/23/tesla-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-media/638253002/ <comment><USER2> It should have analytics on how many times they were correct or incorrect in their facts presented in there articles and stats on how likely their predictions came true. I started writing a basic program along these lines that would try to identify smart Twitter users from less intelligent ones based on the accuracy of their predictions on a stock.

EDIT: I guess some people prefer the bliss of ignorance as evidence by downvotes.

<comment><USER3> >how many times they were correct or incorrect in their facts presented in there articles

And who decides that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Alex Ferguson would do the same, and reporters would curry favour with him in order to maintain access. This is just bully-boy press relations.</comment>


Problems with TDD - <AUTHOR> http://www.dalkescientific.com/writings/diary/archive/2009/12/29/problems_with_tdd.html <comment><USER2> I find TDD impossible for all but the most trivial of coding tasks. As the article asks, what should the resulting API look like? The act of solving a problem gives me insight into the actual requirements, and the API results from that knowledge.

Another issue I have with unit testing is that the cases which, for me at least, identify the most bugs pre-production are more integration-ish. Does the timeout setting for the HTTP API work as expected? Does this transaction really roll-back against an Oracle DB with the "thin" driver on JBoss? These are cases which are really hard to catch with traditional, use-the-UI testing, either manual or automated. I should read more about what others are doing for these semi-integration cases.

A couple of years ago, I committed a test case called TestHowDatabasesWork because of a team argument about how Oracle handled concurrency and locking. It got a good laugh, but it also documented a few behaviors specific to the problem at hand.

<comment><USER3> Agree. TDD in the middle tiers of the app is easy, but that's not where the difficulties lie.

Testing the UI layer is quite difficult (at least in the absence of something like MVC, which too many developers can't handle and only want VB-like or WebForms-like coding). And in any paradigm I've ever heard of, real testing of the bottom layers of DB interaction is darned near impossible.

As the OP asserts, imposing a well-defined testing regimen is where most of the bang for the buck derives.

<comment><USER4> > And in any paradigm I've ever heard of, real testing of the bottom layers of > DB interaction is darned near impossible.

Is it that because the code is written in an untestable way? A pretty standard mocking approach should be able to test this.

<comment><USER5> In my experience, problems "at the bottom" usually occur because underlying third-party components like the database (or the filesystem or the network stack or the remote server) don't behave the way you thought they did. They're buggy or undocumented, or you just misunderstood their specs. When you mock them away for testing, the mock objects act like _you_ expect and don't have the same quirks as their real-life counterparts. If you don't mock them away, then you have hard-to-run or hard-to-reproduce tests, or tests that give different results with different instances of the external dependencies.

<comment><USER4> Ah. That makes sense. I guess I've had the luxury of only working with MySQL, Postres, and sqlite, and have never run into bugs with them.

<comment><USER2> I think the issue is that a mock of a DB doesn't imitate all the nuanced behaviors of the real thing. Transactionality, concurrency, isolation, error generation, etc. So, while you can prove functional correctness with a DBUnit/etc., you can't prove that the difficult stuff works.

<comment><USER4> Isn't that the job of the DB package, and not of you, the user?

<comment><USER2> It's the job of the DB package to perform as specified. The problem is that one can write code that works correctly under the wrong assumptions of DB behavior. Here's an example I've experienced:

We were building (to be purposefully vague) an auction system where an auction could end at any point in time. Bids flowed in via a queue. It didn't really matter within reason which order the bids were processed, but we had to make sure that a bid which caused an auction to end was processed in isolation from other bids that depended on the auction still being open. Our code relied upon the DB's locking behaviors (SELECT FOR UPDATE) to ensure that the code processing a particular bid laid claim to the state (auction status, etc) used for its work. All fine and good except that we didn't quite understand how Oracle implemented locking at various isolation levels. So, some code which would have worked against, say, DBUnit, failed under Oracle. This wasn't a failure of the DB, but we wouldn't have caught this problem unless we ran an integration test.

<comment><USER4> Ah. Interesting.

Databases have always been one of my weaker points, and lately, ORMs have allowed me to be pretty lazy on that front. Thanks for walking me through that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think that TDD is like Wittgenstein's ladder, which can be discarded once you climb through the window, or the Buddha's raft, which can be discarded once you cross the river.

TDD offers novice (or stuck) programmers two powerful nudges: 1) to break tasks down to trivial units, and 2) to think about what you're trying to accomplish before writing the code. Once you get the hang of doing this, TDD is just dogma to cling to.

<comment><USER7> I have to admit I've always been puzzled by the opposition to TDD. I don't see it as a novice thing, or a dogmatic thing. Yet many in this community see it as such, so I'm wondering what they're seeing that I'm not.

To me, the fundamental benefit of TDD is that it proves that the code is in the state I think it's in before I make a change, and it proves that the change I made did what I expect. I'm not aware of any other technique that does that. And I find that to be compelling enough to use the technique routinely.

It seems to me the article author's basic point is that TDD alone isn't sufficient to prove all the requirements are met. I agree with that, but I also don't think that's sufficient to dismiss the practice.

<comment><USER8> _To me, the fundamental benefit of TDD is that it proves that the code is in the state I think it's in before I make a change, and it proves that the change I made did what I expect._

I think this is the sort of statement that makes some of us foam at the mouth and gesticulate wildly at well-intentioned TDD proponents. TDD doesn't prove anything of the sort. It proves that the code passed your tests before you made the change and passed them after - which is a very, very different thing from proving the change you made did what you expect.

 _I'm not aware of any other technique that does that._

Because there isn't one, in the non-trivial case but there are many that try to help - from static typing to design-by-contract and of course a zillion other testing methodologies. In fact, chances are very good that what you do is not strictly unit testing. And that's fine and good. TDD didn't invent testing.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/cashto/archive/2009/03/31/it-s-ok- not-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/cashto/archive/2009/03/31/it-s-ok-not-to-write- unit-tests.aspx)

Another rather irritating thing is the insistence that TDD is a design methodology. If you haven't yet, read the informative case of an XP adherent trying to write a sudoku solver with TDD. Here's a blog post that links to all the relevant articles - the XP'ers attempt, Peter Norvig's solution and a reference to Coders at Work where Norvig talks about it a bit.

[http://ravimohan.blogspot.com/2007/04/learning-from- sudoku-s...](http://ravimohan.blogspot.com/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku- solvers.html)

Long story short, if you don't know how to solve a problem and reason about a problem TDD won't help you. Neither will Design Patterns, UML or any particular fashionable technique, of course.

<comment><USER7> I think perhaps in my quest for concision I failed to communicate. I certainly didn't mean to imply that TDD could provide certainty for the entire system.

But I have to differ with you in one key point. TDD specifically proves that the code does _not_ pass your test before you made the change. The red bar is, in my mind, the most important part of the practice.

Given that you have a failing test, you make a change, and then you have a passing test, what more do you feel is required for proof that the change did what you expect? It's possible that "proof" is too strong a word, but I find that process gives me sufficient confidence.

(Side note: I'm honestly trying to figure out the best way to write code. I don't think TDD is the silver bullet, but I think it's a useful tool in the mechanical part of development.)

<comment><USER8> We're using 'pass' in slightly different senses, what I meant is (and this applies to any test methodology) - in the strictest sense, getting the expected outputs from a test-suite, making a change and getting the expected outputs from a test-suite proves that you are getting the expected outputs from your test-suite. It may do a lot of other things but typically proving correctness is not one of them.

 _Side note: I'm honestly trying to figure out the best way to write code._

I think that's key and merits more than a side note. One of the reasons just about any methodology can boast of success stories is that given a concerted, focused and rational effort to improve quality, quality tends to improve, regardless of methodology. Such efforts are quite hard to get right, especially for organizations but when they succeed, there's little empirical evidence the primary cause is the methodology.

So if TDD helps frame your own efforts to be a better programmer, by all means, TDD away. The TDD griping comes from the often overblown claims of TDD proponents that TDD improves quality. 'Honestly trying to figure out the best way to write code' is a more valuable starting point than TDD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a truly excellent article, and I really appreciate the tone. Calling attention to the false dichotomy between pure TDD and test-last development especially spoke to me.

In the real world, everything is a shade of grey, and the same is true with software testing. Puritanical pursuit of theories and practices is silly. TDD is useful in some instances and not in others. A skilled and experienced programmer should be able to know when it's appropriate and when it's not.

</comment><comment><USER10> Both the fib and prime factor examples are shit. The tests are individual cases which is treating the input as a Cartesian product (a point on a line since these are single-variable functions). What you want are sets. The inputs for both are all natural numbers. However, this doesn't tell you much, there's still a lot of state to work with. So what you want are end conditions, but again that doesn't tell you much.

Tests are no substitute for reasoning and TDD is just another fad.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm overall sympathetic to the opinions in this article, but I think he's gone astray in the section "Complaint: TDD freezes the API too early". One of the ideas of TDD is that writing tests guides the API, rather than forcing you into an API. That is, if you write tests based on the actual business requirements, and write them first, that process will lead you to discover the best design of the API.

Note that for this to work, you have to be writing tests based on the real use requirements. Simple synthetic unit tests will not help you here, and may lead to exactly the problem the author is complaining about.

</comment><comment><USER12> In the code kata's I have been to, we use the following model to TDD:

1\. If (all tests pass), Do one of the following:

      a. Write a failing test

      b. Write a passing test

      c. Refactor

      d. Start a 2 min discussion

2\. Else (If a test is failing)

       Fix the code.

I would imagine the above model to TDD would fix many of the complaints in the article.

</comment><comment><USER13> Great article. I enjoyed how well the author builds his case and argues for it rather reasonably. While I do disagree with his article on the whole, I do agree that TDD is not the end all be all. There is good TDD and there is bad TDD. TDD is a very general practice and what really defines your tests as good or bad is really your OOD skills.

One thing (really two things that work hand in hand) that I've found to augment my OOD skills so that I write better tests and better software is domain driven design and behavior driven testing. Using these techniques together has helped me to learn to ask better questions of my domain experts, create more decoupled and flexible software, as well as solve that age old how do I test the UI when it isn't already in an MVC framework (the correct answer is to treat it or portions of it as their own domains imo).

This is the kind of article that provokes thoughtful discussions by having a well thought out opinion and not just blabbering the first idea that comes to mind.

Thanks and keep it up!

</comment><comment><USER14> I do agree with the general sentiment of the article, but on the other hand, you should begin writing tests before it's too late and the code is too interdependent to test without a LOT of effort.

When you write your tests first, you will naturally never end up in that situation.

Of course, when you see that you have a hard time at writing unit tests because, well, the units are too big, then you can (and should!) start refactoring, but how do you refactor with confidence when you don't have tests to see whether the refactoring went well?

Chicken and egg I guess.

<comment><USER15> "but on the other hand"? Isn't that the same hand? "My own practice is to have good, automated tests, but these don't get put into place until the cost/benefit ratio makes the tests worthwhile; which is rarely at the start of the code development and always by the end." and "The important requirements are to have good, complete automated unit tests, to develop code for testing, ..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why do people still write unit tests? You are stabbing in the dark, in a very nonrandom way, and you're doing all the donkey-work _manually_.

If you care about testing, use a quickcheck clone. Bonus: it's much easier to refactor tests when you're saying "it takes an X and a Y" instead of "it does this and then that". And if you discover a bug caused by a corner case of Y and add it to your Y simulator, then _everything_ that takes a Y gets tested with that corner case.

</comment><comment><USER17> good article. can give few examples myself when too much focus on code perfection led startups to dead...

just get things done, man!!

</comment><comment><USER18> A classic example of getting TDD wrong. Happens all the time.

TDD is about design, the article is actually criticizes unit tests. TDD helps you achieve SOLID principles, which really helps in real world. Fibonaccis, primes etc. are only for demonstration purposes.

And 100% coverage is for sissies, only a TDD noob talks about it in this context since it's not sane.

<comment><USER2> >And 100% coverage is for sissies

Depends on your project and the cost of failure. I once worked on a system that would automatically instruct semi-truck drivers to move their vehicles hundreds of miles. I spend over a week building tests for transactionality/concurrency edge cases to make sure that two trucks could not be instructed to go to the same place in error. Worth it? Yup. Should you test all possible behaviors of a utility script that, if broken, can just be re- run? Probably not.

<comment><USER18> It sure depends on the project type, I was talking about projects of HN people. For my site, for example, I have broken the signup process twice so I now have a couple of tests for it, unit + watin. But I won't bother with writing tests for, say, privacy settings.</comment></comment></comment>


New Pew Data: More Americans Are Getting News on Facebook and Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/07/new-pew-data-more-americans-are-getting-news-on-facebook-and-twitter/

<comment><USER2> Always sort of wonder what type of person gets their news from Facebook.</comment>


Microsoft is building its own SIM card for Windows - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/7/10734648/microsoft-sim-card-cellular-data <comment><USER2> Switzerlands tel-cos just announced that this year we will move away from SIM cards to build in sim modules in the phones. And microsoft announces a sim a few days later...

Typical Microsoft, way behind everything.

</comment><comment><USER3> finally the spying telemetry won't be eating up our download allowances.</comment>


From Jericho to Tokyo: the world's largest cities through history – mapped - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/dec/06/world-largest-cities-mapped-through-history-data-viz <comment><USER2> It's interesting to see the number of times the largest city is replaced by a different city with a smaller population. That seems to imply some kind of catastrophe to the previous largest city. (I don't know enough about the history of most of these cities to be sure.) But I suspect that, historically, the human race hasn't done well at "sustainable". (Or perhaps at "peace on earth"; more of them may have been devastated by war than by ecology.)</comment>


Ask HN: I want to write a book (fiction) - <AUTHOR>

I've been seriously considering writing some sort of novel and selling it through Amazon via CreateSpace.
I'm a decent writer overall, and I have an excellent imagination, but I have no idea where to start when it comes to writing a piece of fiction.
Does anyone here write fiction (or non- even), or know of any good resources on where to start?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Well since I am in an "out of the box" thinking mode today, here is my idea for you based on that. For me it's all about the folding green.

First off, I'm not a fiction reader at all. I only read technical stuff, but I do not believe this specific idea is being done in fiction works.

Why not offer to work with an already successful best-selling fiction writer and automate one existing bestseller work. Turn the book into software and have multiple paths through the story that vary depending upon user input. Let the reader modify the character names, and put in some random paths that auto- generate depending on the readers choices. Have the ending be totally random from a choice of 10 endings.

Instead of a single story, the reader would be buying a set of random stories with a common thread based on a best seller. You could try selling it through regular book channels like Amazon and Borders and let the reader have 3 complete reads for X dollars plus the ability to recharge the number of available re-reads via a website generated password for X dollars.

Offer a 50/50 split on the net profits with the author on the shipped software.

The benefit to you would be starting out with a product that already has a proven demand—more likely to have cash flow. Plus you can learn the business somewhat.

The benefit to the author is additional income and lots of media exposure publicizing the book.

If this is popular, every so often the scenarios, paths and randoms can be refreshed online for an additional fee.

The interactiveness of the story may draw additional new readers (buyers) plus re-sell to those who bought the hardcopy. A lot of new books come out every year and from a money in pocket standpoint not very many hit a home run. It seems logical that piggybacking our type of technical expertise on a proven winner might make you a lot more money than trying to go it alone.

Note: If you do this and make it big, you owe me a pizza for this. (I'm serious)

<comment> xl-brain I believe this was done in the 80's and they called it "choose your own adventure."

<comment><USER3> If done well, and in an equally engaging way, I could see this becoming popular again with the same people who read the CYOA series as kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, starting with tools, I have heard good things about Scrivener: <http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html>

I think it helps you to start just writing stuff down, and then, as your story takes shape, helps you organize all that to a story.

Since you say that you have writing abilities and imagination, I guess what you need is a way to start, and this might be it, since you could start in the beginning, end or in the middle and then organize everything as it becomes more clear.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're right. I sat down last night with a Red Bull and just starting typing up anything that came to mind. It worked decently well and could be a good starting point.

I'll check out that resource you just pegged now as well. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two key lessons I learned:

1) Have a structure from the beginning. Know where the story is going and the key milestones for each character on the way. Be open to changing this, but the key to a great fiction story is the ending not the beginning.

2) Work out commitments. When I wrote [http://www.scribd.com/The-Cookie-From- the-Cookie-Jar-2008/d/...](http://www.scribd.com/The-Cookie-From-the-Cookie- Jar-2008/d/3717607) I committed to sending my friends (and, ultimately, others) 3 chapters every week for six months, and that it would be finished by election day (Nov 2004). That got me over the line. The lack of commitment since then is why it's still sitting in my drawer awaiting the re-write.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would say start of with the finishing chapter. This way you get a fairly good idea of how you want the story to end. You can then shape the previous chapters to work towards that end. Ofcourse, you will probably have to rewrite the finishing chapter at the end.

</comment><comment> xl-brain Please start here: It was thirty years after bogleron emancipated the children of the shadowrealm...</comment>


Ask HN: Is developing apps the easiest way to the gravy train? - <AUTHOR>

I currently work at a bank and I'm realizing I hate my job and the corporate world. After I finish (and sometimes during work) I study mobile development but I don't have a mac so I can't really make anything, so I'm just making wireframes and design mockups for now, use cases, technical doc, etc.
How profitable is it really? I have a lot of design skill and I consider myself a fairly decent programmer capable of making some cool apps, so I'm taking a shot.
I'm actually quitting my job late August to go full time into app development.
Can anyone share their experiences when they first started in the mobile world? I feel like there are so many mediocre developers that if you're even remotely decent you're going to ride the gravy train.
My second question is: Assuming I don't become a millionaire off app development, is there a good market for hiring good app developers? I'm taking a year off and my goal is to develop 3 apps of ideas I have. <comment><USER2> This post boggles me. I'll save you a lot of hard lessons by telling you what to do.

1\. Don't quit your day job. If it's easy enough to finish and study during the day, then don't quit it until after you make enough to do so.

2\. Buy a Mac. What good is that corporate banking job if you can't afford a $1000 Macbook Air? You gotta spend money to make money.

3\. Start writing apps TODAY. You'd be surprised how much you can accomplish during nights and weekends if you turn off the TV, video games, and sacrifice a little bit of your personal time.

Do all this for at least 6 months and if you haven't found a way to hop on the gravy train, look into something else. At least you'll still have that day job which clearly affords you plenty of time to pursue other ventures if this one doesn't work out.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an internship ending in August. I come home and study so yeah, I'm coding every day. I don't consider this work. It's fun for me so it's easy to keep at it for hours, it's like I'm playing an endless video game.

Thanks, using the time off to work on apps :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Gravy train...cute :) Making money off the app store is hard.

Like others have said, don't quit unless you're capable of sustaining yourself for a period of time. As for the job market, I assume its good, just look up craigslist or linkedin for an idea.

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't speak for the gravy train, but I did find a problem with this:

>I don't have a mac so I can't really make anything

Why can't you make apps for Android? Or Windows Phone?

<comment><AUTHOR> My goal is iOS apps, though for the next few months until I get a mac I'll be focusing on mobile web apps and responsive design.</comment></comment>


Ebay sponsored video analysis of bitcoin. - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrK-152xfy0

<comment><AUTHOR> The video ends with the message "brought to you by ebay deals".</comment>


Spain's conviction of Catalan leaders threatens rights to freedom of expression - <AUTHOR> https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/spain-conviction-for-sedition-of-jordi-sanchez-and-jordi-cuixart-threatens-rights-to-freedom-of-expression-and-peaceful-assembly/ <comment><USER2> Millions of people in Catalonia have very vocally, and sometimes, violently, expressed their opinion on independence without any restriction to their freedom. Some politicians have been convicted for more subtle charges, that include misuse of public funds, and not obeying previous court orders.

The proindependence propaganda is very strong, and very focused on biasing international and english-spoken media; I'd ask you to at least please read topics from both sides if you want to be informed and have a balanced opinion.

The submitter account, tsunamid, shares the name ot the violent revolts from the last days, and most probably was created just for spamming this forum (0 comments, 2 proindependence submissions, 6 karma).

<comment><USER3> Unless amnesty international has been bought by the Catalan separatist movement, we can probably go without "Beware: Propaganda" warnings on every nonagreeing opinion.

There are two sides here, both made up of real people. Further, it's perfectly reasonable (much like in Scotland, and also in Chile where the demand to rewrite a dictator-era constitution draws parallels) that the independentistas might have some coherent arguments. Let's let the reader decide without overtly trying to prime them. I promise they don't need to go far to find pro unionist opinions.

The Catalan separatist movement is _not_ some Russian-made antivax Facebook group.

<comment><USER2> I just commented first on the assertion of the title and article, and then separately commented on the fact that this is a topic where people tend to have strong biases, and the poster looked more fishy than usual.

A caveat emptor, for me, is not priming negatively, in my view - and I explicitly called for taking both sides in consideration. So I guess we both agree.

I agree that it is a fascinating topic, but there have been several discussions here with plain wrong information being spread. Enriquto below already pointed out below, before you answered, funny changes in tone and content among different translations of the article. So yeah, reader beware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Funnily enough, the international version uses a much stronger phrasing against the spanish government than the spanish version (lest they offend the spanish members of amnesty who are unionists). I would have thought that, of all organizations, amnesty would refrain to engage in such obvious and orwellian cynicism.

Edit (I add the links):

[https://twitter.com/amnesty/status/1196746909924446208](https://twitter.com/amnesty/status/1196746909924446208)

Catalan leaders, Jordi Sànchez & Jordi Cuixart, must be released immediately & their convictions quashed. Their convictions for sedition violates their rights to freedom of expression & peaceful assembly.

[https://twitter.com/amnistiaespana/status/119674554755156377...](https://twitter.com/amnistiaespana/status/1196745547551563776)

Hoy hemos presentado en Barcelona nuestras conclusiones tras la sentencia del "procés" -> _today we have presented in Barcelona our conclusions to the sentence of "procés"_

(the spanish tweet does not announce the conclusion of the study, as opposed of what they do for all other studies that they publish. Are they afraid of their own, rather mild, opposition to the spanish government?)

</comment><comment><USER5> More propaganda from the secessionists. You have been using institutional resources to spread your ideas for forty years, it is more than clear to everybody that your freedom of expression is not in jeopardy.

<comment><USER4> > it is more than clear to everybody that your freedom of expression is not in > jeopardy.

Tell that to the two catalan rappers accused of "hatred" on behalf of their (tame, by rap standards) lyrics that taunt spanish policemen. One is about to enter prison and the other one is on exile in Belgium.

<comment><USER5> I am sorry, but freedom of expression cannot exist without respect. Most of the Catalan political leaders voice their opinions with respect and they get heard everywhere.

You could argue that "hatred" is in jeopardy though, if you feel it's worth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> peter-m80 Please, don't use HN for your propaganda</comment>


The Death of the Cyberflâneur - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-of-the-cyberflaneur.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> > _While not deliberately concealing his identity, the flâneur preferred to > stroll incognito._

...

> _However, anyone entertaining such dreams of the Internet as a refuge for > the bohemian, the hedonistic and the idiosyncratic probably didn't know the > reasons behind the disappearance of the original flâneur._

If the flâneur is operating _incognito_ ... how the hell can you be sure he is actually gone? Maybe he just upped his flâneurism game and dropped off your flâneuradar.

People do still just surf the web instead of trying to only get stuff done--- that's how we get interesting submissions on HN and why we are here to rummage through them.

Twenty years ago I might have surfed the web for fun, but picked up the phone to get stuff done; now I can just use the Internet for most of that latter thing too.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are missing the main point, man. I am sure you never experience the internet in the 1990's or early 2000's. You must live in a very parochial place! You don't know anything about arts, films, music.

This website is one example. I like this website because there is something that is "HIS". He owns his individuality.

[http://www.novaexpresscafe.com/main.html](http://www.novaexpresscafe.com/main.html)

It is not just about information. It is about aesthetics! The fun of flaneuring! Surfing the internet for spontaneity!

<comment><USER2> > _I am sure you never experience the internet in the 1990 's_

That sort of guessing tends not to pan out very well around here. I used Mosaic under XWindow in 1993.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is pretty cool. Do you have any websites that make you feel nostalgic for the past? Any interesting websites in 1990's and early 2000's as well?

<comment><USER2> I'm user #1483 on Slashdot. That still exists, and I hardly ever go there though. Before the Slashdot era, I don't remember having visited some particular site regularly to see updating content.

But, oh, I got one: [http://suck.com](http://suck.com). That stopped making new content in 2001, but existed for another 14 years. Now the domain seems to have been taken over.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The joys of the world wild west are still out there for curious surfers. Admittedly it does require a lot more effort, especially for a younger generation who may not remember what the early web is like and how you would traverse it. I still get a thrill finding 'hidden' communities on the internet.

<comment><USER4> I'm a fan of finding odd corners on the 'net, what's your technique?

<comment><USER3> I mostly find the odd places when searching on and for discussions of old stomping grounds. That usually leads me down a long path of links. Sometimes I discover by joining oddly named and sparsely visited IRC rooms. Occasionally great sites are posted to 4chan.

A recent discovery was made when looking for recent references to Temple Of The Screaming Electron. This search led me to two weird corners (potentially NSFW).

1\. [http://www.popeye-x.com/title123.htm](http://www.popeye-x.com/title123.htm) As far as I can tell originally set up by a group of programmers (and I think phreakers, digging through the archives ), based in Texas with a common connection to a niche Austin based radio station. Highly original, deeply buried links, multiple hidden forums.

2\. [http://nobodytm.com](http://nobodytm.com) Not even sure how to explain this one! Has a chat room that the owner sometimes frequents with cryptic messages that appear to mean something to other participants.

<comment><USER4> Deep forum links on weird topics is my goto, but IRC may be something I should get back into.

I kinda miss the web being made of forums, I feel like that's a tradition that's less healthy than it was. Facebook groups or slack channel or Stack Exchange just don't do it for me the same way

<comment><USER5> > Deep forum links on weird topics is my goto

What about this?

[http://miketysontattoos.blogspot.ca/2011/06/quotient-rule- di...](http://miketysontattoos.blogspot.ca/2011/06/quotient-rule- differentiation.html)

Not quite a forum link, but I really couldn't figure out what the purpose of that site was. Some sort of spam/seo seeding operation? Where does the source material come from.

<comment><USER4> That is crazy stuff. Weird as a numbers station

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Link to the article mentioned in the opening: [http://www.ceramicstoday.com/articles/050498.htm](http://www.ceramicstoday.com/articles/050498.htm)

</comment><comment><USER7> Cyberconnecting cyber-readers with the cybernews: [https://twitter.com/CyberEveryword](https://twitter.com/CyberEveryword)

</comment><comment><USER8> The article is totally wrong. The internet is now more than ever a good place for this kind of thing.

> Hardly anyone "surfs" the Web anymore.

Doesn't the whole click-bait "industry" specifically because people _are_ surfing?

What's more, even on social media, things like "Weird Facebook" come into existence. Huge groups form with no clear purpose other than seemingly to be exactly the kind of internet "arcades" that the article is describing.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure I agree. I think the whole idea of a flâneur or "surfing" the web is that you choose where you go. There's an illusion of control.

The whole click-bait industry depends on you browsing within walled gardens (facebook, reddit) and being on the conveyor belt of places your attention has to go.

A flâneur or surfer can just go somewhere else. There's only so much physical real estate you can own. There isn't exactly another facebook or reddit to go to...and if there is, BuzzFeed is all over that shit too.

Basically, the internet has driven the minimum cost of advertising/branding down to bit-transmission prices. Anybody basically can afford to throw shit everywhere and see what sticks.

It's messy out there...

<comment><USER10> What about things like reddit, especially - as mentioned before, things like Weird Facebook?

Sure, it's curated, but so were the arcades of the original flaneurs. And you can always follow links.

(I do think that webrings were really well suited for this, though, and that's something reddit, etc. can't quite replicate.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I thought this is what they did on Geocities. But don't people still do that on Tumblr?

<comment><USER12> Yes and no. Tumblr is a lot more curated. The hashtag and featured list makes aimlessly strolling obsolete.

<comment><USER13> Depends on your circles. Tumblr, like Twitter, is really defined by who you follow. If you follow 'professional', curated blogs where the author is promoting their own content, they will care about SEO and discoverability and they will tag their own posts with topical hashtags.

But most personal blogs don't care about that, they tag their posts with custom, made-up categories or use the tag field as additional meta-commentary. There's a much-reblogged Tumblr post chain [1] that talks about this; ironically the only way I was able to find the post again is because one of the commenters tagged it with topical tags.

So Tumblr is an amalgam of discoverable posts, long chains, and many posts that are completely untagged. If the blog's author has disabled the built-in integration Tumblr has with making search engines aware of posts, a lot of this content can only be found by going directly to the source through a friend-of-a-friend.

[1] (shortened due to NSFW words in url, in deference to those at work) [http://bit.ly/2cuwzE0](http://bit.ly/2cuwzE0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You can get a similar experience browsing directories of Tor hidden services (I'm sure there are other darknet equivalents). There's a little bit of everything in those lists, including the illicit, inexplicable, and of course, illegal.

</comment><comment><USER15> The point Morozov didn't make explicit that would have helped his argument: the internet is turning into a perfect Panopticon, a total environment of confinement for control and subjectification as highlighted by Foucault. I first read that for architectural theory in college, and now it only seems to get increasingly vital to understanding everyday culture and identity. When the idea of the web as a terrain for the flâneur to be the main focus, the rival and dominating idea of the web as a terrain of control via total surveillance clarifies which direction the mainstream skews. Sure there are outliers, but emphasizing that to dismiss the wave in the direction of the Digital Panopticon is to miss Morozov's point.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Facebook technically kills the whole internet. ([http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/facebo...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/facebook- is-eating-the-internet/391766/)). It tries to copy other startups, so people can stay on its platform and watch more "ads". Instead of surfing idiosyncratic webpages, flaneur now surfs facebook. It is like going to Paris and one only sees McDonald and Starbucks. ([http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the- death-o...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-of-the- cyberflaneur.html))

In addition, nowadays, people do not create webpage for fun. They want to commercialize their online presence. Everything, including oneself, is a brand now ([http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/50-tips-to-brand- yoursel...](http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/50-tips-to-brand-yourself- online/)). This leads to the totalitarianism of minimalism ([https://www.sitepoint.com/less-minimalist-websites-still- rul...](https://www.sitepoint.com/less-minimalist-websites-still-rule/)) where they want to people to "see" their webpages "efficiently". People are wearing a mask in and out. There is no authenticity and honesty.

The internet was the place for playfulness and wonder. DeviantArts, Rate Your Music, Geocities were really fun.

Now, the internet is full of BS. Startups are full of BS ("This is a site that spits out whole websites of fake bullshit web companies. Hit "get started" to refresh. [http://tiffzhang.com/startup/?s=243648772317](http://tiffzhang.com/startup/?s=243648772317)). Reddit is a rare phenomenon because it was founded by Aaron Schwartz and he never got any credit. And I am pretty sure Aaron Schwartz would never go to "Hackathon", "Entrepreneurial leadership at Stanford". They are full of BS. No one has a deep passion for truly improving people's lives. Everything is for efficiency.

Palo Alto becomes a dead place now. There is only one bookstore in Palo Alto area and no students ever visit. Stanford students do not love to learn at all. They are "excellent sheep".

The dark net is okay and it becomes boring after a while.

<comment><USER16> To be fair to the "hackathon," it was a concept started by the devs at OpenBSD.[0] Not exactly a bunch of poseurs, that group.

[0] [https://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html](https://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As a companion article to this one, read "The Net Is a Waste of Time" written by William Gibson in 1996 ([http://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/14/magazine/the- net-is-a-wast...](http://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/14/magazine/the-net-is-a- waste-of-time.html)). It celebrates what Gibson thinks is the moment of peak "cyberflânerie".

</comment><comment><USER18> But isn't that what FB browsing is? Internet "surfing"? Getting stuck in a Wikipedia rabbit hole?

<comment><USER19> There's no anonymity there, and everything is rationed and fed to you by their algorithm for a reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I enjoy trawling through old Google Groups, some of them contain BBS messages dating back to the '80s

</comment><comment><USER21> Take a break from surfing, and start diving. See how far the rabbit hole goes....

[http://i.imgur.com/BLJl7f0g.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/BLJl7f0g.jpg)

[http://i.imgur.com/pdJsQDh.png](http://i.imgur.com/pdJsQDh.png)

[http://i.imgur.com/UaWoV.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/UaWoV.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is so funny! You must know the internet!!! Do you know any of these?

Obscure Music Blogspots, IRC chats, usenet, ASCII art, Slsk, DC++, penpals in Finland, Botwana, Iceland, and Uruguay, grainy and idiosyncratic university- websites, Tunak Tunak Tun, Albino Black Sheep, Zombo.com</comment></comment>


NHL suspending play immediately due to virus - <AUTHOR> https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/28891430/sources-nhl-suspending-play-immediately-due-virus <comment><USER2> Also, the NBA ([https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28887560/nba-suspends- se...](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28887560/nba-suspends-season- further-notice-player-tests-positive-coronavirus)) and NCAA Power 5 ([https://www.espn.com/mens-college- basketball/story/_/id/2889...](https://www.espn.com/mens-college- basketball/story/_/id/28891602/big-ten-sec-american-cancel-conference- tournaments)) have suspended or cancelled play, and MLB is likely to follow shortly ([https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28892315/sources-mlb- exp...](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28892315/sources-mlb-expected- suspend-operations)).

<comment> sjm-lbm Smaller than the other leagues, but MLS has announced they are suspending as well ([https://twitter.com/MLS/status/1238128176502628353](https://twitter.com/MLS/status/1238128176502628353))

<comment><USER3> Even smaller, NLL shutting down. [https://www.nll.com/news/nll-statement-on- game-play-march-12...](https://www.nll.com/news/nll-statement-on-game-play- march-12-2020/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's great to cancel the in-person fan experience, but it's bad that they're cancelling the games. The more things we have to keep people at home watching TV, the better.

In fact I think emergency 'friendly' off-season college football and NFL scrimmages should be organized. (Other off-season sports too.) The increased spread caused by a few healthy young people getting the virus from each other would be more than outweighed by keeping sports fans at home.

<comment><USER5> The thinking might be to avoid people watching games in sports bars and similarly crowded places.

<comment><USER6> Supposedly the plan in the UK (not for the NHL, other sports) is to ban pubs from showing them, but play behind closed doors and dish out 'free' streaming to ticket holders, so they can watch at home even if they don't usually have access.

Seems the best overall to me. Combined with testing all players maybe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The MLB also announced that they are suspending operations: [https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-cb- coronavirus...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-cb-coronavirus- sports-cancellations-20200310-426ude4yp5g5rjilr6iksdxlkm-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Twitch's & Netflix's numbers has to be over the roof with all the people "working" from home and all major events being canceled/postponed.

<comment><USER9> It would be nice if UberEats stock was seperate from the main ridesharing service. I'd guess that food delivery will skyrocket through "self-isolation", but obviously ridesharing is will plummet.

Can you buy ubereats specific derivatives?

<comment><USER10> I was going to list off a bunch of alternatives, but I didn't realize that UberEats is second only to Doordash in terms of market share. Never considered UE a big player in the space especially considering how late they were.

<comment><USER11> I recently moved from Texas to the Bay and I was shocked to see how popular Door Dash is. Everybody I knew used Uber Eats!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And Major League Baseball. [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/mlb-to-suspend- all-operation...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/mlb-to-suspend-all- operations-spring-training-due-to-coronavirus.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> We should just assume everything is cancelled

<comment><USER14> Come to italy - it is.

<comment><USER15> No thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The President still hasn't declared a national state of emergency, and this looks increasingly out of touch from reality. It needs to happen yesterday. This would free up FEMA funds to help Seattle and subsequent outbreak sites. He recently called the governor a "snake" so one hopes this is not being done for personal reasons.

edit: this article summarizes it better than I was able to [https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/covid-19-emergency-d...](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/covid-19-emergency- declaration-craig-fugate-jared-kushner)

<comment><USER17> Well the President thinks it will go away when it's warm out. He is trying to play to stock market fears and is failing all of the citizens.

<comment><USER18> The markets don't seem to impressed with his response, either. We're about a day away from every penny of SPY growth since the day he took office being erased.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For a sport (that I love) that has a history of doing the wrong thing. I think they've finally been getting it right.

</comment><comment><USER20> I suspect we will see a surge in food delivery business. Most people still don't like to cook.

<comment><USER14> I'm in the italian lockdown: nobody will cook my food for me (my decision)… and nobody will deliver it (theirs, and the laws'). Additionally, all bars, cafes, restaurants etc are closed.

<comment><USER20> I'm just guessing for the U.S., but we could get that bad here.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who do you think would be the Gordon Ramsay of startup world? - <AUTHOR> Whenever I see an episode of Kitchen Nightmares by Gordon Ramsay, I can't keep myself thinking of a version of it for technical startups. Imagine someone walking around yelling "you idiot store passwords unencrypted!", "I clicked this button and didn't do anything!", "How long ago someone checked the inbox of info email?", "For how long this broken link was here?", "How do you plan to scale this shit up?", "You have 6 more servers running not configured yet!", "Who welcomes customers?!", "Why is there no chat on frontend?!" etc.<p>Who do you think would be the Gordon Ramsay of startup world? <comment><USER2> I have no idea but I would love to see this show. Please find him.

<comment><USER3> Or her. Though, it would be an interesting case study of how people really react to a Male Gordon Boss vs a Female one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not startup-specific, but Linus Torvalds is definitely the Gordon Ramsay of programming.

</comment><comment><USER5> David Heinemeier Hansen</comment>