The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/opinion/sunday/the-common-core-costs-billions-and-hurts-students.html <comment><USER2> You know, as a parent I'd heard many things about "Common Core" from the media, other parents, and even family members. When my son got to kindergarten I was a bit worried about overbearing tests and the lack of a tried and true teaching method. Well, what we got were concepts. In kindergarten, my son learned things that I recognized as basic number theory...almost as if it came straight out of Andrew's book of the same title. Nothing advanced, but the concepts were covered quite well. What he missed though was the ability to calculate quickly...this I had to get him to do at home, and it came in time. That being said, I think we need to divorce the common core from the testing standards. Pulling out of the teaching space, any good manager can tell you that applying a one size fits all approach to every person results in a lot of miss-match. Lets stop vilifying the common core, but rethink the way we're forcing teachers to apply it and the tests that states mandate to go with it.

One wonderful point that the author makes is something I've been saying for years (as have many people):

What is called "the achievement gap" is actually an "opportunity gap."

The opportunity gap is many things. It's lack of a safe, low-stress home environment. It's a lack of time from overworked parents. It's lack of an environment that promotes kids social skills. Things like the boys & girls club provide some help in neighborhoods that have them, but there needs to be much more. I'm extremely pessimistic on this point. I don't think the willpower exists within our current generation of political power brokers (although I do have some hope) to do anything about the common core to all of our problems. Likely spending $1.59m per cruise missile is part of it, and the other part what we seem to value in society....locking people up vs. fixing the core issues ([http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/education-vs- prison...](http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/education-vs-prison- costs/)). We should not have to eat war to exist (almost quoted disturbed vs. bad religion...but BR fit better).

<comment><USER3> > Likely spending $1.59m per cruise missile is part of it, and the other part > what we seem to value in society....locking people up vs. fixing the core > issues

Cruise missles have nothing to do with it. We spend more on education per capita than any other developed country besides Switzerland. And our best performing school districts often spend a fraction of what our worst school districts spend per student.

We don't have an educational problem in the US. We have social problems we're trying (and failing) to fix by throwing money at schools. Our urban and poor- rural teachers are trying to teach kids in places where the bottom has fallen out of the social order. Changing how we do testing, etc., is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

<comment><USER4> Yea this is key. You can't teach a kid who is hungry, or worried about more pressing issues.

<comment><USER5> What you describe as 'more pressing issues' can be defined as stressors and it's a person's defense mechanisms or active coping skills for dealing with them that determine their success in life. It's why kids are on psychotropic medicines and can be triggered as adult-aged college students. Teaching people how to actively deal with reality in a healthy productive manner is what we need in common core.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would we buy "Government Software"? What about "Government computers"? Any of you tried to go to the California DMV's in the Bay Area lately? How is Government single-payer health care (the VA) working out for veterans?

Given this sentiment why do we feel like single-payer Government schools are the answer to educating our children?

I just don't see how we can get incentives inside of a government system to align with our goals of efficiently educating our children.

<comment><USER7> The problem isn't government, the problem is US government.

I've seen plenty of examples in other countries of government working well. Roads free of potholes. Trains that penetrate every part of the country, are well maintained, and run on time. Public school education that provides literacy rates in the 90%+ range. Single payer national health care systems that are cost effective and beloved by the people under those systems' care.

Our US government failures are an extension of our public's lack of commitment to the funding and policy needed for good government service.

The problem is us.

<comment><USER6> Care to give actual examples? Sounds like you are living in a different world than I am... And the "trains run on time" argument... Hmm... where have we heard that before?

<comment><USER7> I lived overseas for a great while, so some of this is first hand observation. I hold the equivalent of a US green card in a foreign country and worked extensively through Asia followed then by Europe.

Roads without potholes : Germany, Japan [https://seattletransitblog.com/2009/04/17/japans- highways/](https://seattletransitblog.com/2009/04/17/japans-highways/) [http://bridgemi.com/2014/04/why-are-germanys-roads-better- or...](http://bridgemi.com/2014/04/why-are-germanys-roads-better-or-are-they/) (after a more detailed read, this article doesn't support my point, but it's still interesting. And the roads in Germany were nice when I drove on them.)

Trains running on time : Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea (I heard horror stories about the UK system, but it worked well enough for me when I've gone there) [http://kotaku.com/ever-wonder-why-japanese-trains-arent- late...](http://kotaku.com/ever-wonder-why-japanese-trains-arent-late-heres- why-1547844128)

Countries by literacy rate : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate) (You have to go down to Syria to for the equivalent US literacy rate. We don't report our figures, but a quick Google search puts it about 86%)

Beloved national Health systems: Canada, France, even the UK's NHS

[http://www.gallup.com/poll/8056/healthcare-system-ratings- us...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/8056/healthcare-system-ratings-us-great- britain-canada.aspx)

[http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/04/14/health-care- aroun...](http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/04/14/health-care-around-the- world-france/)

Hope this helps~

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the article: "it seems clear that the pursuit of a national curriculum is yet another excuse to avoid making serious efforts to reduce the main causes of low student achievement: poverty and racial segregation"

There seems to be a common strain of thought that says we cannot close the achievement gap unless we tackle poverty. Yet there is considerable evidence to support the opposite view. Here is a summary of a few studies as reported in _Teaching as Leadership_ [1]:

"The schools that are highly effective produce results that almost entirely overcome the effects of student background" [2]

"Having a top-quartile teacher rather than a bottom-quartile teacher four years in a row would be enough to close the black-white test score gap" [3]

"Differences in this magnitude -- 50 percentile points in just three years -- are stunning. For an individual child, it means the difference between a 'remedial' label and placement in the accelerated or even gifted track. And the difference between entry into a selective college and a lifetime of low- paying, menial work". [4]

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-As-Leadership-Effective- Achie...](http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-As-Leadership-Effective- Achievement/dp/0470432861)

[2] Marzano, R. J. _What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action._ Alexandria, Va.: ASCD, 2003, p. 7

[3] Kane, T., Gordon, R. and Staiger, D. _Identifying Effective Teachers Useing Performance on the Job_ Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2004, p. 8

[4] Peske, H. and Haycock, K. _Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students Are Short-Changed on Teacher Quality: A Report and Recommendations by the Education Trust._ Washington, D.C.: Education Trust, 2006, p. 11

</comment><comment><USER9> Testing may be overrated, needed but over emphasized.

Finland has a project based education system, turns out it is one of the best in the world. The term is Phenomenon Based Learning [1] but really it is just project based learning which matches the real world more. The tests aren't multiple choice in Finland, you have to find the answer.

My favorite classes were project based classes, if they are fun and intriguing, maybe education will sink in more. Learning math through programming a game for instance over just worksheets and tests, show how you can use trig/linear algebra to move things around a screen rather than just getting an answer correct.

Financial and critical thinking courses are also lacking in most education programs.

[1] [https://www.noodle.com/articles/phenomenon-based-learning- wh...](https://www.noodle.com/articles/phenomenon-based-learning-what-is-pbl)

<comment><USER10> Yep; US education has now become a game of "teach the kids how to pass the tests, so we can get more money, so we can teach more kids how to pass the tests, repeat". Kids come out of highschool with no idea what they want to do or what reality is like. Schools run like prisons with crazy administrators who would struggle to hold jobs in the world outside of school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> No Child Left Behind started when I was in 6th or 7th grade.

On a day where we all had to do one of those standard tests, all of the students would get a small breakfast for free, usually juice and granola bars. That part of the test I liked. Whenever I'd get one of the tests, though, the material that they tested me on was always a couple of years behind where I was currently at, so for me it was mostly a waste of time.

The only classes that were worthwhile in high school where the ones that were taught at a college level. In the US there's one program called "AP" where you take a class, then at the end of the semester you can pay something like $70 to take a comprehensive exam on the material. If you get a high enough score on the exam, most universities will allow you to transfer the AP course in as credit. This program allowed me to rack up some college credits while I was still in high school, and by the time I reached college I was able to jump right into math classes at the second year level (not that big of a jump, but still saved some time).

There are some problems with the AP system, for example after you've taken an exam you aren't allowed to discuss the exam with anyone until a few days have passed (which, if you've ever taken a hard exam, is agony), however I think programs like these are where the real effort ought to be applied.

<comment><USER12> > The only classes that were worthwhile in high school where the ones that > were taught at a college level.

This is not true. It's more of a humblebrag. High-school level classes are relevant and often difficult for high-school level students.

You were ahead of your peers, it doesn't mean the classes were worthless (except perhaps to you and others at your level).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Common Core" as a curriculum may or may not be good or bad, I don't know. But so long as schools build their entire year around high-stakes standardized testing, the students in our public schools are suffering. It's bizarre to me that many (most?) states in the US require their teachers to get graduate degrees, yet give them little if any control over the curriculum they use. Are they highly trained professionals or just robots?

Today's standardized tests, given on computers, require typing skills the students aren't taught. The computer systems fail or links are wrong, and schools have so few computers that the testing process can take days, during which time the entire school is disrupted. Spending a day or two a year on a standardized test used for statistical purposes is a reasonable investment of time and money. But spending weeks multiple times a year on tests that determine the fate of teachers and schools is a massive failure.

It was obvious when NCLB was proposed that it was an end-run attempt to gut support for struggling schools. That's played out as was easily predictable, but now we seem to be doubling down. At some point, we have to learn as a society that just because someone puts data into a computer and a number pops out doesn't mean that number _actually_ has meaning.

</comment><comment><USER14> I used to rail against "Common Core" \- but then realized the main issue I have is with the use of Reform Math [1], which has been around longer than that.

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

</comment><comment><USER15> Everyone has an opinion, very few know what they're talking about. Even fewer have experience.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Children starting in the third grade may spend more than 10 hours a year > taking state tests — and weeks preparing for them.

I don't really understand the issue there. There's about 900 hours/year of instruction, and 10 hours of that being tests doesn't seem like a large burden.

Secondly, "preparing for the tests" sounds like "learning", what is supposed to be happening.

The article also complains about the inept implementation of online test taking. How hard can that be? It's just a form being filled out. I don't see why the tests can't be administered on paper and have the teachers grade them.

<comment><USER17> It has been some time since I've been in school, but I still remember that horribleness of the standardized test. You spend weeks hearing how important it is, and we spent days sitting there still, in silence, filling in the correct multiple choice answer on a sheet with a #2 pencil, hoping the teacher didn't think we were cheating if we were stretching. For hours and hours at a time. The tests took a few days. They told us (perhaps wrongly) that we couldn't miss school during that time. Sometimes we were told we'd be deducted for having a wrong answer, sometimes not. I'd rather do college finals each year or split the stuff up over the course of the school year so it is less of a burden.

The reason teachers can't grade them is because the schools use them to grade the school and the teacher - some states, it determines funding for the schools. Too low of a grade and you lose funding, meet the goals and you gain.

<comment><USER16> > For hours and hours at a time. The tests took a few days.

This is inconsistent with it being 10 hours total for the year.

<comment><USER17> This is from a child's point of view, as my memories were from being a child, so a few hours a day was a really long time. The actual math works out, however. They did these over 3-4 days. 4 days is 2.5 hours a day: 3 days is 3 hours 22 minutes, approximately.

A day of testing, the SAT for example, wasn't quite that rough at a much older age. 2 months ago I took official language exams here (immigrant). The main portion was about 4 hours. I had a couple hour break, then the last portion took about half an hour. The main part of the test was somewhat tiring for me as an adult - I very highly doubt the testing week is less tiring for children.

<comment><USER16> Sure, but 10 hours over 900 hours in the school year, this is not a major part of it.

I remember taking standardized fill-in-the-bubble tests in the 60's and 70's. They were mailed off to some central location to be graded by computer. It just wasn't a stress filled, onerous thing, even though they were used to assess school performance.

<comment><USER17> I was in school in until the mid-90's. They used them as placement tests when I took them. Do well, and it meant you were smart enough for the 'advanced' stuff. Do poorly, and you have to take summer school and/or redo the grade. Do poorly on the test, regardless of how well you do the rest of the year, and it affects your opportunities. I remember hours of boredom, only compounded by the fact that I tend to work quickly and was stuck sitting there quietly waiting. My sister, however, always did poorly taking tests and they never reflected what she knew. Some teachers gave some accommodations which improved her regular scores, but the state test did not. Even then the curriculum was changed to reflect tests, and the testing has only increased in importance since we've been in school, to the point that the amount of help you get from your teacher in some areas depends on how your test scores were last year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "If we awarded driver's licenses based on standardized tests, half the adults in this country might never receive one."

This is an intersting quote, because I had to take a test to get my license.

<comment><USER19> But a standardized test assumes that a certain percentage will fail. Its the same reason why aberrations like "Stack Ranking" are just as evil.

"What? All my people are excellent on my team, yet I have to rank a number of them as 1's (a number of 1-bad, 2-neutral, and 3-awesome). I have no choice..." \- Stack ranking in a nutshell.

You could be an a school that 99% have the intelligence to pass. But yet, some bureaucrat says that a certain number has to fail, no matter what.

Compare that to a Drivers License test, where we test on if you know that material to drive. There is no required minimum number of people who fail, nor is there a comparison to others. It's you and a minimum test passing rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The system works as its designed to. It produces standardized young adults that are compliant to authority. Standardized tests don't really tell us a whole lot about how functional these kids are, outside of how compliant they are. The two (yes two) professionals that helped produce common core, now lecture against it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been around long enough to see many waves of reform run through the schools, followed by ridicule and abandonment.

</comment><comment><USER21> Common Core has attracted some rather far out criticism. I have not been able to decide whether this is amusing or appalling.

It "will promote double-mindedness in state education and attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can", according to Florida State Rep. Charles Van Zant (R) [1].

Similar criticism from the American Family Association [2]. If it is not stopped, the only way for Christians to survive will be to form a parallel society with its own jobs and economy [3].

According to Glenn Beck, "that's why I think common core is here, because it will train us to be a serf state, it will train us and it will keep us in order to answer to the Chinese or whoever it is". (He thinks we'll be ruled by an American technocrat under the control of China, with China employing Muslims as enforcers to keep us in line). Video of Beck covering this here [4]. Summary here [5].

According to Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch, creates "a womb-to-tomb dossier on kids and families" that includes between 300 and 400 different data points, such as parents' voting status, religious affiliation, medical data, newborn screening and genetic data [6].

[1] [http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/05/19/3439163/state- rep-c...](http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/05/19/3439163/state-rep-common- core-gay/)

[2] [http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rios-schools-no- longer...](http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rios-schools-no-longer-teach- reading-and-writing-now-just-promote-homosexuality)

[3] [http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/sandy-rios-fears- child...](http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/sandy-rios-fears-children- wont-survive-common-core-christians-will-have-build-parallel-socie)

[4] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUIGMhgN1Iw&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUIGMhgN1Iw&feature=youtu.be)

[5] [http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/beck-common-core- desig...](http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/beck-common-core-designed- train-us-be-serf-state-ruled-china-and-islam)

[6] [http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/nsa-ops-walk-in-park-next-to- plan...](http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/nsa-ops-walk-in-park-next-to-plans-to- track-kids/)

<comment><USER22> At least the people who think their kids will be brainwashed into homosexuality are clear about what they think the problem is. I've read quite a few things on the supposed problems of common core and been left with no information whatsoever. Generally I'm not even sure the person knows what common core actually is. complajning</comment></comment>


Is the Fedora Linux Multi-Seat Feature Abandoned? - <AUTHOR> I've successfully run a multi-seat Linux machine for some time.  It was easy to set up (with the "loginctl" command) and I thought great, now I have a use case for systemd and its ilk, this is easy!
Only now I wanted to upgrade to the latest software, so downloaded Fedora 31 and tried it out on a testbed machine.  And Multiseat no longer works.  This doesn't look like an edge case, it looks like an abandoned feature somehow.  It still works in Fedora 30. The diffs between the two versions of GDM (source code) are extensive so not just anyone could fix that without considerable expertise.  I've not found a usable replacement (for multi-seat login).
Markus <comment><AUTHOR> To be clear, the symptom I'm getting is that the second seat does not get a login prompt, and attempting to log in on the first seat in fact logs in the second, leaving the first screen without activity. Others have described the same symptoms.</comment>


People are getting robocalls about their "derogatory" Trump posts - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/people-are-getting-robocalls-about-their-derogatory-t-1820819203 <comment><USER2> I got multiple calls from 4 numbers since maybe 3 months ago, and when I Googled the number, I found a nice information at [https://www.lemberglaw.com/lemberg-law-uncovers-dirty- dozen-...](https://www.lemberglaw.com/lemberg-law-uncovers-dirty-dozen- robocallers/) that those numbers have been investigated by some law firms. I think we should always report those numbers to the authority, and let the authority do the rest.</comment>


Show HN: Mobile app for truck drivers to manage their income/expenses - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.mkumaran.ottunar <comment><AUTHOR> I created a mobile app for truck drivers to keep record their expenses/income. It's not only for truck drivers, you can use this for any kind of trips to keep record the transactions, but mainly focused truck drivers.

You can download it from here [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.mkumaran.o...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.mkumaran.ottunar)</comment>


How to Delete Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/business/delete-facebook-account.html <comment><USER2> Also from NYT: "How to Delete Facebook and Instagram from Your Life Forever"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18215171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18215171)

240 points</comment>


News is bad for you (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli <comment><USER2> Former reporter here: One of the things many people don't understand is that news organizations exist for themselves as much as they do for their readers. They are drama queens crying out for attention. Now imagine putting 10 drama queens in a room together with 100 innocent bystanders. That is the media industry. They will tire you out. Media organizations have several proven strategies to push our buttons: voyeurism, outrage, greed, fear, prurience and envious aspiration are at the top.

This is compounded by the fact that the world is full of people acting crazy and doing awful things to each other. News organizations are actually pretty careful to not bombard us with constant photos of dead children, even though Syria alone could fill the pages of the NYT everyday with images of their mangled bodies. (I have sat on the photo desk, and seen the photos stream by on the AP feed -- they rarely make the paper. )

So news organizations are aware of the fatigue that certain sensations cause, and they seek to mitigate them. They need their readers to feel just enough emotion, but not too much. A perpetual state of excitement and irritation. This is one reason why climate change doesn't get the coverage it deserves. It's just too depressing, and people stop reading.

<comment><USER3> "One of the things people don't understand is that news organization exist as much for themselves as much as they do for their readers."

What makes you think people do not understand?

Can you relate to us an experience that made you think that?

"One of the things..."

What are the other things that people do not understand?

<comment><USER4> The answer is probably close to why people view banks as some sort of public service organization rather than a business. I used to work at a bank, and it was amazing to hear comments from people.

<comment><USER3> Can you share some of the comments?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I travel to places many people think of as traditionally dangerous - I drove Alaska->Argentina[1] and I'm setting out to drive around Africa for 2 years.

People often feel the need to contact me and tell me about the latest bombing or kidnapping in a country on my route. I always ask how many people got married in that country yesterday, or how many people had the happiest day of their life with a child born, or other celebration.

Of course, nobody has any idea, because the media doesn't tell us things like that.

[1] My blog is [http://theroadchoseme.com](http://theroadchoseme.com)

<comment><USER6> very nice! I like your perspective.. so true also.. if you live your life in fear of what could happen, you'll miss out on some great experiences.. nice

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Instead of using going to Facebook first when I'm bored these days I'll check out the top stories from r/all on reddit, check out Google News, or Hacker News top stories. I used to take a lot of pride in being current with world news or my industry news. This all started about 5-6 years ago when news aggregators started getting better. The first one for me was [http://newsmap.jp/](http://newsmap.jp/).

In reality I think it made me feel worse and sadly I'm just within the past few months realizing this. I feel like there's so much content masquerading as "news" and it's hard for me to tell what is legitimately good content until I'm a little bit through it. I am leaning to really cutting back but I need to rely on a few news sources from now on.

<comment><USER8> I tried to found a subreddit with the idea that if some article is still interesting 6 moths after it's written, then it's actually interesting stuff. Most things in the world don't happen in a day. And even those that happen, are often understood only with time.

But I can't keep a reddit account. The amount of misinformation in reddit and my tendency to correct people just gets too consuming.

<comment><USER9> A 'Slow News' service sounds intriguing. Especially if it was covertly collecting 'data' points for each story on a day-to-day basis and presented these on a timeline when the story was surfaced. A kind of ultra-modern- history.

The airliner crash in Sinai is a current example; there's really no pointin speculating or acting until the investigation team presents their findings, but every day people and states are taking actions that don't make sense from the immediate perspective. Looking back six months from now with a timeline view we might be able to understand.

<comment><USER10> It already exists. It's called "books". ;)

<comment><USER8> True. That's why I read books.

But books are written by dictator. I'd want something that's ranked like HN or reddit, without the newness bias. With wide range of topics and varying depth and length of article.

This only works if the community is cool. But I' have a hunch it would attract mostly cool people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am reminded of H.D. Thoreau's essay "Life Without Principle"[1] where he has plenty to say about the ill effects, to the mind and soul, of filling one's head with ordinary news and other trivia.

 _I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were- its foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over; and if you would know what will make the most durable pavement, surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this treatment so long._

The entire essay is a wonderful read about, among other things, life and living it well.

[1] [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER2/thoreau/life.html](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER2/thoreau/life.html)

edit:formatting

</comment><comment><USER12> The last few years I was in Italy I stopped reading the news: the bullshit around Berlusconi and his entourage, the sad state of the politics there, the obsession with kidnapping or raping or murder or disasters. I was happy being ignorant, I stopped caring about things one should but can't really do anything about it. I felt a little out of the loop when somebody asked me "hey did you hear about the disaster in XXX?" and I had to play catch up.

Unfortunately now my morning routine consists in reading HN and The Guardian, I spend a lot of time reading about stuff that just feels like wasted time. In one hour of news reading there's probably a minute or two of stuff that interests me. I really want to stop that.

Aside: sometimes I catch up on news from Italian newspapers and it's incredible how depressing the tone of the articles are compared to e.g. The Guardian. The topic may be the same, but the British site has a much rosier approach to events. I'm positive that the modern news has the same effect of living with a slightly depressed housemate: he seems OK at first glance but slowly brings you down with his unhappiness and gray view of the world.

<comment><USER13> An aside prompted by your aside:

A girl from China joined my class in England, when we were 16¹. She mentioned that she didn't like British newspapers, since they were always so negative (we had to read and analyse them in class sometimes). Chinese news was much more positive.

It took a while for her to realise why this might be the case. I think it helped that the physics teacher regularly said things like "That bloody Tony Blair…".

¹ It was a private school, so her parents were paying the full cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." --Mark Twain

</comment><comment><USER15> Before reading the article, one should see this (quite convincing) claim that the author has plagiarized many of the ideas in it: [http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/dobelli.htm](http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/dobelli.htm)

<comment><USER16> NB, "this claim" is from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of _Black Swans_. Pretty credible, generally.

(Authorship matters. Particularly in discussions of authorship mattering.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Relevant blog from Aaron Swartz (2010): [http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/morebooks](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/morebooks)

</comment><comment><USER18> Aaron Swartz - I Hate the News (2006) [http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews)

</comment><comment><USER19> Worked in news media for 9 months and can unequivocally say it made me pessimistic and completely depressed. Staring at 6 newschannels for 8 hours a day can be tough.

<comment><USER20> It gets better in the tenth month

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't read news but I trust I'll hear about it if something truly remarkable does happen. You might call that social filtering.

The reason I stopped reading news is that it's mostly noise: nothing in my life changed whether I knew this or that or not. After reading the paper, I had absolutely no idea of what I had just read. I can read a book at once and digest 90% of it on the first time: the news never stuck. I first dropped reading foreign affairs, then country-wide news, and finally local news, too.

It's not that I'm not interested at all but I prefer a) choose what is worth being interested in and 2) to digest the information in the form of an in- depth analysis later in time when I accidentally bump into (or search for) an article that summarizes something that has been flooding the news for years. Often even the summary doesn't really affect my life in any practical terms, so I skim it quickly to the extent of any academic curiosity I might have for the subject.

</comment><comment><USER22> Reading news is addictive so you keep coming back for more. Reading Hacker News and using Facebook is also addictive. It's like mental sugar for you brain you keep coming back for more. I keep saying reading HN its to gather industry news but how much of it is relevant?

</comment><comment><USER23> A follow-up article by Madeleine Bunting that I posted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10526108](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10526108)

</comment><comment><USER24> It's our duty as citizens of democracies to stay informed. If we don't stay informed then it is only the special interests that stand to make money that influence policies. Also it is important to stay on top of your industry trends to make sure you don't miss some opportunity. I agree that most crime and tragedy stories are useless information.

<comment><USER25> I disagree. I tend to think that brain has limit to the amount of information that can be perceived thoroughly. After going past this limit you are basically overloading your brain with information, which leads to decreased performance and such.

I'm not sure if there are any studies in this area (although I won't be surprised if there are) so I can only tell that from my personal experience (so this might be very subjective obviously).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This article is unsubstantiated claim after unsubstantiated claim leading to an overconfident fear that encapsulates everything I hate about modern news including things inside the article. I'd hope the author was self aware enough to see the irony in writing this article but I feel to stick after reading half of it to find out.

</comment><comment><USER27> Aaron Swartz's take on the news: [http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001226](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001226)

</comment><comment><USER28> I suppose the article could be succinctly summed up as "ignorance is bliss." Also, it's somewhat ironic that this is in The Guardian.

</comment><comment><USER29> on the time issue: [https://medium.com/@thusmedia/netflix-for- news-84b462a2dd50](https://medium.com/@thusmedia/netflix-for- news-84b462a2dd50)

</comment><comment><USER29> on the topic of news organizations... new news startup: [http://betalist.com/startups/thus](http://betalist.com/startups/thus)

</comment><comment><USER30> Science is bad for you.</comment>


Introducing Visual Studio IntelliCode - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2018/05/07/introducing-visual-studio-intellicode/ <comment><USER2> I wonder what the possibility would be of them expanding this to VS code

</comment><comment><USER3> Intellisense is already extremely unreliable and prone to breaking for seemingly no reason. I'm not confident that this far more complex version is going to be better.

<comment><USER4> Outside of ReSharper causing issues, I can't say I've ever had any major issues with Intellisense being unreliable.

If anything, Intellisense is often referred to as one of the best features of Visual Studio, and why people consider it to be one of the best IDE's for developer experience.

<comment><USER5> +1 for IntelliSense, especially for C#.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some of this sounds dangerously close to a keylogger...</comment>


Writing Testable JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.adequatelygood.com/2010/7/Writing-Testable-JavaScript <comment><USER2> The problem I'm encountering is creating a decent suite of javascript tests that can be run easily in a continuous integration setup. Most things I've seen involve some sort of polling in a Selenium test. Not sure if anyone has any better ideas, but this has been a serious headache for me the last few months.

</comment><comment><USER3>
        We could simply add a getTemplate() method, but then we'd be adding methods to the public interface solely to allow testing, which is not a good approach.

It seems like his solution does this anyway by exposing the supplant function. Despite the underscore, it's not private; it's that brand of smile-and-a-wink private popular in python. I'm not a big fan of that. I like to keep the interface simple for consumers of the class, and even if I know to ignore underscored members, it's still noise.

That said, I don't have a better solution. Maybe the trade-off is worth it for well-tested software. I suppose you could structure your code so that objects can respond to some debug or test flag that forces them to expose their internals, but that might be a lot of work for little benefit. At the end of the day, maybe it's best to call this "good enough" and get back to work.

</comment><comment><USER4> Singletons could be reset using a beforeclass(Reset data before a test suite is ran) or beforetest(Reset data before a test is run) type method. This is built into test frameworks for java, python and others.

</comment><comment><USER5> That testCases trick is pretty neat.</comment>


All Rockstars Went to Julliard - <AUTHOR> http://lockewatts.com/blog/2012/07/13/all-rockstars-went-to-julliard/ <comment><USER4> You're wasting effort with this. It feels good to write. It feels good to hear when you're in that situation. It doesn't help you. It's not about money, it's about positive indicators. An Ivy League school is a positive indicator, starting a company is a positive indicator. Kicking Ass on your own personal or side projects is a positive indicator. Open Source contributions are a positive indicator. Previous work experience that you can explain well and brag about is a positive indicator. Build your positive indicators, and don't complain about others building theirs.

Some people have to work harder than others to get the same recognition or success. Don't measure against them, measure against you. Be better than you were the day before, don't pretend that it's about having money "laying around".

<comment><USER5> I came here to say that, but you said it better than I might have.

I would like to add that his/her post reeked of rationalization fueled by insecurity.

In real life, there are sometimes reasons we fail that are beyond our control. There are always excuses for failure that have some truth in them. There are always ways that we can look at the successful as lucky SOBs and the unsuccessful as victims of cruel fate.

While it's interesting to contemplate the roles of skill and luck in success on a Sunday afternoon -- I've never met a really successful person who didn't have a positive outlook on her ability to mold her opportunities, to watch for chances to make a move, and to sieze those moments that were right and ride them to success.

To glorify happenstance (the particular school you can afford to go to) and self-victimhood is a self-fulfilling prophecy and guaranteed way to minimize your own chances of ever being successful at anything.

Are we our knowledge and experiences? Are we our genetic potential? Are we our upbringing? Are we just products of random chance and our environment? The more I learn in life, the more I become convinced that we are our ATTITUDE. Attitude is the prime factor in success or failure. It is the leading indicator to me when I go to hire someone or decide whether or not I want to work with him.

I don't care what school you went to -- if success is your goal, then start with attitude. Adopt one that drives you to focus on yourself and your own improvement every day of your life. Good things will follow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh. Impressive how much of my personality comes across that way. You're right, on pretty much everything. I am insecure, though I've never understood the difference between rationalization and circumstance. When you're betting more or less your future on you being excellent in your given field, that can really do a number on your self confidence.

Nevertheless, I appreciate the critique. Besides the list of projects I'm working on and my job, any advice for how to improve?

<comment><USER6> Rationalization = excusing your lack of success based on factors beyond your control, circumstance = accepting the factors beyond your control and playing the hell out of the factors that _are_ in your control.

It's too bad that Marc Andreesen took his career advice blog post off the Internet, because he had some of the best advice I've seen. It was:

      1. Build skills & relationships.
      2. Take advantage of opportunities

Basically, all of the big leaps in your career will happen because some random big opportunity outside of your control will open up. When it does, _jump on it_. Immediately. Drop everything you're doing for it. Most people don't, and that is why most people slave away their lives in cubicles.

But to seize that opportunity, you need to be qualified, and you need to hear about it. So all the time that you're not actively seizing an opportunity, you should be building your skill base and getting to know other people. That's the important part: opportunities happen to everybody, but the vast majority of people aren't in a position to take advantage of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Two things:

1) Yield is a big issue. At larger companies, they track how many people they get from different universities, how long they last, how far they go, etc. Most recruiting efforts are then focused on the few schools that give the most graduates that are the best fit for the company. And yes, there are all sorts of long-term issues with this.

Speaking as a former hiring manger, it was just a lot of work to go some of the other schools (especially some of the large state schools with non-top- tier CS programs) because even though we would find 1-2 candidate, we would have to filter through a huge number of candidates to do so. For those schools, we generally relied on personal recommendations from faculty to recent alumni.

2) I went to and am now a PhD student at a very expensive private university. Many of the students, like myself, are middle class, getting very little aid (other than merit) while their parents are forced to share the living-on-ramen experience during college. But, those huge loans (I think I had somewhere between 60-80k when I graduated many years ago) are quickly paid off if you continue living on little money working for a top firm. Most of my peers' loans were all paid off in the first 2-3 years of working. It's a huge worry, but in practice turns out not to be a big deal for CS majors from top schools.

Certainly, it drives many job decisions, though. A low-pay startup job was not in the cards while I had all that debt hanging over my head, and I assume that's true for other middle class folks.

<comment><USER8> I think it's also worth mentioning that financial aid at most Ivy League schools ar incredible. Look at Princeton - the goal of their financial aid office is to make sure that everyone who needs financial aid (middle class or not), get financial aid. It's very common that graduates come out of school without any debt at all.

<comment><USER9> I also know from having worked at Harvard that most Harvard students these days graduate with little or no debt due to a generous financial aid system there.

I wish it had been like that when I went to MIT. (MIT did have plenty of financial aid, but not to the no-debt level.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The myth of a top-notch education costing six-figures is getting a little old. The price tag is over $200k. The actual cost is under $50k, with the price dropping as you go to school with bigger endowments/better financial aid. Many schools graduate students with less than $20k in debt. At current rates, students pay about $100-200 a month to pay off these loans on time. Just some facts.

<comment><USER11> I came from a upper-middle class family. We were wealthy enough that qualifying for financial aid at an ivy was basically impossible. We were poor enough (with 3 of us in college at once) that it wasn't possible.

This was particularly problematic because my dad (a military doctor) had only been out of the military for a couple of years. Meaning the salary he we were being pegged at for financial aid was something he had only been earning for 2 years or so. He mad significantly less in the military.

Point being: For some folks, in some situations.. the cost is well beyond reach.

<comment><USER10> The Ivys and liberal arts places I know take multiple children going to school at the same time well into account. I'm sorry for the trouble, but I'm not sure if you didn't look into it, or if you are talking about a situation well into the past. That's just not the case anymore.

EDIT: Hell, look at the comment below; the net price calculator (<http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/>) even has a drop-down for number of children in college.

<comment><USER11> It was 15 years ago:)

<comment><USER10> That makes sense—it's gotten a LOT better! Even if the price tag has increased significantly…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh. Sure the rich and beautiful have it easier, but what does that have to do with you? You say you want to pursue your own ideas? Great - Then do that. What's the worst that could happen anyway? A bit of debt perhaps? A slightly less flashy car? Fewer money come time to retirement? It's not like you and your family would die from starvation if you fail - Unlike most of the rest of the world. You're already uniquely privileged.

</comment><comment><USER13> Strange that a technically capable engineering student would be at UGA when GeorgiaTech is of similar cost (and both free to Georgia residents who maintain a 3.0 though the HOPE scholarship). Not saying that you won't find good people at UGA (biting my GT tongue!), but following his rationale and years of work experience in Atlanta (showing Georgia residency), his story seems a little thin.

Even more so when his examples of work turn up 404's, 403's, placeholders, and ads for premium versions of the wordpress theme he used. Not every rockstar went to Julliard, but they were good at what they did.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol, okay.

"Strange that a technically capable engineering student would be at UGA when GeorgiaTech is of similar cost (and both free to Georgia residents who maintain a 3.0 though the HOPE scholarship)."

UGA has a combined bachelors & masters program that I wanted to do, and I knew the security professor and adviser going in who have both been very supportive to me, while Tech's staff were absolutely horrendous.

"Even more so when his examples of work turn up 404's, 403's, placeholders"

I put the cart before the horse, so to speak. I made the links and banners & such as I was working on the projects, and then my circumstances changed and I had to find a job. I mentioned this in the post. Would you like me to send you some of my completed work?

"ads for premium versions of the wordpress theme he used"

Where were those? I'd love to go kill those links.

<comment><USER13> You chose UGA (a quiet state school) over GT (a world class research university) because GT was too abrasive and you know a friendly prof at UGA? To me, this undermines your position more than anything else. You have set yourself up to get by without learning or trying too hard. If true, you are only arguing against the Ivy League bias because you are on the losing side of it, not because it is misguided.

 _Where were those? I'd love to go kill those links._

Seriously? _man grep_ and "to hell with (the University of) Georgia!"

<comment><AUTHOR> >You chose UGA (a quiet state school) over GT (a world class research university) because GT was too abrasive and you know a friendly prof at UGA?

That, they have a fast track Bachelor's\Master's combined degree, and I was originally a Poli Sci double major when I got here.

But I appreciate your condescension, thanks.

<comment><USER13> _That, they have a fast track Bachelor's\Master's combined degree, and I was originally a Poli Sci double major when I got here._

Computer science and Poly Sci double major? Are you serious?! Perhaps my original comment that UGA < GT came off condescending, but honestly it could have been a lot more. I generally give people the benefit of the doubt.

But, you came to HN to talk about there are capable people who didn't go to Ivy League schools. And I agree with that. Given my experience thus far, I would go even farther and say that an Ivy League education makes you a worse engineer, but that's getting off topic.

So let's get down to how people really become rockstars: they are obsessively dedicated to being musicians because they don't know what else to do in life. Folks who went to GT to learn Computer Science were already at a disadvantage, because of those of us who had been doing this for a decade already. I graduated years ago, but I don't feel that I've ever stopped learning how to be better at what I do. I'm not saying that I'm a "rockstar", but when I look at people to work with (ie, hire), that's the kind of drive that I'm looking for.

 _I appreciate your condescension, thanks._

Any time, and there's plenty more where that came from.

But don't take it personally. I don't dislike you - I dislike what you're doing. If you want to do this for a living, then show us by working harder at it. Get rid of anything that isn't complete on your website. Don't be so lofty in your opinions, just do good work and keep doing it. You'll find more opportunities than you need.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Computer science and Poly Sci double major? Are you serious?!_

Yeah? Does that say something I'm not aware of?

 _Get rid of anything that isn't complete on your website._

Wouldn't it be a better idea to just finish the projects?

 _So let's get down to how people really become rockstars: they are obsessively dedicated to being musicians because they don't know what else to do in life. Folks who went to GT to learn Computer Science were already at a disadvantage, because of those of us who had been doing this for a decade already._

Perhaps I'm not obsessive on the level of Kurt Cobain, but I'll have been doing this for a decade before I graduate. How would I go about better communicating that drive?

<comment><USER14> > Yeah? Does that say something I'm not aware of?

It says you're not a monomaniac who cares only about appropriate intellectual pursuits, like computer science, mathematics, or physics.

<comment><USER13> Snarky. Maybe if he took on a third major you would give him a job.

<comment><USER14> I'm not in the business of giving people jobs. If I was, being enough of an asshole to denigrate people for having different academic interests at age 18 would be more of a red flag to me than simply having different academic interests at age 18. Maybe that's why I'm not in the business of giving people jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yes, getting out of the resume pile is harder without a name brand college degree but you shouldn't be going in the resume pile in the first place. Make connections, build your network, get referrals. Once you actually make it to the on-site interview, your performance in the interview will trump almost all else.

The resume pile is where good ideas go to die. Faced with the fact that resumes are 99% useless, hiring managers latch on to things that are cozy and familiar, keywords, GPAs, brand-name school. This sucks, but don't let others' mistakes keep you from demonstrating your potential.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Life is unfair. Deal with it."

There is no doubt that if someone's parents had the means to give them a computer, and that grade school student or high school students was able to start practicing the craft of programming early, they will have a huge leg up on someone who didn't have that opportunity. For better or worse, that's the world that we live in. Accept it, and move on.

OK, you weren't someone who had the opportunity to learn Cisco IOS at an early age, and was configuring core Internet backbone routers as a job and wearing a pager in high school, before you started at MIT as a freshman. OK, you're not someone who contributed so much to the Linux kernel in high school that you were invited to the annual Kernel Summit, which brings together the top 75 or so linux kernel developers, the summer before you started at MIT. These are two real people that I know. There's nothing I can do to change society to make things "fair"; and there's nothing you can do about either. So stop whining about it.

I've looked at LockeWatts's resume, and the problem as someone who has been a hiring manager, is there's absolutely no signal in his resume that he would actually _be_ a someone who could "compete with the best of them". He's made that assertion, but lots of people have made that assertion. And while he might be really bright, unfortunately, I've met many people who claimed to be super bright, but then when I asked them to code up a simple function on the whiteboard, they couldn't do something incredibly basic.

Furthermore, although it will no doubt be painful for him to hear this, I very much _doubt_ he is a rockstar. He might have the potential to be a rockstar, but takes a huge amount of practice to get there. It is rare, and no doubt requires privilege, for someone to have that status right out of college, or in the cases I detailed above, before they even started college.

The good news is that this is something that time and experience, and a lot of determination on Colin's part, can fix. You can't change your family circumstances; but you can control how much time you spend honing your art and your craft. Sure, you need to focus on bringing home your biweekly paycheck. But you can control whether you go to movies, or go out drinking with your buddies, or whether you spend that working on open source projects, or learning new computer languages, or taking time to read self-help books to do what Stevey Covey called "Sharpening the Saw" (cf 7 Habits of Highly Effective People).

Maybe it will take you an extra 2 or 3 or even 5 years. But you can give yourself rockstar-like skills and experience, if you are willing to make the appropriate choices and sacrifices.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure the article is intended to be targeted towards people who want an excuse to blame for their lack of success. I guess it is aimed at employers to try and make them consider context and circumstances when viewing somebody's job application.

The problem with saying "Life is unfair. Deal with it." is that this argument could be used to justify many things that we regard as outright wrong. Born into slavery? Can't get a job because of your skin colour? Wrongly accused of a crime? "Life is unfair. Deal with it."

At some stage somebody has to say "life is unfair, how can I make it a little fairer?" or the problem will simply become self fulfilling.

<comment><USER16> Why should an employer consider context and circumstances? They want to hire a best programmer they can for the money available to them. A sob story about how someone hasn't had the luck to get the experience to achieve rockstar status before they graduated as an undergraduate doesn't change the fact that if I'm a founder of the startup, or a hiring manager I am trying to optimize the chances of success of my startup or my team. I'm not a social services agency.

<comment><AUTHOR> Rockstar is a relative, not absolute term. I'm not comparing myself to Google's senior architects, I'm comparing myself to every other college Junior.

<comment><USER16> The articles you quoted about people being courted, as opposed to needing to find a job, apply to very few college Juniors. It doesn't matter whether you're at an Ivy League school or somewhat lower tier school.

You're going to have a much harder time getting hired at a startup, mainly because a founder can't afford to take any risks. And an unknown quantity (which is what most college Juniors are) is a risk, by definition. An Ivy League degree might make a difference, but at a startup, you're going to want to optimize for the very best people you can find, and that's in general going to be people with a lot of experience (not just in technical matters, which is why being interested in learning about business and legal issues on the side is no bad thing).

Also, while I wasn't at Google during the period when it was growing at an astonishingly fast rate, the stories that I hard was that they were taking busloads of candidates from schools such as Stanford (literally; they would bring them in buses for interviews in an essentially production-line fashion). I talked to someone who told me how hard it was interview a half-dozen people in one day, and then having to keep track of it all to write up the interview reports.

For companies going through a huge growth spurt, they are going to inevitably take some shortcuts to maximize yield, and lower the burden on an insufficiently staffed HR and interview-qualified engineers to do the bulk hiring. And stories about the hiring practices of companies who are going through that growth spurt might not be accurate when the companies' growth rate has slowed, and they can afford to be a bit more deliberate about their hiring process.

I've heard a large number of wildly inaccurate (at least from my perspective, only having worked at Google for 2.5 years) stories about how hiring works at Google, and I sometimes wonder if they are stories that reflected an era from a previous stage in Google's evolution as a company, and yet, because they are great stories, they keep on getting retold, even if in the end they are actually harmful for people who believe they are still true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't understand what point he's trying to make.

For one, he starts off by talking about some specific school, but very few people have ever claimed that going to some specific ivy-league school makes you a great programmer. In fact, I often see people claim the opposite, especially in startups. You could certainly write an article about Google's bad hiring practices, but that doesn't seem to be the point of this article - he pulls up two examples, and then completely moves on from that point.

Second, he misses the point of looking for people who are self-led. It's not to get people who produce good code - it's to get people to can produce good code, but can also _think for themselves_. And what better way to get people to think for themselves, than by looking for people already doing it.

<comment><USER19> Anecdotal, but I often interact with people who went to elite schools. A large number of them are convinced that the world is run by their classmates. It's sometimes tiring to hear, especially as having that kind of network does help. Of course every company wants the "best", and credentials are a shortcut to satisfying that. False positives are more of a danger than false negatives.

There are plenty of exceptions to this elitism -- I recently found out that a long-time coworker not only went to a top school but is also a tenured professor. It doesn't show. :)

This post is by an undergrad at a state school, and I gather the main purpose is to get employers interested in him, and probably to vent some frustration against the very real blindspot that many recruiters and employers have. It's not intended to be an essay for the ages.

<comment><USER11> The world _is_ run by their classmates. That's a real problem. If you went to a middle of the road state school (in my case in the south), then you face a lot of additional challenges that my Stanford buddies do not.

I have a real win on my resume. I can point to products that I've built and things that I've done. I'm even a published author. Yet when it comes to fund- raising or trying to find a leadership role there is a definite boys-club that is difficult for me to break into. For a great many investors they see my education and the rest just doesn't matter.

It means I've had to swim faster and work far harder than these top-tier grads. Even today, more than a decade out of college, it remains an issue. I'll continue to show through my work that I'm a top-tier talent, and hopefully one day that will be enough all on its own.

tldr; It was worth every penny if you went to Stanford, I wish I had known that when I was 18.

<comment><USER20> "tldr; It was worth every penny if you went to Stanford, I wish I had known that when I was 18."

I wish I had known that when I was 14/15 and cruising through high school, buying the feel-good talk about "paying that much for a top-name education wouldn't be worth it anyway." So instead I got a very good education (you get out of it what you put into it, after all) that actually cost more in practice than a heavily-subsidized-by-the-school Ivy one and yet comes with a lower- value degree.

I'm happy where I am, so I'm not complaining. But the system is fairly screwy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Don't worry about the Ivy League stuff, and just keep working on your projects and learning. Most of the comments here about "signalling" are true but largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Sure, if you have your sights set on a job at one specific company (say, Google) then it's probably true that you're more likely to get in with a degree from an Ivy League school. But if you just want to have a great career, work on cool stuff, do well for yourself and maybe even be an entrepreneur one day, you can do all of that without ever sniffing an Ivy League campus.

The tech industry is, despite what some people may say, still fairly meritorious. If you have talent, and you work hard, your ability will - <USER2> time - dominate the signalling effect of your degree and what-not. OK, maybe it means your first job is writing CRUD applications in the IT department for a shoe manufacturing company in Bumfuckville, GA, and not doing machine learning stuff at Google. Big deal. Take the shoe manufacturing job, keep learning on your own time (don't get married or have kids too young though, if you have high aspirations career wise), start an open-source project and/or contribute to some well known projects. Blog, write a book, do screencasts, whatever you can do to demonstrate your ability. If you are truly talented, and have indomitable spirit, you'll make your way where you want to go.

</comment><comment><USER22> Whether or not Ivy League or other top schools charge too much is basically irrelevant; the real hard part is getting accepted in the first place. These schools get so many applications in a year, and many of the applicants are so thinly differentiated, that acceptance is virtually indistinguishable from a lottery.

Saying graduates of these schools are the best of the best misses the mark a bit. A more accurate description would be they had access to generally superior education. This is an important distinction.

</comment><comment><USER23> I understand the frustration, and there are a lot more unfair things waiting for you out in the business world. So opt out. Invent your own job and take no shit from anybody. Get a consultancy running and freelance. It's not complicated, just a lot of work to get started. Then transition off writing code for others into your own projects. You're young, it'll be fine. It won't be as sexy as doing yc and living the life in the valley, but you could probably move down and do it there if you were hungry enough. Fuck the student loans, if you can't eat and pay them it'll just fuck up your credit till you get square. Don't be more emotionally attached to your debt than the bank is to its own.

The upshot is, yeah, if you didn't go to an ivy, you're going to have a tougher road in some capacities. Some. And mostly if you're trying to convince somebody that you're _going to_ do something cool someday. Do something and remove all doubt, or build something so that youre the guy deciding what's good enough or not.

</comment><comment><USER24> Sorta, but all rockstars also have in common that they all have a band, practice a lot, tour a lot and make lots of decent songs...most rockstars played in 30 seat dive bars at one point or another. The _Goo Goo Dolls_ dwelt in obscurity for about a decade before making it big. _Radiohead_ has a similar story.

What did they do? They plugged on, practicing, writing, throwing stuff against the wall until it stuck.

It's the same for programmers, start building a body of work, learn from every line of code you write, take on hard and high profile tasks, don't fail often, and in the end, maybe after about 10 years of hard work, you'll make it big and people will recruit you rather than you having to hunt out jobs.

Some examples:

John Carmack went to boring State School and made decentish but not well known mail order games for underpowered computers before finally making it mainstream with Wolf 3d (seriously, anybody remember Hovertank 3d? didn't think so).

Tim Sweeny went to another boring state school and made such unknown shareware gems like Jill of the Jungle and Brix before hitting it big with Unreal.

Brendan Eich hammered together JavaScript with a small Jesuit school's undergrad education and a state school's Master's and did it in 10 days, before that he spent a decade writing network and dsp code and porting GCC in obscurity.

D. Richard Hipp went to his local state school next to where he grew up and after about 20 years of banging around at a phone company and going back to school, bouncing around a bit looking for work then doing software consulting for a bit, ended up writing the most popular relational database on the planet.

and on and on....Alan Kay, Phil Katz, Ken Thompson, etc. all didn't go Ivy League, and most even went to public, state schools. But they all _produced_ and in the end that's all anybody cares about.

</comment><comment><USER25> The truth is, rockstars didn't "look for jobs". They didn't submit their resume to some big rockstar company and hope to get a place as a cog in some corporate Googlish wheel. If you go to Julliard, it's a lot easier to get a job in music that is more like working at Google. You can join a symphony or something that you just could not do without a deep understanding of theory and a skill set that is very similar to the other musicians you are working with. But if you think you're hot shit, take the time you spend on whining about the privileged and make something great (for rockstars this often involves whining about privilege). Rockstars didn't get permission to make their art, and none of us have to either.

</comment><comment><USER26> The subtext here is that those without elite credentials are at some disadvantage because they don't have a convenient signaling mechanism of quality to prospective employers. Stipulated. But if you have the talent to compete, this disadvantage is merely a speedbump. In 2012 you're just a git pull away from interacting with the decision makers at your next job. It's never been easier for programmers with top talent to convey their qualities to employers. One community that has always worked this way is the community surrounding the Linux kernel. Credentials are not even mentioned. It's all about the code and people routinely get hired on that basis alone.

</comment><comment><USER27> If he's an academically qualified hacker but can't afford an Ivy, why'd he go to Georgia instead of Georgia Tech?

</comment><comment><USER28> > _I read that a NASA subcontrator wanted someone to design high-efficiency > power supplies for the Space Shuttle. So I wrote up a decent design and > showed up. There were maybe 20 candidates at the office, all equipped with > advanced degrees. But I didn't have a degree, I had a design. They hired me > on the spot and sent all the degree holders away. True story._

[http://www.reddit.com/r/tabled/comments/qaqr3/table_iama_for...](http://www.reddit.com/r/tabled/comments/qaqr3/table_iama_former_nasa_space_shuttle_engineer/)

</comment><comment><USER29> More of those developers who made it before the dot com boom (in the 90's) seem to have "made their luck". In general, they seem to have taken leaps of faith, or gone out of their way to pursue something of significant risk not because of expectation of disproportionate reward, but because of drive to create.

After the dot com bust, in the aughts, certainly such cases still exist, but a larger share of success stories seem to trend more cynical, arising out of an almost inwardly focused ecosystem of investors and pursuers of investment, looking to systematize the replication of success.

User adoption remains the primary driver of ultimate success, but the opportunity to have a product in front of sizable number of users seems now less about first mover advantage or technical edge, and more about correctly (whether through luck or deliberate action) leveraging finance.

</comment><comment><USER30> Jesus Christ, it's spelled "Juilliard". Anyway, horrible analogy.

</comment><comment><USER31> "An Ivy League education is almost certainly a 6 figure sum of some kind, depending on where you go. They have need based scholarships, but if you're in the middle class those aren't really applicable to you, and your parents can't afford to send you to that expensive a school"

At nearly any of the ivies, you will graduate nearly debt-free if your parents make less than $100k-$120k. $100k household income puts a family in the top 15%, which is at least "upper middle class" if not "rich" (though clearly not "super rich"). There are precisely two ways to be unable to afford to attend one of the ivies: be an international student, or have wealthy parents who are unwilling to contribute to your educational expenses. This wasn't always true, but at this point, if the parents are willing it is essentially always affordable.

</comment><comment><USER32> Amen. Almost.

I was in a startlingly similar position a few years ago- I graduated from Georgia State. I went there not because it was the best school, but because tuition was paid (HOPE scholarship) and the classes were offered at flexible times so I could work while going to school. I had to turn down an acceptance from Tech because of that.

While it hurt my career initially, I think the value of education is drastically diminished in just a few short years. By the time I was 25 what I'd accomplished professionally mattered far more than where I went to school. Sure, I was still in debt from school so starting a company is difficult, but open source contributions and side projects are a signifcant part of my "resume" and far outweigh my schooling.

</comment><comment><USER33> It'd be great if all these articles making big claims about what developers do and don't do included some actual, you know, evidence.

It shouldn't even be that hard to collect. LinkedIn in a massive data repository about what jobs people have had. Should be a fun analysis.

<comment><USER34> Say I've been at Obvious Company for a while. Maybe a long while. LinkedIn, Github, none of these things have anything on me. I can't talk about what I've done in the last couple of years because it's all still confidential (and I'm not ratting one employer in front of a prospective - I'd like them to think I can be trusted).

How do I convince you that I'm enough of a rockstar (and I am, for reals) to get a foot in the door? I can blow your socks off in an interview by fixing your product and your business model on a whiteboard, but until we talk I'm just another pasty white guy in an ironic shirt.

You aren't going to recognize the schools I went to, or care, because I was out before you were eating solid food. I don't even have the beard and suspenders. How do I sell me to you?

<comment><USER35> Perhaps you could contact the company you want to work for via a throwaway email so that they don't see you and prejudge you as an "old guy"? If you can fix someone's product and business model on a whiteboard, you should be able to use their product, find a flaw, and send them an incisive email about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At the crux of this issue is the question about correlation of intelligence and ambition with wealth. I would be surprised if there was no correlation at all, on the other hand it would be interesting to see what the relationship really is but I can't think of an experiment that could be done in a way which would be both accurate and ethical (for example switching poor and rich children at birth).

This seems to be one of the arguments around keeping taxes low for the rich (or "job creators") the implicit assumption seems to be "rich people are smart, therefor they should be put in charge of money distribution".

As an example, there was somebody I grew up with who is now running a ~$1 million turnover web design company at 27. He is sometimes invited to speak at events as a successful entrepreneur and demonstrated as an example of how hard work can pay off etc.

Unfortunately if you know the real story it is somewhat less impressive. He graduated from university with a fairly average degree and was having trouble finding employment at any job that he was interested in working at. He comes from a wealthy background however, so had little time constraints on his job search. After some time he decided to give up looking for work and establish himself as a freelance designer, his family gave him a chunk of money with which to establish himself.

For the first few years his business was not too successful and was draining capital, he was having difficulty finding clients as his portfolio of work was not really comparable to other established companies who were charging similar rates.

After a few years his family sold one of the businesses they owned which freed up a bunch of extra capital, a chunk of this they gave to him. He was able to use this money to hire some talented designers who did excellent work and won him a bunch of awards and bigger contracts, this was really the catalyst that made him successful.

Of course if the guy was a complete idiot he would have squandered even that opportunity, he was intelligent enough to run a business day-to-day but there was no way he would have managed that without such a capital injection. Would be interesting to think about how many people in his position would have failed and how many would have been successful earlier.

</comment><comment><USER36> Actually, I've noticed that a large fraction of my favorite (rock) musicians _were_ classically trained, at least as children. Not all of them, but enough to surprise me. Self-teaching is overrated.

</comment><comment><USER37> As a counter to one of his points I've seen developers who are completely oblivious to money management and are always working on their own projects despite having loans and having gone to an expensive school.

I'm like you though buddy I did undergrad and just finished a Master's degree from two schools that barely crack the top 50 in CS. I chose to go the less expensive route (read: basically free) as opposed to an Ivy-League education. It's too early to tell whether it will hinder my job prospects or not.

</comment><comment><USER38> The reason people like people who went to Ivy league schools is largely that it's a proxy for having had good parents/values. The idea that you'd have a better network or education might be partly true, but it's mostly just a justification. Once you understand this, you should be able to work around it.

<comment><USER6> Going to Ivy League schools is a proxy for having good parents/values?

I went to Amherst (not an Ivy, but a top liberal arts college). I wouldn't use it as a proxy for good parents or values at all. Hell, one of my classmates stole an ambulance, drove it around the freshman quad, and crashed it into a tree. Another embezzled $13,000 from the school newspaper. The latter had a parent who was on the board of trustees. A third was the author of this infamous breakup letter:

<http://www.snopes.com/embarrass/email/tripplehorn.asp>

In my experience, the people who _really_ had good parents & values were the ones who came from lower-class or working-class backgrounds and managed to make it into Amherst despite them. Succeeding despite adversity says a lot about your character. Succeeding because daddy's a legacy and donated a few million dollars to the school doesn't say anything other than that your parents have money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Nothing it stopping you from writing a great article, building great software, contributing something amazing to an open source project, etc.

Your time would be better spent focusing on doing good work and sharing it. Assuming you do do good work and learn how to share effectively, the rest will come.

</comment><comment><USER40> I can say I understand where you're coming from, and if you carry that chip on your shoulder for the rest of your life, you'll do just fine.

I want to share my personal story, since I felt the same way you did when I was in college.

Coming out of school 2 years ago, I thought I was screwed. I had a shitty GPA, I had no work experience (not even internships), and I never took on a personal programming project. While my friends were getting offers months before graduation, I was still applying to companies (and not hearing back from any of them). Finally, a small .NET web shop gave me a call, and I royally screwed up the technical questions. The interviewer, with a disappointed sigh, asked me if I had any questions for him before we end the call. This was my opening, my chance to show him that indeed I did care about his company and, ultimately, programming. Prior to the call, I had done a lot of research on the company and who their big clients are, so I told him how cool that was and then asked what was the coolest project they've worked on. Impressed, the interviewer immediately changed his tone, and it was as if the interview restarted over. I pressed on, showing him my enthusiasm not only for the company, but for programming and how I wanted to become a better engineer tomorrow than the day before. The director, listening in on the call, pretty much gave me an offer. The offer was severely under market rate, and I was on a very short leash (3 month trial), but I was so happy, I cried. I knew that the next step was to impress the shit out of them.

So starting day 1, I'd gobble up everything about the tech stack and the domain. I'd subscribe to every .NET blog I could find. I bought and read books about design pattern and enterprise architecture. I listened to programming podcasts as I drove back and forth from work, and sometimes I'd listen to it as I tried to fall asleep. I'd constantly ask questions to my senior engineers about the .NET nuances, IoC containers, and good engineering practices. I questioned why we didn't do TDD, why we didn't switch from the Web Forms to MVC framework, why we're still using LinqToSQL instead of Entity Framework.

In three months, I got a raise, and within 6 months after that, I got another raise. My director called me the "rising star" in our company. I worked my ass off not because I wanted to prove to the world that I was good, but I wanted to prove to myself that I'm not a chump programming monkey.

A year after my first job, I got an offer to work at a friend's startup in SF, despite the fact it was on a Rails stack with WAY different architecture/requirement. Again, paid under market rate because of my lack of experience. Applied the same work ethic and dedication to the job. Learned how to scale, how to design web apps top to bottom, how to architect our systems topology, and how to get shit done.

On my personal time, I decided to build a website that would help the alumni members of my college fraternity keep in touch with each other for networking and inspirational purposes. Leveraging my knowledge from my job, built the entire damn thing, from the DB schemas, to the domain logic, to even the HTML/CSS. Initially it was built on ASP.NET MVC, then rebuilt the whole thing in Rails to improve our development speed. Now, I'm asking around other student orgs to see if they'd be interested in using our website.

Now, I guess I am that rockstar programmer, even though I don't really think that. Recruiters are constantly messaging me for job openings. I just got two offers from both a big, respectable company, and from another startup. It's surreal. I never thought I'd see this day, but I still have that chip on my shoulder to constantly improve. The point I'm trying to get is that it's not about where you start but it's the journey you're willing to take to get where you want to be. Earlier, tytso commented that you have to start at the bottom with an entry-level job, and it probably won't be the glamorous FB/Google/Apple/blahblahblah job that you so want. But that doesn't matter as long as you work in a place that you can get really fired up about. In my experience, a lot of managers would hire passionate, inexperienced guys over talented yet indifferent engineers because company culture is a big deal.

So what is it that you can do to prepare yourself right now? First, network the shit out of your school. Make as many friends as you can, regardless of their majors or background. I guarantee you you'll find other people who are smarter and more motivated than you are. Surrounding yourself with ambitious or A+ kids will a) in the short term inspire you to work harder and b) in the long term, they'll become valuable assets for your career. Then start a programming project. Right. Now. In my last year of college, I built a beer pong tournament website on LAMP. It wasn't the prettiest thing, visually/architecturally, but still proud of that thing. (For fun, I'm trying to rebuild it again with backbone, Rails, and MongoDB.)

Never forget this moment of frustration. In fact, embrace it. Use it as your motivating fuel. And then go do what makes you happy.

</comment><comment><USER41> Both cheaper than Ivy League, both are as good a signal in my book:

University of Illinois

Carnegie Mellon

<comment><USER42> Erm, is CMU _actually_ cheaper than an Ivy League university? I was under the impression that they are fairly expensive and do not provide nearly as much financial aid as at least the top Ivy League schools like Harvard or Princeton.

At the very least, CMU has a _far_ smaller endowment (an order of magnitude smaller) than most of the universities it competes with. I imagine this has a real impact on how much financial aid it can offer.

Also, no love for Berkeley? We're public and have a pretty good CS department :). Admittedly being out of state makes it rather expensive _and_ harder to get in, but I imagine that's the same at UIUC.

<comment><USER41> Yeah, Berkeley is great, I didn't mention them since when I graduated HS (a while ago) they were harder to get into from out-of-state than some of the Ivys

<comment><USER42> For better or worse, that's still true, at least for engineering. I think the acceptance rate over all (for both in- and out-of-state students) to the EECS major is actually below 10%.

However, getting into CMU CS is also similarly difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Fundamentally, as someone who went to a Public State University, I feel your pain. Let me take a look (based on my experiences of reviewing resumes)...

Analysis of your "about me" section:

Your CV is "meh". Only interesting thing is the grad school class. Your GPA isn't listed.

Resume: If I ask you in-depth, hard questions about any language or tech on your resume, I expect an answer. If you can't give me a deep answer, I will give you negative points in my mind. You listed those techs, so you better have something to show.

WRT Technologies. I am a bit idiosyncratic: I want to know your preferred OS and whether you can handle source control. Everything else is noise. You have too much noise.

Your internship this summer details don't tell me why you're awesome. It's too generic.

Your S12 research is ambiguous. what did you find? I don't know what you can do for me.

I don't really care about your in-progress work unless you have a github. You should highlight your leadership experience in tutoring. You should highlight your Honors courses.

In summary, you are an above-average candidate compared to most CS resumes I've seen. Probably in the 80th percentile of the last batch of resumes I looked through. However, you are not a must-hire in my opinion.

\---

In order to get to "must hire" state in my mind, you need something like the following:

* Mastery of written communication.

* Explanation of what you have done at each position, why you uniquely made it happen, and what you can do for me and my team.

* Public code repo with a long history and a decent amount of loc in it. You've developed at least a small system (1-10KLoC) and maintained it for years. You support users of it.

* You have studied a "far out" technology - one that may never be written on the job. The more depth is shown here, the more commitment to your craft is demonstrated. At a minimum, this would be, for instance, learning Perl 6 or Haskell. At the higher end, it might be something like writing a working simulator of the CM-2.

* You have extensive internships at well-known companies. While this is limited by location and funds somewhat, it demonstrates that you can play ball with the big boys.

\---

Understand that you can better your marketing quickly - set up a github and upload a project, wipe out the placeholder links, rewrite your resume to better express your capabilities. But then the slog starts. You need to commit to building your craft, constantly, in a visibly demonstrable way. Some of that might be expressed via open source, or it might be expressed by a portfolio of shipped software. That's up to you. And, further - <USER3> yourself in a more careful fashion. No one wants to take the risk of hiring someone who complains life is unfair.

While I am not a hiring manager, I do assist with technical hiring. I am always happy to look at your resume (or anybody else's) and provide feedback and critique. My contact email is in my HN profile.

Best wishes for your future.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Your CV is "meh". Only interesting thing is the grad school class. Your GPA isn't listed._

Do GPAs go on your CV? I didn't know that.

 _Your internship this summer details don't tell me why you're awesome. It's too generic._

How can I make those more specific? In my eyes they seemed like pretty specific details to me.

 _Your S12 research is ambiguous. what did you find? I don't know what you can do for me._

I don't know how to compress a research paper into a two sentence resume description. Even the abstract is longer than that by an order of magnitude.

* You should highlight your leadership experience in tutoring. You should highlight your Honors courses.*

People care about either of those??

<comment><USER44> > Do GPAs go on your CV? I didn't know that.

The flaw in your thinking here is that there's some sort of "standard" template for a resume that will highlight your excellence. A resume is a _sales letter_ designed to show how awesome you are. Include anything and everything that makes you look good.

As an example, with the research paper, highlight why it was impactful. Saying the paper was published in one of the most prestigious journals in its field is vastly more effective than telling us what your paper was about.

Your work experience tells me what you did, but it doesn't tell me why you're awesome. As an example-my resume highlights the fact that I saved my employer millions of dollars. It only glosses over how.

So write your resume in a way that would make someone say "this guy is awesome", rather than trying to write your resume in a way that describes your life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I assume HN reaction to the headline is "Julliwhat?!"

But maybe they go here first: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juilliard_School>

Edit: wrong info about an Alumnus, but there are plenty of famous artists from there

<comment><USER46> Julliard is pretty well known even among non-musicians.</comment></comment>