How to research new saas products if you have 2 senior developers? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently working with 2 (slightly awkward but competent) senior developers. They want to build something that generates profit. Let's keep it simple.
They asked me to give them ideas what to build. I don't know how to logically approach the research.
Preferably based on (scientific) research, how would you start? <comment><USER2> Here's how you do the research, summarized from Amy Hoy's sales safari of 30x500 fame

You find a community of people you can talk to. Often these are people you're already a member of.

Then you talk to this community. You observe, you engage.

As you observe and engage, you listen to their problems, their pain. You take notes.

Solving any one instance of that pain is a potential business.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I'm following Amy Hoy for about 2 years now (email list mostly). Thanks! Will begin counting the number of times she gets mentioned :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Define "slightly awkward" please ..just curious! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not a native speaker, but you could say they can only do one thing, and it's not interacting with humans :) Hope this makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you find it, let me know, im interested to in a simple project that generate revenue.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm interested in how to do the research. Is that clear from the question and details? Thanks for your comment.</comment></comment>


26% of AT&T iPhone Owners Going to Verizon - <AUTHOR> http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2011/01/17/26-of-att-iphone-owners-going-to.html?ana=yfcpc

<comment><USER2> I'll believe it when I see it. It's one thing to check a box on a survey, but the outcome will be contingent upon a lot of factors, not the least of which is the contractual situation that each of these customers finds themselves in. Wireless carriers love contracts. More specifically, they love to keep customers under contract.

Of the 26% that said they would switch, how many would do so if it cost them an additional $100 in early termination fees? How about $200? Add in a $199 iPhone, plus activation, and you're looking at over $400 in some cases.

<comment><USER3> I don't think anyone believes that 26% will _actually_ switch. Surely the actual conversion will be lower - but that's not the point.

The point is that 26% of AT&T's iPhone customers are so displeased that they are itching to leave, and as you mentioned astutely, if they stay it's only because they've been effectively chained down by a contract.

A business where a large portion of its customer base are involuntarily there is a severely sick one, and will either fail out of its own accord, or continue to hold back in the industry by propping itself up with monopolistic behavior and paid-for regulations.

<comment><USER2> I don't necessarily disagree that ATT customers are grossly dissatisfied, but I don't think they're alone. Sadly, I don't have any more recent numbers, but the study linked below shows that 47% of all cell phone users would switch to a competing provider to get a lower price if they didn't have to pay ETF fees. At best, cell phone users feel no loyalty for their carrier. At worst, the hate them almost universally.

[http://www.uspirg.org/newsroom/financial/financial- privacy--...](http://www.uspirg.org/newsroom/financial/financial-privacy-- security-news/survey-shows-nearly-half-of-cell-phone-users-would-switch-or- consider-switching-carriers-if-they-didnt-have-to-pay-contract-termination- penalties)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dear AT&T customers, All the great things you hear about Verizon are lies. Please, don't come over to this network - it's really horrible, I swear! That's why I'm a lifetime Verizon customer. I mean, er...

Signed, A VZW Subscriber Panicked about AT&T Refugees

<comment><USER5> Exactly, I want to see what the AT&T network looks like the most heavy iPhone users move on. For several years Verizon network had minimal smart phone users, but after Android and iPhone usage ramps up they could have the same sorts of issues.

PS: I want to stick with AT&T because Verizon has shitty reception around around my parents house. But, where I live and work the AT&T data network is heavy oversubscribed.

<comment><USER6> Well, the early release works to an advantage: the power users will be there from February to June (when the iPhone 5 is released.) Meaning that anyone willing to wait for the new one will get to pick a carrier in real-world conditions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> AT&T is just horrible. I am in Bangladesh right now and I jailbreaked my iphone and I am using GSM from a local provider called "GrameenPhone"; I have better network and internet speed here than I had in NY with AT&T.

Pathetic.

<comment><USER8> FWIW, if you had a CDMA phone you couldn't have done that

(not an argument for AT&T, but for GSM)

<comment><USER7> I would never get a CDMA phone. iphone or not, AT&T sucks.

<comment><USER9> Clearly someone is getting their alphabet soup backwards...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Better headline: AT&T Network to Become 26% More Reliable. :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Well, more specifically 26% of survey respondents said that. I think the original article is actually a better read:

[http://www.investorplace.com/28029/impact-verizon-apple- ipho...](http://www.investorplace.com/28029/impact-verizon-apple-iphone- wireless-service-providers)

</comment><comment><USER12> AT&T has repeatedly ignored the desires of it's customers. For proof of this I'd cite the MMS debacle. The iPhone lauched in 2007 and iPhone customers couldn't send MMS messages for more than 2 years after. As if people somehow sending pictures of their cat to one another would cause the entire network to melt. Another example of this is tethering. Tethering, like MMS was promised for OS 3 but wasn't available for over a year in the USA because AT&T didn't want it's customers to use it. And when they finally did, the cost was a high one. They did away with the unlimited data plan, and restructured to a tiered plan with an anorexic allotment of 2GB per month. If you still had your unlimited plan, and wanted to use your phone to tether, you'd have to permanently forfeit that plan in favor of the tiered one. And you also have to pay a surcharge for the privilege. And the data you use while on tethering would count against your normal allotment. Almost like AT&T engineered a plan specifically designed to discourage users against using it.

Mabey AT&T is having financial difficulty and can't invest into the network as a result? But according to [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/snaps...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/snapshots/2756.html) they're not hurting for money. So despite making more than $10Billion in profit, they simply can't let iPhone users use their phones the way they were designed to be used.

Secondly, AT&T realizes the network sucks, they just don't care. Case in point the AT&T microcell from Cisco. (See <http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/24/att-3g-microcell/> ) It's a wonderful little device that plugs in to your Ethernet to provide you a perfect reception in your house. People in citys that have bad service, namely San Francisco, and New York would really benifit from this but AT&T in their infinite wisdom has decided that this magical technology must come at a price. And the cost of a cell phone that actually works? About $150. Take a moment and reflect on that. AT&T knows your service sucks, but unless you pay them, you're out of luck. That's not telecommunication, that's extortion.

AT&T has long been able to abuse it's iPhone customers simply because they had a monopoly on the iPhone. That ends next month. So I will be among the first to switch and frankly I think the fact there will be more than one carrier will benefit both. Verizon will be getting a massive amount of new customers, and AT&T will have the bandwidth those customers would use freed up.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was hesitant to switch to AT&T when I bought an iPhone 4, but I have to say I haven't had any problems with them. In Chicago I have had more problems with Comcast than I've had with AT&T. I'll be sticking around.

</comment><comment><USER14> A lot of people don't know this: on Verizon, apps can't connect to internet while on a phone call. I'll wait...

</comment><comment><USER15> They wish. And by they, I mean AT&T and Verizon. AT&T needs users to switch to Verizon so the network can finally get some relief, and for the PR outbreak that will happen when Verizon users finally realize the limitations of CDMA. Verizon needs this to secure the revenue from iPhone users, as well as to prove the resiliency of their network. Consumers are going to win this battle. The carriers will lose.

<comment><USER16> There is no way that AT&T is wishing to lose customers. Some of the AT&T users may wish that others would switch. But AT&T will do anything it can to keep the customers.

<comment><USER15> Unless they're the most difficult, ToS breaking, bandwidth sucking users on the network. I think it was AT&T that showed us the stats on mobile data usage. They stated that only 2% of mobile data users were consuming over 2gb a month. They could make a lot more money for the same bandwidth by losing these customers (and gaining different ones). Just playing devil's advocate here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised people keep taking these Change Wave surveys at face value.

They don't even do random phone interviews but use a self-selected sample of about 15,000 folks who signed up to take their surveys. And they brag that those are early adopters and "professionals" - so not exactly a representative group.

Also, just by default, I never trust a survey about consumers' opinions about future purchase decisions. It's too easy to say you are going to buy something in a survey and then never do it. Given that and the early termination fees and the pure hassle of switching providers, these numbers just seem awfully high.

</comment><comment><USER18> Hopefully that comes to fruition, I may get good service with less congestion. I would consider the move if it didnt mean switching to CDMA. I use data + voice often enough that this is a deal breaker.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well AT&T certainly got off easy... I expected something closer to 60 or 70%

<comment><USER20> .. wait until at&t iphone users see verizon iphones perform next to them. I can see a lot of vzw users telling their at&t friends to switch, so that they can, you know, talk.</comment></comment>


Hermann Hesse on Little Joys - <AUTHOR> https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/03/06/hermann-hesse-little-joys-my-belief/ <comment><USER2> A little too high-horsed for my taste - I don't see why the idea of moderation seems to cycle around every few years as some grand epiphany, as if Aristotle didn't write the same thing 2000 years ago. It comes off as about mild now as it did then.

The last part just smacked of middle-class platitudes. It would certainly be a much nicer world if we all had the time to slow down and smell the flowers, but the fact is that many daily workers don't really have a choice in the matter. Russell (In Praise Of Idleness) thinks this the great crime of 20th century capitalism, since he thought it demonstrated that we could get by on a 4-hour day and give more leisure time to everyone - and I'm inclined to agree. That would be a better message than tut-tutting.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps, but why not spend our time to build a world like this? It's just a matter of choice, there is no reason for work, work,work.</comment></comment>


FB's Plan To Automatically Share Your Data With Sites You Never Signed Up For - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/26/facebooks-plan-to-automatically-share-your-data-with-sites-you-never-signed-up-for/

<comment><USER2> Ok, I understand there's a limitation on the length of titles. But did you really have to resort to making Your into Ur?

<comment><USER3> Agreed. "Ur" could be removed completely and the title would still remain readable.

<comment><USER4> But the meaning would change completely. "Ur" is used here in the German sense, meaning "original" or "source". It also refers to the ancient Sumerian city, Ur. So the headline actually means "FB's Plan To Automatically Share Original Ancient Sumerian Data With Sites You Never Signed Up For".

<comment><USER5> Thanks for explaining that. I misread it at first-- I thought it said FB's Plan To Automatically Share Nur Data..." where Nur is short for Nur Illahi, the divine ray of enlightenment, i.e. they were planning on sharing data on optical drives.

What a terrible misunderstanding that would have been. Cheers to you, good sir.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I dislike it when business agreements are changed unilaterally. (Think of Darth Vader speaking with Lando Calrissian.) Terms of service at a web site with authenticated login is a business agreement. A bit off topic but the only thing I like about FB is that it looks like an interesting application platform for 3rd party developers.

<comment><USER7> While true, the original business agreement often allows them to change unilaterally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Facebook's public-by-default behavior towards privacy is one of the main reasons I've deleted my account. It's stupid and malicious, and they only get away with it because most of their users don't know better.

</comment><comment><USER9> This could be really unfair to startups, depending on how hard it is to become a "partner."

Like, it'd suck to have your more well-financed competition (who happens to be buying lots of ads on Facebook) get the ability to automatically link up your friends as soon as you visit their site.

</comment><comment><USER10> At least it's only general information...

... by which they mean everything until you explicitly say not to share something.</comment>


Ask HN: Rate my idea - <AUTHOR>

I was thinking about a problem my friend and I had. We both LOVE watching videos online, we usually watch shows like The Office via youtube/megavideo etc. Now it's a pain in the ass to set up a voice/video conversation, run the video at the same time(as the friend(s)).<p>My idea: A bookmarklet that allows friends to invite other friends with the mission of connecting them as if they were in the same room. Basically you run the bookmarklet, invite your friends and when you guys are ready you(as the host) just click RUN! and the video starts on all the friends browsers at the same time. <comment><USER2> I think it's a brilliant idea.

The technology is definitely there using flash it self to stream the video down, and flash does support capturing video well so pushing it upstream is also there, but the technical challenge that's making it hard is the latency issue and the bandwidth requirement server side (you need to stream live video down AND up in real time).

Justin.TV solve this to a certain extent, so your idea is extending this allowing every participant to upstream as well as downstream.

As much as Skype/Oovoo tries to make it easy, they still require registration and the need for a native client (which try to make direct connections between users as much as possible for said technical issue).

Make it happen!

</comment><comment><USER3> Just do it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Zaid. I'd really love to, but I doubt anyone except my friend and I would use it...I mean I don't want to pour my time into something that'll be worthless(as in no one will use it).

<comment><USER4> I'd use it, hell I'd help make it!

<comment><AUTHOR> awesome :D :D what's your email? i'd like to have you on the team :D

<comment><USER4> email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> <http://www.tokbox.com> ?</comment>


Basic infrastructure patterns - <AUTHOR> http://www.scriptcrafty.com/basic-infrastructure-patterns/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for the good write-up! I was surprised to find out how many of these practices were actually baked into [https://dockbit.com](https://dockbit.com) design (I am the founder). We've even open-sourced Hacher [https://github.com/Dockbit/hacher](https://github.com/Dockbit/hacher), which we use internally to detect the changes to dependency files and cache them for faster builds. Can't wait to read about deployment patterns you're having ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> dockbit looks pretty interesting. The one thing that is always unclear about services like yours is how well it scales to hundreds of servers and how it integrates with other orchestration mechanisms/tools like fabric, salt, awscli, and other custom services and tools. I'd be interested in knowing more about how you're approaching that aspect since most places re-invent the same things over and over again internally.

The other issue is that what happens when you have downtime? Is my deploy train stopped because of it? How do I design things so that even though I use your service I still have fallback mechanisms?

<comment><USER2> We're not PaaS and not hosting anything, only orchestrating, so scaling is not our biggest concern right now. All the integrations are run in one-off Docker containers, which we're managing in our internal Docker cluster. Up until now we've been adding integrations ourselves, but the plan is to open-source our integration framework and let anyone add support for their tools. It's going to be quite easy, we will most probably require only Dockerfile and a metadata file for us to build the pipeline UI.

Answering your downtime question, sure we will provide plans with SLAs and multi-AZs, but basically it's a similar situation when repository hosting provider, DNS, container registry, or another infrastructure service is unavailable. That being said, we'll definitely think of a way to provide a fallback mechanism. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > just as long as it's not grunt, gulp

Well that sucks. What if all I know is PHP and Javascript? To manage a pipeline I'm slowly learning out of necessity bash -- sort of a need to know basis. What do people recommend for this? I'm considering to explore Python as a third language over Ruby.

<comment><USER4> You can use whatever you want to build--the author of the post didn't offer any reasons not to use grunt/gulp/broccoli; they just said they don't recommend it. If those tools are currently doing what you want, then it's a waste of your time to switch to another system.

That said, if you really want to switch and you're using npm (since you mentioned JavaScript), you can set up a dead simple build system just with bash/npm/JavaScript: [http://blog.keithcirkel.co.uk/how-to-use-npm-as-a-build- tool...](http://blog.keithcirkel.co.uk/how-to-use-npm-as-a-build-tool/)</comment></comment>


Top products (non-tech) you use everyday and wouldn't compromise on quality? - <AUTHOR> Curious to see what you come up with. Your input can help us improve the shoes we are making.
Mine are:
Shoes Jeans Underwear Notebook Sweatshirt Backpack <comment><USER2> Pillow. I spend 1/3 of my life on one.</comment>


Why did the A-level algorithm say no? - dynamite-ready https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53787203 <comment><USER2> Two things worth noting that the article doesn't go into...

1) _" The year-on-year rise in proportion of students achieving A or A+ grades was much higher at independent schools than state comprehensives"_

[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/13/england-a-...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/13/england- a-level-downgrades-hit-pupils-from-disadvantaged-areas-hardest)

Essentially, students lucky enough to be in private education were more likely to see their grades go up / stay the same, compared to students receiving free education seeing grades going down.

Has been explained away as a byproduct of a sensible algorithm, but considering the government's track record and private school backgrounds (85% of the UK's Prime Ministers have been educated at Eton, arguably the country's most exclusive private school) it's hard not to be sceptical that this wasn't intentional and class-motivated.

2) _" Appears that Ofqual's algorithm caused today's A-level chaos. Ofqual chair Roger Taylor, also chairs the Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation (CDEI). Cummings' fave AI consultants - Faculty, have some juicy contracts with CDEI. And Faculty's COO Richard Sargeant is on CDEI board"_

[https://twitter.com/milesking10/status/1293886007771893762?s...](https://twitter.com/milesking10/status/1293886007771893762?s=21)

(Ofqual is the department that oversees exams and responsible for this situation, they report to Gavin Williams the government's Education Secretary. Cummings is a controversial special adverse to the Prime Minister, and Faculty is a firm he used when he was leading one of the two primary pro-Brexit campaigns before the referendum. Subjective statement: Cummings is a vile, evil man.)

<comment><USER3> > it's hard not to be sceptical that this wasn't intentional and class- > motivated.

It's incredibly easy "not to be sceptical".

The teacher's predicted grades are, on average, _unprecedented_. And represent many times greater than any previous yoy increase. This is far less true at top-performing schools where teachers are predicting far more consistent grades (by the very nature of being a top performing school).

Teachers shouldn't have been asked to predict grades. That's the heart of the problem. Not some harebrained in-public conspiracy.

This whole thing is dumb. And the media are deliberately failing to explain basic facts about the education system to provoke this kind of nonesense outrage.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree that the system put in place is poor and that it causing an accidental bias is very feasible.

But if you're going to put this system in place, with months of planning, you should make damn sure that it isn't massively favouring the children who are already advantaged in life. Which it statistically is, whether intentional or not.

They screwed it up so spectacularly that the education secretary had to make concessions to it two days before the results, then a day after the results Ofqual made a statement about who could appeal that contradicted the education secretary, before withdrawing that statement a few hours later saying they were still deciding.

So sure it could be entirely down to incompetence not malice. But given either is possible, and this government's track record of cronyism I don't see why it's unreasonable to be sceptical.

<comment><USER3> It doesnt "favour" any children.

Those children were already going to get the highest results.

There is no incompetence here. The predicted grades are a good estimate of what the results would have been.

The issue is that all teachers significantly over-predicted their students grades, but less so at high-performing schools. (Why? because the grades are more consistent at those schools, so there's less room for error).

<comment><USER2> Independant schools (private schools) received 4.7% more A/A* grades than they did in 2019. The most common type of non-private school, Secondary Comprehensive, received only 2% more A/A* grades than in 2019.

The algorithm didn't keep the gap between paid and unpaid education, it expanded it.

(Source for these numbers and more in my first comment.)

I was lucky enough to not only go to two private schools, but the second one was ranked #1 in England for exam ranks 2 of the 3 years I was there (and helped me get good grades despite being extremely unmotivated and lazy). But at least my privilege was to be given a good education that made learning / passing exams (the latter more) easy, not that the government decided my school deserved an artificial grades boost compared to state schools.

<comment><USER3> Right, and what was the previous yoy disparity?

If the previous YoY was also 5%/2%, then it is just repeating the trend.

It isnt the job of statisticians to "fix" social inequality by BSing some grades. Its their job to estimate likely exam results based on previous performance.

There's absolutely no grounds on which to assume that growth in A*/A across these demographics would be the same; and of course, very many reasons to presume they'd be different.

<comment><USER4> You're making very strong statements over a huge assumption that you have no data to back up. This is not like previous years. The students sat no exam, they were ranked within their school, and then assigned grades based on the previous performance of their school. It is reverse affirmative action.

<comment><USER5> What are the strong statements you think he's making?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's no good answer here, the unfairness is an inevitable side effect of lockdown, along with people dying due to stopped cancer treatments and a host of other issues.

Using teacher's predicted grades is stupid: teachers use predictions in whatever way they think will best motivate their students. If the student is lazy, they'll under-predict to shock them into revising more. If the student is not very confident, they'll over-predict to encourage them.

Unless the students are actually allowed to take an exam, all methods are unfair. Using mock results is at least tangentially related to the students' abilities.

<comment><USER7> You are under the mistaken assumption that somehow exams are more fair or get a better view of what students can do. It's well established that exams measure a few limited congnitive constructs and its not the smartest or most hard working students that perform best, but rather those who are prepared by teachers for those exact constructs and the precise way of answering them. A brilliant student at a public school might study hard and still not get as good results as a mediocre and lazy student at a private school which tells them and drills them on the exam topics (often having their teachers in the exam boards and anyway paying more so that those teachers that care and know how yo play the game ate likely to be recruited there).

It's absurd to think a central exam gives a more accurate picture of... What? Aptitude? Effort? ...? Than the teachers can have from working with students often for several years, seeing their work ethics, involvement in class, personal situations, etc.

In short: the system was broken and biased to begin with (at least in England, Scotland is doing much better). Now this bias and favour of 'better' schools is explicitly enforced through this weighting algorithm.

<comment><USER8> Exams, being far, far from perfect /ARE/ more fair. Why? because it is the same exam for everyone. The person marking the exam has no information about the person who wrote the paper, not their name, not what they look like, not how rich they are, not how pretty they are, not what school they attend.

Whether or not you can achieve better outcomes or get a better indication of capability with other means, that total anonymity and an absolutely common hurdle is a kind of fair that is tough to match in assessment. It shouldn't be under-vauled. We should be sure that any alternative really is better.

Let's not pretend that teachers' aren't subject to unconscious bias. I've also met a few who were just horrible human beings who had no business being in teaching.

<comment><USER9> Not what school they attend: Except they dont mark their own schools and i think they keep the schools papers together in bundles. Plus markers have been to open days and continuous development days with the other teachers. plus they are having meetings daily to discuss how to mark classes of answers (where teaching methods used come up). i think the net of this is that they often do know what school they are marking (especially for the outliers - <AUTHOR> and worst schools). For some subjects e.g. computer science then the pupils will answer in the langiages they were taught, so if its a python answer you know its one of the schools that teaches python)

There is kind of just a problem overall with comparing private schools to state schools. At the very least this process may have worked better if they had two data sets, one for private one for atate schools.

Beyond that though a stastical solution was never going to work, you cannot generate accurate discrete/quantized data, only representative random data.

private schools imho teach you to pass the exam, they are more cut throat about focussing on this than state schools. and the teachers seem to fight harder for their kids - the difference in personal statements from private school teachers compared to state schools on uni applications would be an interesting study.

I am not saying i have answers, just intereted in thw discussion. Overall i am always left with a few basic ideas to keep things fair (though i sometimes think some of these may be dumb and i am not suggesting do all of them):

-Zero charitable status or governemnt support for private education.

-cap the number of students a uni can take from one school (e.g. dont take the top 100 students, take the top 1 from 100 schools)

-ban people who were not state educated from governemnt positions. This is contravertial but imho you effectively live a different life when you go to privare schools (class sizes, support and oppourtunity are in comparable)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "In Scotland the accusations of unfairness prompted a switch to using teachers' predicted grades. These predictions were collected in England too - but were discounted as being the deciding factor, because they were so generous that it would have meant a huge increase in top grades, up to 38%. There were also doubts about the consistency and fairness of predictions and whether the cautious and realistic could have lost out to the ambitiously optimistic."

As always, the question when using an algorithm or test is, 'compared to what?'

</comment><comment><USER11> This was so foreseeable when they anounced the plans.

One possible solution could have been if they do the same statistical estimation game and then offer a choice to each student: you can take your estimated grades or go for an exam. If you take the exam you get what you het there. It might go lower or higher than the estimate. This would have incentivised that only those who are certain of themselves and their estimated grades are insuficient towards their goals will go for the tests. And since these are outliers already there will be a lot less of them than the general population, thus it is easier to organise socially distanced exams for them.

Of course nothing is easy at scale and many details need to be ironed out but thats what we keep the Miniszry of Education for.

<comment><USER12> The whole point is that it hasn't been possible to sit exams.

<comment><USER13> Why not? Is it truly so impossible to spread students out a little more? Maybe don't do oral exams, but anything written shouldn't be an issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been listening to talk radio here in the UK, and it's a constant stream of disappointed kids/teachers/parents phoning in. Some of the stories are horrendous, people expecting AAA getting CCD and similar. It seems unlikely that you'd ever have three teachers predicting you to get top marks, but you end up with that on results day.

But about the algorithm, it seems to be an impossible task. You cannot satisfy the requirement of the gross statistics being roughly the same, ie little grade inflation on average, while also identifying talented individuals.

The outline of the algorithm seems to be that you basically take the gross stats for earlier years from a school, and then you take the teacher's guesses about who will do well, and make up a distribution of grades around that. This is probably what most people would do if forced into such an exercise. And you can add wrinkles to it like a bit of grade inflation, adjustment for overconfident predictions, and so on.

But you can't get that piece of information that you really need, which is a mix of signal and noise about the true distribution of the kid's abilities. If you have a talented year in a low performing school, you'll never know. And vice versa.

The year before I finished the IB, two kids got the top 45/45\. That's normally achieved by something like 1/400 kids worldwide, and it was a class of maybe 30 kids. That would never have been awarded without examinations.

In addition the other presumed goal, of having the grades as close to the predictions as possible, give the algo designer an incentive well known from machine learning: guess safely. Squish the distribution on the edges, that way you're not off much. This is bad for people who shoud be getting As, because many will get Bs. And it's good on the other end, though I don't know where the lump ends (C or D?).

</comment><comment><USER15> Couldn't the UK just have a regular exam, just with the social distancing measures implemented? The exams were held in many European countries with these measures and nothing bad happened and the children has received a fair examination for the University

<comment><USER16> Presumably it'd be very difficult to set such an exam because pupils will have missed so much of the normal curriculum.

<comment><USER17> Why? High schoolers can read books and video chat.

<comment><USER18> Children from poor backgrounds can't video chat because they don't have access to computers. So that's nonsense.

<comment><USER19> So instead their grades got nuked for a lifetime. Hurrah!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> An obvious point not discussed is that the exams system was already biased to begin with. Previous years were already unfair as great kids at bad schools have much fewer chances than less great kids for which the parents can pay a great school. England especially is awful at achieving a fair system (that gives everyone a fair chance at good grades) because schools are so stratified - by design of funding rules, etc.

<comment><USER20> You're stating the obvious, a very well-known obvious. Perhaps you can suggest any system that is not intrinsically unfair (I'd be interested as I went both to schools in sink areas, and an expensive private school). (this was in the UK BTW)

> ...is awful at achieving a fair system [...] because schools are so > stratified - by design of funding rules etc.

I'd say it was more down to the culture of parents in the poor areas mostly not giving a shit about their kid's education (and the roots of that aren't that the parents are intrinsically bad, it's a mindset of apathy inherited from their parents and the daily pressures that come with permanently worrying about money).

<comment><USER21> I'm not surprised that you're downvoted and may be into oblivion. But you actually make a very valid point.

That said I also believe that the current UK government is far beyond any benefit of a doubt in terms of competence and maliciousnes.

<comment><USER20> I'd prefer constructive comebacks from people rather than downvotes. I can't learn from downvotes.

But OMG the competence of the UK govt. It's like they literally can't do... anything without screwing it up. It is bizarre. Then they try to paper over it with words.

<comment><USER21> I think it's mostly due to this statement:

"I'd say it was more down to the culture of parents in the poor areas mostly not giving a shit about their kid's education"

Which sounds nasty, but rings true for a big part of England. It's also an uncomfortable truth, which basically always leads to downvotes.

Once a year (safe for this year, obviously) I'm in Blackpool at the Rebellion Punk Festival[1]. What you see in Blackpool and how people live there is very, very different from the impression you get when just visiting London.

People wouldn't believe how poor and destitute some areas in the UK are and the priority of a lot of people in such areas is not really education. Young women want as many kids as possible, since government benefits beat the shitty work prospects they have in such areas and the future for young people in general in those places are so bleak that it often leads to an understandable "why bother?" attitude.

And yes, this attitude is inherited, or actually worse. When there is a rare young person trying to be an achiever you can almost be sure he's mocked and bullied by his peers.

[1] [http://www.rebellionfestivals.com/](http://www.rebellionfestivals.com/)

<comment><USER20> That is a most excellent response, and I agree with everything you say, including how and why that bit comes across nastily. Ta for that, I really must learn to be less of a tosser.

> rare young person trying to be an achiever you can almost be sure he's > mocked and bullied by his peers

Yes. Someone on the web (maybe here, maybe slashdot) said that when someone tries, they're seen as trying to get above their station. Consequences follow.

I spent a couple of years on a sink estate in the UK as a kid. I know what it does to people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Are we to believe that teacher's predictions are less fraught with bias and inequity?

([https://www.bbc.com/news/education-53776938](https://www.bbc.com/news/education-53776938))

</comment><comment><USER23> Do teachers recommend a grade, or a score? If they only recommend grades, how did the algorithm pick which students to change the grades for?

<comment><USER24> The algorithm took the teachers' recommended grades and used them only to rank the students at that school. The actual grades were calculated based on past years' performance for each school. So if you were the top performer at a low- ranking school, your grade would be in line with top performers at that school in previous years.

<comment><USER25> No, teachers submitted both predicted grades, and in large cohort classes (such as English and Maths), a rank ordering of the entire cohort.

<comment><USER26> They had to submit ranking even if the class size was very small.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can someone explain to me the significance of A-level grades? If I understand Wikipedia correctly, students apply to universities using predicted grades anyways, and receive offers that are conditioned on the final grades. How about just make all offers unconditional? And if you are not going to universities, do anyone actually care about your A-level grades?

<comment><USER2> At least a couple of places, including one of Oxford Uni's colleges, have agreed to take anyone who was offered a conditional place, and there has been a hashtag trending on Twitter of #HonourTheOffer

I expect many more to follow, so it's possible that the universities will clear up an awful lot of that mess - but while some academics are saying yes great bring them all in, others are strongly against the idea of expanding to let more people in this year.

As to whether they're significant apart from for UCAS applications (university) - I'm not too sure. Personally I wouldn't care much about them on a CV of someone I was thinking of hiring in the best of years yet alone if I knew their results came from 2020.

But with unemployment rising fast, and much worse soon once government gradually removes support offered over the summer to keep people furloughed (companies paid to have their staff not working but kept officially on the payroll until they could get back to work), we've already heard stories in some places or a shop or a pub advertising a job offer and getting 1000+ applications... and in a terrible job market, school exam grades could likely be a decider for who gets called to interview for many working class jobs. (They already are even outside a terrible job market, that just amplifies it.)

edit: Oh, and while I don't know what proportion of people doing A Levels don't want to go to university (or want to go, but fail) - we're also a few days away from this same situation happening with the GCSE exams, which pretty much everyone legally has to do around age 16.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "There have been two key pieces of information used to produce estimated grades: how students have been ranked in ability and how well their school or college has performed in exams in recent years."

"there was no direct connection between an individual's prior achievement and their predicted grade."

Who wrote this algorithm and can we see it?

</comment><comment><USER29> [https://www.ucas.com/file/292726/download?token=wswAnzge](https://www.ucas.com/file/292726/download?token=wswAnzge)

"In 2019, 21% (31,220) of accepted 18 year old applicants met or exceeded their predicted grades, a decrease of 3 percentage points. In addition, 43.2% of accepted applicants had a difference of three or more A level grades – an increase of 5 percentage points (7,190 applicants more) since 2018."

Teacher predicted grades are almost useless.

Now Scotland has caved to political pressure and wants to inflate grades

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland- politics-537...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland- politics-53723734)

"However, these grades, taken overall, would represent a significant improvement on previous years - including a jump of 20 percentage points in the pass rate for pupils from the most deprived areas."

"If the results had purely been based on the estimates from teachers, pass rates at grades A-C would have increased by 10.4 percentage points for National 5, by 14 percentage points for Higher and by 13.4 percentage points for Advanced Higher.

These estimated results would have led to a higher annual change than had ever been seen before in Scottish exam results if they had not been moderated by the SQA."

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- scotland-53636296](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53636296)

A really difficult situation when what you have to work from is already inaccurate.

</comment><comment><USER30> You can curve the scores on a meaningless exam and give the impression that some have learned and some have not, or I guess, you can skip the exam entirely and go to the end product.

Pirsig would have something to say here.

</comment><comment><USER31> While these events are terrible, I am pleased that the decisions made by Ofqual are open to judicial review—and that the Good Law Project are considering issuing a claim to force Ofqual to fix this mess.

</comment><comment><USER32> [deleted]

<comment><USER33> The A level is a two year course with assessment at the end. There are no previously examined grades, only estimated and mock ones. [https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/science/as-and-a- level/chemi...](https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/science/as-and-a- level/chemistry-7404-7405/scheme-of-assessment)

(Modular and coursework based A levels were popular under labour but reverted by the Tories)

<comment><USER34> Wow, I didn't realise it changed.

What a horrible situation where a whole year group are reliant on their teachers' opinion of them and the success of other kids at the same school the previous year. Neither of which these children have any direct control over.

<comment><USER35> Eh, well, if they're the right sort of people, they'll catch it on the bounce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Well, there were no exams proper. The algorithm gives a mark for the A-levels.

</comment><comment><USER37> So is "controversial" the same as unfair or bad? Journalists often use "controversial" to discredit something that is not in accordance to their ideology. Controversial politicians (which politician isn't controversial?), controversial university professors, controversial speeches, controversial thoughts...

<comment><USER24> It's controversial in the sense that a bunch of people are protesting about it. Whether it's actually unfair or bad is unknown.

Fairness is a complicated thing. A lot of it is based on feeling and relative status, rather than some objective measure of well-being. One person might find it deeply unfair that another person has a lot of money, relatively speaking. But take that money away and redistribute it equally between the two and now the latter person may find the situation unfair.

<comment><USER38> It's very clearly unfair, I'm not sure what your example has to do with anything.

No students performance should be a sum based on how previous students have done at their school. That's literally reinforcing the postcode divide in education quality that were supposed to turn a blind eye to.

My home town school has historically refused to even put children in for exams if they didn't get at least a C grade in their mocks because they valued league table position so highly (helps with investment and alumni donations etc). That cynical and should-be-illegal approach clearly benefits their students in this situation more than schools in the area that do right by their children.

And more than any of that, this is the real world effects of the bullshit algorithm peddlers have been pushing for the last few years. Algorithms can solve any real world problem given the data. Well they can't. They can give the proposition of an answer to the problem, but at costs to some that are too high to bear.

<comment><USER39> My high school had one person 3 years prior to my senior year get into an Ivy, and then before that it was no one in recent memory. In my senior class, 6 of us got into Ivies. I can only imagine what my life would be like if we only got the "fair" allotment of zero Ivy spots in a system like this.

<comment><USER40> Similar happened to me (UK) - my school went from performing under the national average for the preceding three years to being notably above for my year group, and no one could remember anyone going to Oxbridge, but there were two of us in that year (the school barely even knew about the extra exams we had to take - required for one, optional for the other - so the prep. was more or less entirely self-taught).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A big pile of 'meh'. They are trying to make a statistical guess based on priors because the pandemic prevented the exams from being written. They are going to get things wrong. If they have an appeals process for things that are completely out line (e.g. a passing student getting a failing grade), then that's the best you can hope for given the circumstances.

In the big picture, the good students are going to get good markers, average students are going to get average markets, and bad students will get bad markets. Again, it is what it is.

<comment><USER42> The problem is that the prior appears to be placed over the school, rather than the individual -- ie if your school had a low proportion of high achievers in previous years, students are finding their grades marked down, almost regardless of their performance. This results in particularly high grade disparity between independent and state schools. So it is not so much the case that good students get good marks, bad students get bad marks, but rather good schools get good marks, "bad" schools get bad marks.

<comment><USER41> Because mark inflation is a thing, and schools are different. There are schools that will give out A+ and others a B, for the same academic performance. School reputations don't change from year to year. So a school that inflates marks one year, will more than likely inflate them the next year. Are you suggesting that this should not be taken into consideration? That you should simply trust the relative weight of grade (relative to all the other schools) at face-value?

>"bad" schools get bad marks.

Why the quotes? There are schools that are at the bottom of academic rankings. That's a fact of reality.

>students are finding their grades marked down, almost regardless of their performance.

What numbers are we talking about here? No matter what algorithm or heuristic they chose, some unfairness was going to happen and my argument is that these cases are overstated. I'm sure they exist because we're talking about hundreds of thousands of students all in different circumstances. Having said that, in cases of egregious outcome, an appeals process would make sense. Also I'm sure many universities will take the pandemic into consideration and the fact that this was a best attempt at replicating standardizing test result without a test actually being taken.

<comment><USER33> Per other thread, A levels are marked outside the school by the qualifications body.

<comment><USER41> Right. A levels were not written so a statistical model was created to approximate A level results based on prior performance of applicants correlated with their school and course marks. Yeah, I get all that. It changes nothing about my argument.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Server daemon, web service or other? - <AUTHOR>

I'm building an app that requires an adapter/bridge that resides on a server and interfaces with the database. The adapter allows limited database access to third-party servers. I'm trying to determine the best method to implement this adapter.
I could build a traditional daemon process using C. I'd prefer to avoid this, since working with databases in C isn't my favorite activity. I'm also decidedly mediocre with C and haven't done anything serious with it in ages.
I could build a daemon using a scripting language like Python. I'd feel more comfortable doing this, but I've never daemonized a script before. The code would also have to include network code to be accessible by third-party servers. Is this a good or bad idea? Or nothing unusual?
Lastly, I could build equivalent scripts, but serve them through a web-server. The advantage is that I can defer networking to Apache/nginx/whatever. The downside is that the implementation becomes reliant on an existing web-server, and can't be installed on a system that doesn't have one running.
Thoughts? Am I just over-thinking this? <comment><USER2> I built software like this not once, but several times. Server for verifone pos, RPC servers to allow any client to execute natural (it's a programming language) subprograms.

First rule: Do never bother writing your own socket server, there are so many reasons to not build your own server, but just consider that they already exist and are better than what you could build.

That said, it's all about the type of service: For verifone machines server I use a custom protocol which I regret I had to construct every single day. I had to build it because it was a long time ago and connections speeds were too slow for https.

SOAP is a reasonable option if you have text+binary data. Also if clients already use SOAP. I dislike XML deeply, but if you have have complex objects you can combine your web service with XSD schemas and make it great.

Now, the best option: just use dead simple HTTP transporting JSON, it may be REST or not. But anyways, this is the best option you have. It's reliable, tested and fast. I don't know python, but there must be something lighter than django around. Use that with nginx or apache as http server.

Java is pretty cool to build this kind of software. Check out Apache Mina, you can create a rock solid, production ready server in minutes if you decide to roll your own protocol.

<comment><USER2> Oh, one more thing, if you are doing this to avoid client licensing on databases, you shouldn't. Most of them have specific licenses for connection pooling.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, thanks for the advice! HTTP + JSON is exactly what I would love to do. I was just unsure if it was kosher to do (embedding a lightweight web-server and running a daemon on top of it)

This isn't for sharing databases...I just need the info that is in a client's database to perform the required action. Technically, it could be performed all on their end, but I'd prefer this to be a SaaS for a variety of reasons.

<comment><USER3> This discussion is all about the agent that sits on the clients premises, correct? First define your server side RESTy JSON API. Then write poll based client agent, extract data, transform, PUT to API. Don't bother with embedded http server or rpc etc. Add a --daemonize option (it's _really_ not too complicated) for customers who don't like crontab. And finally customers who don't want to run your agent can write their own against your published API. Maybe they don't want out bound http directly from their db. They could implement different transport and have a shim to your API service.

PS: keep batching in mind when doing API. It'll behoove you and the customer when you get to real RPS.

edit: wait, you want the agent to receive requests for data? From what other clients?

<comment><AUTHOR> > This discussion is all about the agent that sits on the clients premises, > correct?

Correct.

> wait, you want the agent to receive requests for data? From what other > clients?

I originally had this in mind, but while working through the problem it is both unnecessarily and a potential friction point (firewall issues with outside clients starting connections, etc). I'll just make the client poll the server at intervals for whatever functions need doing.

> First define your server side RESTy JSON API. Then write poll based client > agent, extract data, transform, PUT to API. Don't bother with embedded http > server or rpc etc. Add a --daemonize option (it's _really_ not too > complicated) for customers who don't like crontab. And finally customers who > don't want to run your agent can write their own against your published API. > Maybe they don't want out bound http directly from their db. They could > implement different transport and have a shim to your API service.

Excellent, this sounds simple and robust. I realized last night that if the client initiates all the connections, all it needs to do is create HTTP connections to URLs. Nothing fancy. Should even be pretty easy to BasicAuth over SSL too, which will be important for security.

I know Python has a few libraries for daemonizing scripts, I'll investigate those after the basic crontab functionality is complete.

Thanks again everyone. Glad to see that I was over-thinking things. Simple is good =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4>
                                           +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>+
                                           |                  |
                                +</comment><comment>---+|    Job Queue     +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+
                                |          |                  |              |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment>---+    +----+-----+    +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>+    +</comment><comment>---+</comment><comment>--+
      |               |    |          |                            |                  |
      |  Client App   +---+| Web App  |                            |  Worker Daemons  |
      |               |    |          |                            |                  |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment>---+    +-----+----+    +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>+    +</comment><comment>---+</comment><comment>--+
                                 |         |                  |              |
                                 +</comment><comment>---+     Database     |+</comment><comment></comment><comment>-+
                                           |                  |
                                           +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>+

This is a really easy way to create really reliable and flexible systems. Highly recommend you go this route, rather than trying to recreate a webserver or database.

<comment><AUTHOR> So I was probably too vague in my original description. This is supposed to be a server-to-server application. Similar to how New Relic's integration monitors your server and reports home to their servers. So something like this:

      +</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--+    +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+                          +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+
      |              |    |              |                          |              |
      |   Database   +----+  Client App  +</comment><comment>--+           +-----+  Job Queue   +---+
      |              |    |              |        |           |     |              |   |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+    +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+        |           |     +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+   |
                                                  |           |                        |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+    +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+        |           |                        |
      |              |    |              |        |    +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+         +</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>+
      |              |    |              |        |    |              |        |              |
      |   Database   +----+  Client App  +</comment><comment>--+----+   Web App    |        |Worker Daemons|
      |              |    |              |        |    |              |        |              |
      |              |    |              |        |    +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+        +</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>+
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+    +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+        |                                    |
                                                  |           |                        |
                                                  |           |                        |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+    +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+        |           |     +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+   |
      |              |    |              |        |           |     |              |   |
      |  Database    +----+  Client App  +</comment><comment>--+           +-----+--Database    +---+
      |              |    |              |                          |              |
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+    +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+                          +</comment><comment></comment><comment>--+

The "adapter" will sit on "Client App" and interface with their database, reporting back to "Web App". I need something that is compact and relatively portable, so that it can be installed on client servers with minimal hassle. It will be provided limited access to various attributes of the client's database.

Edit: Damnit. How'd you get your ascii formatting to stick? Edit2:Got it!

Try this: <http://www.asciiflow.com/#3338844714040119796>

<comment><USER4> Well, I'd still treat it like any other "Client App". It does make more sense for it to be a long-lived daemon though.

If it's the kind of thing where you can run it once in a while:

      $ bin/myagent --daemon
      .. while 1
      .... exec bin/myagent --report
      .... sleep 300

      $ bin/myagent --report
      .. hit the Database
      .. send to Web App
      .. exit

Or maybe you want to be able to send requests _to_ the daemon from outside? The issue there would be firewall rules generally.

Personally, I highly recommend you avoid creating a smart daemon and recommend the approach above if it will work at all. Embedding a web server (or similar) tends to create all kinds of issues, including performance, firewll, memory issues, logging, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> I originally wanted bi-directional communication, since it would simplify command processing. But you're right, that's just asking for all kinds of problems.

It'll be easier to have the client poll the server to find out updates or new commands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is the purpose of the agent that sits on the server with the database? Is it to gather metrics?

One possible architecture:

\- Agent is a process that sits on the database server written in Python.

\- Code a VERY lightweight, highly stable plugin written in the native code of the database. The sole purpose is to connect with the local agent and give it data.

Agent connects to the central server to dump data and do reports. The agent can poll every 60 seconds for new management commands or new settings.

<comment><AUTHOR> The agent that sits on the database server is responsible for two things:

\- Query the database to identify when various trigger conditions are met

\- When a trigger condition is met, extract another piece of data from the database and send to the "Web App" server for processing

Theoretically, the entire agent is unescessary...I could use remote DB access credentials to perform the same task. I assumed most companies don't like giving out remote-access credentials though, and decided a local agent that reports home is a better option.

So a plugin to the database is unnecessary since a local DB connection would be sufficient, but I think the rest of what you said is exactly what I'll end up doing.</comment></comment>


Jury Finds Salt Lake Comic Con Violated San Diego Comic Con's Trademark - <AUTHOR> https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900005378/jury-finds-salt-lake-comic-con-violated-trademark.html <comment><AUTHOR> This surprised me. I thought the term "Comic-Con" was sufficiently genericized that the trademark would be unenforceable. While I'm familiar with comic con, I certainly wouldn't have been able to tell you that the only "officially licensed" event was in San Diego.</comment>


Master Emacs in one year - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/redguardtoo/mastering-emacs-in-one-year-guide/blob/master/guide-en.org <comment><USER2> Are people honestly faster with emacs? I can see learning it for understanding purposes.

<comment><USER3> I'd guess if you spent a year learning a tool, you'd be faster on that tool than anything else.

<comment><USER4> That wasn't my experience, actually. I've been a die-hard vi user now for a few decades, and one year I decided it was time to branch out, so I dedicated myself to using emacs for all of my text editing for a year. I'll tell you, that ended up being a painful year - I was so relieved when I returned to vi. I thought that, eventually, I'd get used to it, but emacs always felt like a round peg in a square hole to me.

<comment><USER5> It really depends what you're using it for, and what you're comparing it to.

For example, when I'm writing Java, I use Intellij -- but sometimes copy an argument list into Emacs to do quicker macro-driven editing.

For basic text editing (emails with no formatting, simple config edits, etc), I think the difference between Emacs and vim is a matter of taste.

But once you want to do complex things, Emacs becomes possibly the only option. It can be made into the best Git tool I've seen (Magit), a great outlining/scheduling/TODO tool (Org mode), multiple great Lisp interfaces (CIDER for Clojure, SLIME for Common Lisp), and even just running a shell inside Emacs makes for really nice integration for writing shell scripts.

I certainly won't argue that it's the perfect tool for everything, but it's a great malleable general-purpose tool.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Analyst: YouTube Will Lose Almost $500 Million This Year - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/04/03/given-youtube-losses-should-google-buy-twitter/ <comment><USER2> I haven't seen the original document from Credit Suisse but from how it was quoted in Newteevee it seems that there is a strong emphasis on the heavy bandwidth costs. First of all the ~30Tbps value is ridiculously large.

Even then the report just assumes Google pays $1/mbit, which is the cost of cheap transit. However, Google only uses transit for certain indexing routes. Google peers very heavily at pretty much every major internet exchange. It's reasonable to assume they're using 10GigE and GiGE ports for public and private peering. (This is direct, usually payment free interconnection between ISPs; though there are services like PacketExchange which are a sort of hybrid between peering and transit). So on a per megabit basis they're probably paying 5-10 cents or so per megabit, maybe less though Google does have the cost of maintaining its backbone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Analyst: Just pulling shit out of his ass</comment>


Show HN: Ecosystem explorer – compare OSS across frameworks and technologies - <AUTHOR> https://ecosystem-explorer.github.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Based on the github api and github topics, look up and compare popular repos for any framework or technology.

Original motivation: As a react developer I find it quite inspiring to look from time to time what is going on the angular or vue world.

Comparisons/explorations can also be shared like so: [https://ecosystem- explorer.github.io/?topics=react,vue,angul...](https://ecosystem- explorer.github.io/?topics=react,vue,angular,jquery)</comment>


What Corporate Projects Should Learn from Open Source - <AUTHOR> http://www.onlamp.com/lpt/a/6486

<comment><USER2> From the article: The fastest way through the project is to do it right

Too often, managers want to deploy inappropriate technology, colleagues want to build their CV, you have to integrate with a badly designed cashcow or you have an urgent deadline. Remove these constraints and it makes open source deployment joyful.</comment>


Chipotle Taps Taco Bell CEO to Be Its New Head - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/chipotle-taps-taco-bell-ceo-as-new-leader-in-major-culture-shift <comment><USER2> The article doesn't mention that Taco Bell's kitchen systems are designed to eliminate many weak links in fast food preparation and handling. It doesn't prevent the line worker from sneezing influenza on the burrito, but that's also not how you get e.coli outbreaks.

If CMG is looking to get past their previous history of systemic food safety issues, this was probably a good choice.

<comment><USER3> The article also doesn't mention that Chipotle's first big period of expansion was while it was owned by McDonalds. I have to imagine that McDonalds had an expertise in this area that at least matched Taco Bell if not greatly exceeded them.

<comment><USER2> McDonald's did indeed help Chipotle get their logistical systems in order. CMG and MCD still share some common suppliers.

One area where Chipotle resisted McD's advice was in automating their kitchen systems. One example was the steak. CMG believed hand-marinating and grilling their steaks in-store was a core feature that couldn't be changed. It's also a highly risky procedure when it comes to food safety and cross-contamination.

Other things, like the carnitas and barbacoa, were changed to be prepared offsite and shipped to the stores for sous-vide rethermalizing and serving. The steak was also changed to this method after the outbreaks (and long after MCD divested).

<comment><USER4> 2019 = Order via speech recognition

2020 = Automated kitchen systems prepare ingredients

2021 = Burrito preparation via robotics

2021 = End-to-end order fulfillment without human involvement

Just a matter of time before raw ingredients are lab grown and harvested by robots. Not too long ago, this was pure fantasy. Only now is it starting to look inevitable, for better or for worse.

<comment><USER5> I guess what I don't understand is why we don't have more human-free systems for food payment. All of 15 years ago, I went in a company cafeteria in Tsukuba, paid a vending machine, and took the ticket to the cook. If I had been able to speak any Japanese back then, I probably could have customized my order there. But here in the US we're still hiring fast food workers to take standardized orders.

<comment><USER6> They're starting to appear. McDonalds has now introduced it in multiple European countries, plus isolated restaurants here and there (e.g. Burgerlich in Hamburg, which has touchscreens embedded in the tables: [https://goo.gl/oJAh9v](https://goo.gl/oJAh9v))

<comment><USER7> Almost every McDonald's I've been to in Europe and Canada has a set of Kiosks where you can order what you want (in English) and pay. You then take a number from the kiosk and sit down and somebody brings your food out to you or screens display your pickup number when it's time. Most ones in the U.S. have stubbornly held on to the less efficient queue at the counter and talk to a bored human system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Like with Starbucks, it was the individual employees, their kindness, and their appreciation for the product that made Chipotle special for me during their non-mediocre years. I liked Starbucks the most in about 2006 and Chipotle the most at around 2010. It's too bad they're mediocre now. They still both feel magical occasionally, though. I'm not sure whether they compromised the product or the culture first.

<comment><USER9> The culture may have largely declined by their pay not rising as the pay in fast food did. At least in my area, McDonald's and Wendy's pay as much if not more than Chipotle for an entry level position.

Edit: I get that this was probably more about the corporate culture as a whole, but working conditions and pay at the store level is equally as important in terms of customer experience in my opinion. 5 years ago when I went to a Chipotle, the workers there seemed happy. Now when I go, they clearly aren't.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely. Whenever we go to fast food and it inevitably sucks, I always quip, "they aren't paid enough to give a shit, and I don't blame them."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Slightly off-topic maybe, but I went to Taco Bell for the first time two weeks ago while visiting the beautiful USA. And my god what a terrible food do they make. Why would you go there more then once?

<comment><USER12> Same question. I've heard so much about Taco Bell from pop culture/internet that I just had to try it. Went to check it out during one of my trips to the US and oh boy.. I was in for a culture shock.

I had some kind of a burrito. I don't think I have ever been served food anywhere else that was more disgusting (sorry, I don't know of a more appropriate word to use here). And I'm not picky at all! I'll eat basically anything that you can throw at me - but this.. this was something else.

To be honest, I assumed and hoped it was a one-off occurrence because I couldn't imagine anybody going there more than once in their lifetime and they couldn't possibly be in the business if they'd constantly serve that kind of fast food.

<comment><USER13> Just about anything is better than their burritos. Stick to tacos and quesadillas (and French fries, seriously.)

<comment><USER14> I disagree. A carb wrapped tube of 50% meatlike product and salty, processed cheese sauce, with various other fillings, that you can buy for a dollar, is utterly amazing. I go to taco bell occasionally because $6 gets me an armload of guilty pleasure

<comment><USER13> I respect that. Is there a better burrito to get than the one that comes in the $5 box, though? I might just not like refried beans as much as everyone else. I like the little breakfast burritos at McDonalds, for reference.

<comment><USER14> If you don't like re-fried beans, then you might be out of luck, since taco bell commonly uses it as a cheap filler. Maybe the bacon-potato burrito doesn't have it? I think you can ask for the burritos without the beans.

While I like taco bell, I _also_ like Chipotle's barbacoa burritos

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From a comment below I just learned about the antibiotic free pork supply shortage. That's insane to me there there isn't scale for one restaurant's meat (and I guess Chipotle is by far biggest demand).

Chipotle should vertically integrate and grow their own pork without compromising ethics. It's already a shit margin business, maybe going to zero margin on the farming could help.

<comment><USER16> One grows a pig, not a pork. Once you kill the pig, its name is supposed to change to pork, though why, I never understood quote well.

<comment><USER17> The reason is one of the byproducts of the Norman Conquest. The local English people raised cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, but the nobles (mostly, if not entirely French) were the only ones who could afford to eat meat. They said boeuf, porc, mouton, and pouletrie.

[https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/32560/why-are- beef-a...](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/32560/why-are-beef-and- pork-and-mutton-used-to-refer-to-the-meat-of-cows-and-pig)

<comment><USER13> It's more that the Normans used French to make a class distinction. English wanting to ingratiate themselves borrowed terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Because they're both burritos

<comment><USER19> I'm sure the Taco Bell CEO gets the nuance, but if your expertise is slogging low cost / low quality ingredients...it's not obvious you're the person to solve an issue with a company struggling with high-end intentions, but low- quality results. Ever been to a Chipotle? The warning about pork carnitas is pretty off-putting. They basically say you're rolling the dice based on past performance.

<comment><USER20> What warning about pork carnitas?

<comment><USER21> This one: [https://twitter.com/byjayroot/status/809485903051812864](https://twitter.com/byjayroot/status/809485903051812864)

<comment><USER19> This is the warning I was talking about.

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure what you mean with rolling the dice - it sounds to me like they're saying, the suppliers may have given antibiotics to the pigs as specific medical care, but are not just blanket giving every pig antibiotics. (The link says that permitting antibiotics for medical care is the one difference between Chipotle UK and US standards, in fact.)

Do you expect either lower-quality meat or higher-health-risk meat as a result of this? I don't think I do but maybe I just don't know enough here.

<comment><USER19> The short version in the Twitter screenshot doesn't fully explain the antibiotic issue. And it's the same one you see if you go to the restaurant personally. Given their history with E-coli (bacteria)[1], they need to be more explicit about what they mean. Making people sick nationally, with a bacteria, coupled with short critical quips about antibiotics is confusing.

The short warning just read to me as "don't order the pork, you might get sick". Not a great set-up for a good lunch experience. They seem to assume all customers are already educated about their sourcing strategy.

[1] [https://www.fda.gov/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/Outbrea...](https://www.fda.gov/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/Outbreaks/ucm470410.htm)

 _" the CDC reports a total of 55 people infected with the outbreak strain of STEC (Shiga toxin producing E. coli) O26 from a total of 11 states in the larger outbreak"_

 _" Chipotle Mexican Grill closed 43 restaurants in Washington and Oregon in early November 2015 in response to the initial outbreak."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Let's see what he can do with a $10 lunch business model.

<comment><USER24> It's really not that insane. Two garbage egg mcmuffins these days run for $9.50ish which probably costs about 10 cents to make. I'll take the quality of chipotle for $7-10 anyday over the insanely overpriced bullshit the others are pumping out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if that would have any influence on the kind and quality of food. Chipotle seems to have decent fast food - nothing to write home about, but qualifies in my book as an ok if not great meal to eat and get on with the day. OTOH, I ate at Taco Bell exactly once in my life and it was the absolutely worst meal I had anywhere in the US. I wouldn't want Chipotle go there. But maybe borrowing CEO doesn't mean moving the food in the same direction. Hopefully.

</comment><comment><USER26> the guy must know a thing or two about tacos

</comment><comment><USER27> Another replacement of a founder with a body from the random CEO pool. Knowledge between companies is almost 0% transferrable.

<comment><USER28> Taco Bell and Chipotle seem pretty similar. Not only are they massive chains of physical locations that would have very similar issues. They are also selling similar food. Mission burritos and Tex Mex (regardless of quality and authenticity) are almost all the same ingredients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have been to Taco Bell only twice and I found the "food" they are selling basically inedible. Definitely wouldn't hire that CEO.

</comment><comment><USER30> You can never tell how much it was him or the team under him, but Taco Bell really is winning on novelty, new store design, and online ordering. Now that they are linked with grubhub, they are at peak.

Maybe he can at least figure out how to keep the veggies from being a petridish. Here is a hint - subway and most sandwich shops don't keep warm meat next to the veg...</comment>


How JavaScript works: Dive into WebSockets, HTTP/2 with SSE and how to pick the right path - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sessionstack.com/how-javascript-works-deep-dive-into-websockets-and-http-2-with-sse-how-to-pick-the-right-path-584e6b8e3bf7 <comment><USER2> Oh cool. I've not yet read through the series, but I've been wanting to read exactly this kind of thing for a while. One of the big reasons I've not touched JS much is simply that the depth of the abstraction stack scares me. When I hack in C, I like to have a pretty good idea of the assembly that's generated; but with JS it feels like there are so many more moving pieces involved in reasoning about program flow and performance.

Thanks to Alexander Zlatkov for doing this series! I look forward to giving it an honest read!!

<comment><USER3> I've dabbled with JS quite a bit, but 95% of the time I have no clue what is happening behind the scenes... Definitely a good read!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Typo: "What is Hearbeating?"</comment>


Ask HN: What is the technology behind S3 and EBS? - <AUTHOR>

I'm having trouble finding articles on the subject. I'm curious about the technology AWS is using behind the scenes to provide highly durable storage through S3 and mountable volumes through EBS. <comment><USER2> [http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-architecture-of- Amazon-S3](http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-architecture-of-Amazon-S3)

AFAIK not much has been written about EBS internals.</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg's personal challenge is all about fixing FB before it implodes - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/04/mark-zuckerbergs-personal-challenge-is-all-about-fixing-facebook/ <comment><USER2> God his entire post just sounds so tone deaf. Really?

 _" > lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people's hands" [...] But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies..." _

Is this satire? That's you! Hello. He's talking about this as if he wasn't the __CEO __of arguably _the_ most powerful, controlling and closed off of those "big tech" companies he mentions.

I don't even know where to start. Every word in his letter just sounds backwards, like I'm listening to the Ministry of Truth here.

Mark Zuckerberg is either a cynical hypocrite or lives in a wonderful wonderful bubble.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seriously? People are blaming facebook for not "making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent." That should be an individual's own responsibility, not facebook.

<comment><USER4> Normally I'd agree but:

1) Facebook goes out of it's way to show you what _it_ wants to show you, and not what you actually want[1].

2) Facebook deliberately exploits techniques for you to spend more time on the service, and for you to put more data on the service. At this point I'd liken it to gambling. Is it the gambler's responsibility to ensure their time is "well spent", or is it the state's / organization's? What about when gambler's fallacy (or one of the numerous related cognitive problems) takes hold? What then? [2][3]

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956811](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956811)

[2]: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook- manipulated-689003-users-emotions-for-science/)

[3]: [https://www.courier- journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2...](https://www.courier- journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/08/08/monsters-google-and- facebook-like-heroin-gambling-roger-mcnamee/548867001/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This (obviously) could just be a cynical PR ploy, but I'm hopeful that he's being sincere and that his leadership drives major changes. It would be foolish to expect any for-profit corporation to put the social good in the front seat. But that doesn't mean it's not possible.

</comment><comment><USER6> Want to fix Facebook?

Stop trying to decide what I want to see in my news feed.

Stop switching my feed from "Most Recent" to "Top Stories" every time I click the Home link.

Keep my feed in Chronological order.

Stop showing me the same post a friend made 3 days ago that hasn't even had any activity.

</comment><comment><USER7> Coming from one of the most centralized and closed platforms on the planet, i am cautiously interested in how this will turn out

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Every year I take on a personal challenge to learn something new. I've visited every US state, run 365 miles, built an AI for my home, read 25 books, and learned Mandarin.

I started doing these challenges in 2009. That first year the economy was in a deep recession and Facebook was not yet profitable. We needed to get serious about making sure Facebook had a sustainable business model. It was a serious year, and I wore a tie every day as a reminder.

Today feels a lot like that first year. The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do -- whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent.

My personal challenge for 2018 is to focus on fixing these important issues. We won't prevent all mistakes or abuse, but we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools. If we're successful this year then we'll end 2018 on a much better trajectory.

This may not seem like a personal challenge on its face, but I think I'll learn more by focusing intensely on these issues than I would by doing something completely separate. These issues touch on questions of history, civics, political philosophy, media, government, and of course technology. I'm looking forward to bringing groups of experts together to discuss and help work through these topics.

For example, one of the most interesting questions in technology right now is about centralization vs decentralization. A lot of us got into technology because we believe it can be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people's hands. (The first four words of Facebook's mission have always been "give people the power".) Back in the 1990s and 2000s, most people believed technology would be a decentralizing force.

But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it.

There are important counter-trends to this --like encryption and cryptocurrency -- that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people's hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I'm interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services.

This will be a serious year of self-improvement and I'm looking forward to learning from working to fix our issues together."

\--- Mark Zuckerberg

Are there any viable platforms that people would rather use?

<comment><USER4> > Are there any viable platforms that people would rather use?

Email, Slack, Twitter, Secure Scuttlebutt, Rotonde, GNU Social

<comment><AUTHOR> Do any really connect you to your friends from school, from work, from hobbies, to family, an to interests like Facebook does?

<comment><USER4> Twitter connects me to my peers better than Facebook does, to be quite honest. Rotonde gives me more interesting artistic input than Facebook does, as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Jekyll vs. Gatsby - <AUTHOR> Jekyll seems to be the go to source for static websites. But, Gatsby has been quickly gaining ground. For developing a simple website/blog which one is better, or is merely based on preferences and what you want. <comment><USER2> I tried Hugo recently and must say it just works smooth. From the documentation quality point of view, there are things that still need improvement, but it's good enough to produce your own static sites in a few hours.

AFAIK, Hugo also allows you to import Jekyll themes. But, honestly, I haven't tried these ones you ask for yet. I'm willing to know people's feedback.</comment>


Doctor Who's first female lead is more popular than many fans expected - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/23/doctor-whos-first-female-lead-is-more-popular-than-many-fans-expected.html <comment><USER2> So much relentless effort to turn this into a conversation about gender when there's been pretty much the same type of quiet optimism one always gets when a new Doctor is announced.

As the article mentions "there was so much more backlash to the backlash than people actually expressing displeasure with the idea of a female Doctor Who". Can we just stop with the articles and whatnot? We don't even get to see her properly for another year...</comment>


A woman who discovered the first coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-52278716 <comment><USER2> A _woman_ , you say?

Oh, BBC, we've been over this.

The "scientist" or the "virologist". Get it?</comment>


Tell HN: Tokyo de Hacker boshuuchuu - <AUTHOR>

We're a well-funded and fast-growing startup in the heart of Tokyo, and looking for a few good hackers.  If you're a Rails developer who grocks PHP, or a PHP developer who's gotten into Rails, then you're the sort of carbon-based lifeform that we want to talk to.
We work in English, but you get massive bonus points for speaking Japanese, or for having experience abroad in Asia.
Benefits include the usual litany of medical, dental, optical, and most importantly, relocation and a working visa.  They also inlcude your choice of tooling and desktop platform, close proximity to amazing sushi, and access to all of the unspeakably horrible flavors of Ramune soda they sell at Don Quixote.
Interested?  Shoot me an email at: firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> If I were 20 years younger, I'd be knocking on your door. Japan is a great place to experience and live. And great food.

I'm from the UK, but have lived in France and Spain. I had a fluent Japanese speaking and reading g/f for a while, and since we spent time in Japan, I studied it at Edinburgh University (evening classes) for a year. It's quite a tricky language, mainly because you have to learn every word, whereas, for obvious reasons, there is a lot of crossover in the broadly Latin-based languages..

However, there are plenty of language schools all over Tokyo, often taught by native English speakers, so you easily get started. And, of course, being in the country makes learning so much easier.

The Japanese are great fun too.

What a great opportunity for some lucky individual.

</comment><comment><USER3> That sounds like quite an amazing opportunity. I'm sorely tempted. I have the PHP qualification, but I never really cared for Rails. (Ruby is cool, I just never really like Rails much.) And since I'm learning Japanese, it's even more tempting.

I'm not really sure I want to move to another country, though. That'd be quite a change.

Good luck in finding someone!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Out of curiosity, how far along are you with your Japanese?

Moving to another country is definitely a challenge, but I think it's something that everybody should do for a year or two, precisely because it's hard and uncomfortable, so few people do it.

If or when you decide to go home, you've got a very distinct bullet-point on your resume that will definitely stick in peoples' minds.

<comment><USER3> I've been studying on my own for a few years. I haven't been crazy about it, so I would judge myself to be low-intermediate. As long as I know all the words, I can usually understand when people talk a little slower than normal. When I don't, I can often repeat the words I don't understand to ask for explanations.

I have a language partner in Japan and we talk daily. Unfortunately, I have to say "I don't understand" about every other sentence. It's a good thing she's so patient!

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity (and apologies to the op for steering off-topic), how did you find your language partner?

<comment><USER3> Lang-8.com. I started correcting peoples' English and posting my own entries in Japanese. People added me as a friend and I after I mentioned I had Skype, someone asked to be my language partner over Skype.

Since then I've seen a few that I'm certain would do the same, if I asked. It was a lot easier to find a partner than I expected. Also, there are many more Japanese people learning English on Lang-8 than English speakers learning Japanese. It means you get a LOT of attention when you post, especially if you've been correcting others.

<comment><USER4> Thanks - I'll give that a shot. I've been slowly teaching myself a bit of Japanese for the past few months, but I'm still very much a beginner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All the pocari sweat I can drink? Sold!

Hajimemashite

</comment><comment><USER6> Man, this would be absolutely perfect for me... in about three years. I'm in college (Dutch) and have been doing web development for about five years. Currently applying to do a three-month Bachelor-project at Osaka university. Also recently started studying Japanese.

So yeah, look for me in your inbox around 2013. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> What's your bachelor's projet? I've got a few friends doing undergrad work in Osaka, and one doing her graduate degree there.

<comment><USER6> The project itself is still undecided. All I know is that there's an opportunity for me to do my final project in Osaka coming april, so I applied.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Greets work and lived out here for the last 5 years. And work fir a Japanese company. Program in python c and a few other stuff. Have business Japanese. Not looking fir a job at the moment but have friends out here. Any details I can pass around?

Also very curious about the startup process in japan.

</comment><comment><USER8> Too bad I'm not a software hacker, and don't speak Japanese!

I have a lot of experience selling Pocky and Ramune to teenagers, and speak Chinese fairly well, have studied in China... anyhow.

Sounds like great fun. Share stories, whoever joins!

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow this job makes me want to learn Rails.

Good luck!</comment>