Georgia Tech manages to teach a CS degree for $7k - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/upshot/an-online-education-breakthrough-a-masters-degree-for-a-mere-7000.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1 <comment><USER2> I read the whole article a couple of times, I find it hugely interesting. The part where they wonder if they are taking what could be $57K students and getting $7K students was fascinating, and obvious in retrospect. The answer is no, they are getting $7K students where they would not have gotten a $57K student.

The part about the prof interacting more with the online students was also interesting.

Color me weird, because the other comments here seem like "meh", but I think this is a big deal. Have an upvote :)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Tests are proctored by a company that locks down a student's computer remotely and uses its camera to check for cheating"

I'm surprised that is sufficient.

<comment><USER4> The testing company used appears to be ProctorU, I've used them 4 times for my own online degree. The controls go well beyond simple camera use, they do a lot of checking for programs in the background (programatically, not manually). It can be beaten by a motivated individual, but at the point significant cheating is an issue for a program, there are larger issues to address, like "why do our students feel compelled to cheat?" and "why are tests so valuable that cheating is effective?"

<comment><USER3> > there are larger issues to address, like "why do our students feel compelled > to cheat?" and "why are tests so valuable that cheating is effective?"

I don't quite understand this statement. Tests are so valuable because a university degree is valuable. If there is cheating, it simply means it is too easy to cheat. The doesn't seem to be any larger issue.

The simple solution would be to require that candidates sit the test in a room which is physically supervised by someone who is responsible to the university.

<comment><USER4> > I don't quite understand this statement. Tests are so valuable because a > university degree is valuable. If there is cheating, it simply means it is > too easy to cheat. The doesn't seem to be any larger issue.

University degrees have two levels of value: social signaling ("I have a degree"), and proof of knowledge & skills. From an instructional standpoint, social signaling isn't a program goal, it's just an outcome. It's good to realize that degrees are social signals and that has an effect on who applies and is successful in these programs, but the instructional aspects of the program are pretty much entirely focused on knowledge and skills.

So cheating really means that students who are cheating either value the knowledge and skills less than they should, or that the test is a poor method of assessing the knowledge and skills. The student values issue is complicated, and is really more about student selection criteria than anything else - if the school is only selecting students who want to socially signal, that's an issue that needs to be addressed in a systematic way.

Conversely, if the issue isn't a social one but rather about skills, the professor probably isn't doing a good job teaching the material, and there are plenty of ways to remediate that - lower stakes, higher frequency assessment, improving instructional materials and time, etc. In general, both of these problems are pretty well solved by having a more diverse assessment set than just standardized, proctored tests. Even if you can cheat your way through a 2 hour midterm/final, doing the same for a 2 month long course project is much harder. I haven't taken any of the GT course,s but based on their udacity listings (which mirror the MS courses), I would guess appears they are doing fairly bespoke projects on complex topics (i.e. machine learning), where cheating is harder to hide.

> The simple solution would be to require that candidates sit the test in a > room which is physically supervised by someone who is responsible to the > university.

Beyond the fact that a motivated individual can also cheat on an in-person exam (something like 60% of US college students admit to cheating sometime in their college career), that would create a whole other layer of logistics and cost. It's a lot easier just to have good instruction throughout the program than to spend huge amounts of time trying to catch people who are willing to cheat on their tests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> HN post title makes it sound more impressive than it is.</comment>


Engineering NullAway, Uber's Open Source Tool for Android NullPointerExceptions - <AUTHOR> https://eng.uber.com/nullaway/ <comment><USER2> I think something is wrong with the code if null pointers are a big problem in a Java code base.

The example in the article shows a class with an exposed nullable member, and a function outside of the class referencing the possibly null member. I know it's an example but it's a bad practice to expose class variables like that. The only code that should have to check for a null member should be in the class, not scattered all over the code base. The example in the article shows a function referencing a member of a member (x.f). This just looks like very bad OO design and implementation to me.

Another approach is to never have null members. Use placeholder objects that have the expected interface but do something reasonable, like logging or reporting the error when referenced. That's better than crashing.

As an Uber user and programmer I'm wondering how the Uber mobile client is so complex that the code has so many problems like this that you need to write special tools just to detect them.</comment>


Are girls afraid of money? - <AUTHOR> http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/18/are-girls-afraid-of-money/

<comment><USER2> The real meat of this awesome link is in the comments deconstructing, critiquing, and musing on the article. Some gems include thoughts on if she's really testing girls' willingness to alienate a senior mentor by stealing from them, a lengthy discussion on societal / collaborative decision making... There's more. read it!

</comment><comment><USER3> Control group?

It may be interesting to note that this experiment wasn't repeated on 15 male Georgetown mentees, so we really have no basis of comparison, the author simply assumes the boys would have taken the money.

<comment><USER4> Are women afraid of science? This woman surely is. Not having a control group is no way to conduct a science experiment.

<comment><USER5> A control group is neither necessary nor sufficient for "science" to be conducted. It's just a tool.

edit: anyway, how could you have a control group? Find 15 sexless undergrads from similar economic and cultural backgrounds? or 15 one-year-old girls who have no experience with money?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it odd that the author matter-of-factly concludes that the girls had a dysfunctional relationship with money. There are plenty of other conclusions that could have been drawn.

For my part, with the money on the desks, I probably would've gathered it all up if I was the first one in the room and turned it in to the leader of the session or campus police. With someone holding up a $20 and asking who wanted it, yeah, I would've immediately asked for it.

<comment><USER7> I think this is exactly the point of the article. Your own reactions dealt directly with the money. The girls in the article used the money to create complicated social rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I give her full marks for posing the question but only about half credit for follow-up.

The question is solid, it suggests a variety of experiments;

o Put 'coupons' of $20 value on some of the desks.

o Put 'jewelry' of $20 (approx) value on some of the desks

o Put a 'Logo' shirt on some desks (Logo from the 'presenting' company)

o Put a 'Logo' clothing where the logo is different on each article and for different designers.

o Put a 'knicknack' (thing SWAG like) on each desk.

Do the experiments with boys and with girls. Ideally all college students, and preferably sophomores (since as freshmen their cultural values have not fused as much as they have by the time they are sophomores)

Three things you want to test:

1) Does 'ownership' change behavior?

2) Does 'commercial promotion' (coupons/logos) change it into something you are expected to take.

3) Does perceived value permute the results.

And of course the whole girl/guy thing.

In my experience I've met people for whom money was a goal (it was the having they desired most) and some for whom money was a tool (do I have enough to make _x_ happen?). A smaller number for whom money was a means of influence.

</comment><comment><USER9> More likely, girls are afraid of being ostracized by their peer network for destabilizing the _status quo_. Put money where nobody would see it being picked up, and you might get quite different behavior. Put it where everyone can see it being picked up (or infer the probability that it was picked up) is very different. Acting on one's own behalf without even checking what one's peer network thinks signals an indifference to their opinions - a memory which will probably last far longer than the $20 benefit.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't really believe that this is a "girl problem." Being timid of challenging hierarchy by claiming shared resources is rational, and creating norms that then advantage you with no-one else the wiser is a standard game- theoretically-optimal response. Both men and women are capable of, and frequently participate in, this mode of thought--just look at politics--but in at least some subset of _men_ , this drive is overridden with another one that does game-theoretically _sub-optimal_ things for low chances of high rewards.

Now _why_ men have this extra drive, I'm not qualified to answer, not having studied much evolutionary psychology; but I would say that there's probably some subconscious collusion going on by all parties to defer to "alpha males," that will allow this strategy to be optimal when one can signal such traits.

</comment><comment><USER11> I remember a financial advisor (a woman) once said that when the male spouse dies its at least an 80% chance the female spouse didn't know anything about their finances. I asked her was that due to their age set and she said no, she finds about the same split with the younger couples she advises as well.</comment>


Python Library for Google Translate - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/python-library-for-google-translate/

<comment><USER2> You can use Google Translate over HTTP like this:

[http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/translate?...](http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/translate?v=1.0&langpair=en%7Cit&q=yourwordhere)

They're not bad. I use it in a TextMate-Script which replaces Text with the translation (for gettext files).

</comment><comment><USER3> I find this incredibly useful for internationalizing apps! I can tell I'm going to have alot of fun using this lib.

<comment><USER4> Please don't use it for I18N.

It would surely produce some funny yet useless message and is vulnerable to poisoning.

<comment><USER5> Good point, or you end up with situations like <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm>

> When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought > the reply was what they needed. Unfortunately, the e-mail response to > Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send > any work to be translated".

That said, using Google Translate to make an initial translation should be fine, as long as you get someone who actually speaks the language to check it over before release.. For smaller projects, it's going to be easier to get someone check over a file, than getting them to manually translate hundreds of phrases

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been looking for a natural language translation library for Python lately. And here it comes, Peteris Krumins writes one, thanks Peteris!

<comment><USER7> This could help too: <http://www.nltk.org/>

<comment><USER6> Great, I'll check this one out too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice!</comment>


Ask HN: My Macbook is about to die. What do I do? - <AUTHOR>

I have one month left on the Apple Care (3 year plan). My macbook has begun crashing as of late. It's just in a barely usable state and I can't really afford to buy a new macbook. Also, the CD drive doesn't work and the battery dies after just less than an hour when unplugged. Did I just over use it?
A few months back I reinstalled the OS, that did very little help. Often when I have Coda, Firefox, and Photoshop open, I have to force the laptop to shut down in order for it to allow me to be productive again.
Do I suck it up and just buy a new one just before my warranty expires? I just about have had enough. <comment><USER3> I'd say you are like a friend of mine who has killed numerous Macbooks, since v1.0. He always uses his machine to the maximum - number of applications, jammed hard drive, lots of media content, used in a mobile state 16+ hours a day, etc. He's had numerous issues with them because he uses them heavily and they are a lightweight machine. And every year or so, when the latest one is in its death throws, he buys a new Macbook, but never the Macbook Pro - <USER2> extra robustness of which, might just save him a lot of grief. If you do nothing else, make sure everything is backed up, then nuke and pave it. Good Luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> How old is it? My Macbook (which I am currently using) is 2 years old and only got a screen backlight problem (one vertical strip is dimmer)... What have you done to hurt yours so badly? I mean... I've had mine at 90ºC for more than two hours several times, while doing calculations (before I got to use my office's computer)

<comment><USER5> Impressive that your MacBook worked at 90ºC -- how'd YOU make out? (That's 194ºF, so I suspect it was a typo.)

<comment><USER4> As sorbus points out, this is CPU temp, not the overall computer. The base was at around 45, I think.

I guess it was an overheating damage, but could not know. Since then, I've avoided CPU intensive things from happening on it, and the usual CPU temp is now around 60º. Which looks pretty high, but manageable.

I considered buying a lower platform with cooling (they sell it in some computer stores, plates with fans on them) but gave up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a reason this isn't covered under warranty? Did you physically damage the machine?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's still working, somewhat.

<comment><USER7> If the machine is having hardware issues (which is probably the case if you did a clean install of the operating system and the issues are still recurring), and they are not the result of any accidental or intentional damage (as grandparent poster stated), they should be covered under AppleCare.

The only exception to this would be the battery (most laptop batteries are only covered under a one year warranty). It is extremely unlikely that your battery is causing applications to crash, though.</comment></comment></comment>


Reddit copies Quora's content blocking / forced registration feature - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/IjoM7D5 <comment><USER2> Not quite forced registration: it can be dismissed by clicking the "x" in the corner (cropped out of this screenshot -- EDIT: There might not be a way to dismiss it in all of the variants; see comment below).

Also, it's part of an A/B test and is not universal.

More information:

[https://www.reddit.com/live/x3ckzbsj6myw/updates/be54fb90-32...](https://www.reddit.com/live/x3ckzbsj6myw/updates/be54fb90-3291-11e6-b8c6-0ec80c12756b)

<comment><USER3> Would love to see a full shot to know how prominent the X is. It certainly seeems quote distant from the related controls.

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://imgur.com/2Vtpqz1](http://imgur.com/2Vtpqz1)

It's either not there anymore or it's not there for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As like an eight-year-ish reddit user--gross.

To be honest, I may just no longer be in the target user population or something. Which is fine, it happens. It seems like none of the recent decisions have added value to the site for me.

* Changing links to be affiliate links -- doesn't apply to me at all

* Making their own baby imgur --had to happen, but doesn't have a real value-add for me personally lots of times I don't realize if I'm on imgur or the new reddit one unless imgur's dumb cat paw advertisement comes up

* Mobile app -- way too late. I mean I've had the other ones installed for years at this point

and so on. I think the last feature that I was like "oh that's cool!" about what the Coinbase integration to quickly give gold to a post

</comment><comment><USER5> As a huge reddit user, this is a quick way to erode my trust and good will. I'm disappointed that they would even A/B test this at all.

<comment><USER6> As a huge reddit user, you are probably logged in and won't see this message.

<comment><USER7> I use Reddit daily, but I don't log in when I browse at work so I ended up getting this message last week. It was dismissed immediately, so I wasn't too irritated (unlike Quora's system which bothers me constantly because their digest emails open in my browser rather than their app, where I am logged in).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It looks like you would still be able to read the remaining content if you click "continue" instead of "log in"? I'm not entirely sure why reddit would insist on users creating accounts, anyway, since (last I checked, at least) you can create an account without providing any real information: just a username and password. Not even email is required.

<comment><USER9> Yes, registering is so easy I end up registering from each device and promptly forget the account name and password instead of trying to remember my account. Also adds a bit of isolation against tracking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This originates from Quora and has been copied by many such as Facebook or Pinterest, etc. It's horribly annoying, but I guess there are statistic data to back it up (increase signing up by X percent?)

</comment><comment><USER11> How well did this work for quora?

<comment><USER12> Probably pretty well, I still find ways to avoid it. I have yet to register. I am more likely to register on websites that don't pester me than on websites that do.

<comment><USER13> Just append '?share=1' at the end of every quora link in your browser(I admit its easier to append on my computer than on my mobile), and it should remove the modal registration window that prevents you from seeing the content.

<comment><USER14> Or block it in your hosts file and stay away from that shithole of a website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would never have become a reddit user if this had been around when I first discovered it.

I know of one friend that refuses to use it at all because of this as well.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Feature"

I... don't see that as a feature, more a kick in the sack.</comment>


How would/did you publicly launch a web based application? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> A good start point can be submitting the webapp to techcrunch and read/write web

<comment><USER3> And what's next?

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> So? 3 points and no answer?</comment>


Nest - The Learning Thermostat  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nest.com/living-with-nest/index.html

<comment><USER2> i love this! now. all i need is a house.</comment>


Using and Abusing Macros - <AUTHOR> http://damienradtke.com/using-and-abusing-macros/

<comment><USER2> I use macros in Racket, and generally the idea is that they mix with the language until its not clear which are the language constructions and which are the user defined macros.

For example, instead of

      pub static SMITHY: Card = action! { "Smithy" costs 3 and calls do_smithy };

I'd written it as

      pub static SMITHY: Card = action! { "Smithy", 3, do_smithy };

Is this possible in Rust, or comas are special?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's absolutely possible. I actually implemented it the way I did more as an experiment to see if it was possible, and when it turned out that it was, decided that it was ridiculous enough to be awesome.

I probably wouldn't ever use a macro like this in code worked on by multiple people, but for my own personal side project, I'm happy to abuse Rust's flexibility for my own enjoyment.</comment></comment>


Memo – The Anonymous Office Messenger (like secret, but for companies) - <AUTHOR> https://getthememo.com/

<comment><USER2> I can see this kind of app getting really nasty, really fast if it has a decent uptake.

All of the anonymity of the internet without any repercussions? Knowing human nature, it'd likely just end up in a quagmire or mud slinging and gossip.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally agree, just like Secret and Yik Yak, some will use it for harm, some to unload tension, and some just for the lolz. Only the repercussions here might get you fired. Which is probably the reason this app was invented in the first place.

Also, that's part of why I shared it. I'm an agent of chaos.</comment></comment>


12 Web Application Frameworks for Node.js	 - <AUTHOR> http://codecondo.com/10-web-application-frameworks-for-node-js/#nj

<comment><USER2> How have I never heard of these frameworks? I follow/write node and I'm still out of the loop already.</comment>


The E programming language - <AUTHOR> http://www.erights.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> I discovered this really old programming language. Looks like it has not been touched since 1998 and seems to have been created by Douglas Crockford. Has anybody really used this?

<comment><USER2> It's way, _way_ too far ahead of its time. If Functional Programming manages to hit the mainstream, this is one plausible direction that it could move in after that. It will be much easier to start talking people into an approach like this once they've absorbed that stuff, and it will probably be much easier to implement in strong functional programming languages with good type systems than on top of objects.

<comment><USER3> While a strong type system is one way to achieve the goal (and probably the easiest one from a language design perspective) it is not the only way. The original E design did not rely upon typing at all but used cryptographic security at the message-passing layer to accomplish the capability semantics desired. Strong typing made it easy to apply the core ideas to Ocaml, for example, but it could have been accomplished in a language with weaker types but a more rigidly designed message-passing architecture like Erlang with just a few tweaks to the VM and OTP system (e.g. a lot of the tools that make hot code loading and debugging things on-the-fly possible in Erlang leak too much information about the system and would have to be changed.)

<comment><USER2> Yes, I think I wasn't clear. What I was getting at was more about the mentality of programmers; if you can get stronger types into the mainstream you will also get many of the same concepts that you need to understand capability based systems into the mainstream. They aren't, strictly speaking, the same by any means, but right now the ideas in the area of provability, meaningful types, capabilities, and that whole complex of ideas around reifying not just what code does but what it doesn't do, just aren't popular enough yet. FP is the most likely vehicle to get that complex at least somewhat out into the mainstream. Once you have that, you might as well exploit it in your capability-based systems, even if they aren't strictly speaking related. Capabilities, on the other hand, don't look to me like they can lead the charge, but they _could_ ride it.

<comment><USER3> I definitely agree with this. I also think that capability systems that are based on a good type system are probably going to be easier to code with than ones based on message passing security. The type systems make it easier to define and use the basic capabilities and involve a lot less boilerplate code than what one sees in other variants of capability-semantics.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Do Parents Matter? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=parents-peers-children

<comment><USER2> I've recently come to the same conclusion, at least with my daughter. My wife and I seem to be able to exercise greater influence over my sons, but it's become clear that my daughter's peers exert vastly more influence over her than we can -- and she has unfortunately chosen a set of friends who have a very negative influence. By "negative" I don't mean "funny hairstyles", I mean hanging around with them, or even just talking to them over the phone or via computer, has pushed her into depression, self-injury, complete disregard for school, etc. Ultimately it lead to a suicide attempt, at which point we shifted from trying to be influential, supporting parents to unabashedly controlling her life. She's 13.

We're attempting to intervene with medication and professional counseling to help with the depression and injury. We're also attempting to remove the negative peers from her life by removing her from school (homeschooling) and controlling who she's allowed to spend time with.

It's helping, but modern technology has created some challenges. Like most geek homes, mine is filled with technology, and my kids are adept in its use. I've had to block Facebook and all of the free e-mail services on the kids' computers, but short of intensively supervising her computer usage there's effectively no way to cut off that avenue of communication with her negative friends.

I finally resorted to writing a script that notifies me whenever she logs in, and then hacking the GNOME remote desktop tool so that it doesn't display a notification when I remotely connect to her desktop. Oh, we've used the low- tech solution of putting the computer in a public area of the house and paying attention, but that just means she has to pick the right moment. Knowing that I may be virtually looking over her shoulder at any moment, and there's no way she can know when that's happening, seems to have closed off that avenue. Finally. When she's at home.

However, phones have proven much more difficult. We've taken her cellphone away, and the home phone has no long distance service (her problem friends happen to be outside the local calling area; she had to cast a wide net to find a group this bad), but my home office line does, and there are three other cellphones around the house, not to mention that all of her local friends and cousins have cellphones.

Short of keeping all of our phones locked up and not allowing her out of the house, there's effectively no way we can keep her from getting in touch with her friends. And these friends are so important to _her_ that there seems to be no punishment, no bribe, no consequence that will keep her from contacting them.

Without modern communications technology, it's unlikely that she ever would have found this group of negative peers, and it's certain that we as her parents would be able isolate her from them. As it is, as long as she's willing to sneak behind our backs, it is effectively impossible for us to control her access to them. We can limit it significantly, of course, but unless we could watch her every minute of every day, as soon as our backs are turned she'll find a way to contact them.

So far, reducing her communication with them seems to be limiting their effect on her. The anti-depressants are having an effect as well, and the therapy seems also to be helping her to understand herself and her value a little better. However, as you can imagine, the constant close supervision and tight control is also basically destroying our relationship with her, and reducing our ability to directly influence her thinking to zero. She sees us as the enemy.

That saddens us greatly, but we don't see any other option. She was in a downward spiral last year and we intervened aggressively and she pulled out of it. Then she convinced us that she could handle herself if we relaxed the grip. We did, and within three months she attempted suicide (which her peers think is cool).

So, this has been long and rambling, but the point is that my anecdotal experience with my daughter supports this researcher's claims. Our influence over our daughter's behavior and thinking is minimal at best, and I'm questioning whether it was ever as great as we thought it was. Our influence over her environment is substantial and we're working that influence for all it's worth. I guess we'll know in a few years if that approach worked. Well, sort of. We'll only know the results of what we do. There's no way to know what might have happened if we'd acted differently.

That, of course, is the hard part of being a parent. You can only do what you think is best, and there's really no way to know if you're doing the right things, or how much what you're doing even matters. Still, you have to do the best you can.

<comment><USER3> You're doing it wrong. I am surprised that what you are doing is even legal, not to mention you are giving homeschooling a very bad name.

We only imprison a suicidal person to make death impossible for her, having in mind that the person's life is her own and that if the person could think rationally she would want to live. This is never to be done at home, though. It's done in a hospital or clinic, because it's a place that will be hated and where the person rightly won't want to return to.

I remember being in a mental hospital ward as a young adult and thoughts going from "I hate the world and I wish I was dead" to "If only I could go out in the sun and get some ice cream." This hospital had a beautiful garden outside which you could see from the barred windows and a quiosk where they sold ice cream. Man, did I enjoy that ice cream once I was allowed to go out for it! When was I finally released from the hospital (on the condition of doing therapy, which I quit soon I could, because it was humilliating) my family took me out to the cinema, to buy videogames and I had no restrictions on Internet and going out with my friends (I was not a minor anymore, so I guess it was easier for them to respect me.)

The experience was undignifying and I still have a grudge against my parents for it, since they got the necessary documents to forcefully sign me into hospital. I still love them and we talk but I prefer to live in another country. I also never completely got rid of my suicidal thoughts up to this day (over a decade after) nor did the experience scared me out to try suicide a second time. Still, it might have solved the immediate emergency then. I don't know.

The most terrible thing about hospitalization is the forced medication, which is brain damaging and useless. The mind is not ill, just wrong.

So I'm sure there is a better way to help. But whatever you do, have this in mind:

One's home should always be one's home. It should be a person's private space. It should be a welcoming place where the person longs to be in. Your daugher should have her own room, her own computer, her own things, her own friends and her freedom back. She should not be spyed upon by her own family. That will just make her paranoid. If her own family is out to get her, who isn't?

Understand that a person is motivated to live when they can be free, when they can have a good life by their own standards. So help her get a life she wants to live. listen to her. What does she like? Get her more of that.

Also, get her some Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand is great because she gets to the roots of the self-esteem problem. Teenagers that read Ayn Rand love life, and behave like they are invincible. I wish I had read her then. Your daughter is more likely to not be influenced by bad friends when she learns why she shouldn't care for what others think. The Virtue of Selfishness is brilliant. Get that one or Anthem for a starter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Probably more than anything else in the world. I wouldn't be close to where I am, or who I am, without mine, and that's an observation that I can extend to pretty much everyone I know well.

<comment><USER5> You observed where you would be without your parents?

You have an _abstract theory_ , partially supported by some observations you haven't detailed, and which you haven't argued for or clearly stated.

<comment><USER4> I am pretty sure I would be a different person, perhaps even better, but my character, as I understand it, has been shaped by my parents. Part of that comes from them staying out of my way when it came to certain decisions that would impact the rest of my life (in India parents can get very pushy about going into certain field) and allowing us to have our disagreements (and we have many).

I don't need to argue for my observations. I experienced them and quite enjoyed growing up with them.

<comment><USER5> _I don't need to argue_

You don't need to argue, but if you want to find the truth of the matter, then it might help to argue. Through arguing, but not through asserting, we can sometimes learn that we have mistaken ideas and change our minds.

<comment><USER4> Don't disagree there, but you cannot explain evening spent talking, Sunday mornings watching birds, Friday evenings in the library, walks explaining why leaves are green and the beauty of mathematics. In other words, how do you distill 20 years into an argument, when no one else was there to experience a second of it? I can't.

<comment><USER5> You've now described your experiences. I'm perfectly willing to accept that it seems to you that that's what happened. But did it happen that way?

Once upon a time I talked to this guy, and he runs a group of Objectivists, and says he's a huge fan of Ayn Rand, and how much her books influenced him. And he talked a bit about his life. And you know what? He had lived it roughly in the opposite way to what one of Rand's heros would have done. He played it safe, didn't stand up for his values, settled for less, cared what others thought of him, didn't have the drive to pursue difficult goals, etc

He thought he was strongly influenced by something, and lived his life by it, and he'd failed to notice how little he acted on that influence.

Such stories are common. I have no idea if your interpretation of what influenced you is correct or not, but I do know that people often are mistaken about these things.

Suppose you were genetically programmed, and part of that programming made you think your parents were important. Couldn't that account for your experiences too? (I think it could not, but only due to some philosophical arguments. I think your experiences don't contradict the genetic theory.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whether a child attends school, or is allowed to spend time with peers, is up to his parents. Therefore parents matter.

<comment><USER6> The article does not state that parents do not matter _at all_ , just that, when all the evidence available from studies conducted is considered, they matter less than what is normally assumed.

<comment><USER5> The title here asks if parents matter at all.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but the discussion should focus on the actual article, no? Otherwise, why not just make it a Ask HN?

<comment><USER5> Well, the article said look how influential peers are. But whether peers are influential is controlled by the parents. Some parenting techniques allow peer influence, and others simply don't. When they say peers are influential, they mean peers are influential in the context of certain common parenting techniques, but not others. Which kind of defeats their claim that parenting doesn't matter so much.

Certain types of (non-violent) parenting suppress the influence of peers completely, but no types of (non-violent) peers could suppress the influence of that sort of parenting at all.

<comment><USER6> "Certain types of (non-violent) parenting suppress the influence of peers completely, but no types of (non-violent) peers could suppress the influence of that sort of parenting at all."

Wow, I guess she must have completely missed the studies showing this. From the article:

"Despite the reduction in physical punishment, today's adults are no less aggressive than their grandparents were. Despite the increase in praise and physical affection, they are not happier or more self-confident or in better mental health. It's an interesting way to test a theory of child development: persuade millions of parents to rear their children in accordance with the theory, and then sit back and watch the results come in. Well, the results are in and they don't support the theory!"

<comment><USER5> It's not a matter of studies, it's a matter of parents having full control over who young children meet or do not meet, whether the children leave the house or not, etc

<comment><USER6> I get the feeling we must have not read the same article as the one I read was all about what the studies show (or rather don't in this case).

<comment><USER5> My point is not about studies. Maybe you haven't read my comments closely. Which part of this do you disagree with:

There exists at least one parenting technique which completely negates the influence of peers, namely not letting the kid out of the house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had to do some research for a paper a few years ago that reminds me of this - I learned that juvenile delinquency statistics could not be correlated across income level, race, or geography. However, once family situation was taken into account (stable two parent households vs. other situations), a correlation was found.

I definitely believe parents matter.

And, as an aside, some parents have no choice but to raise children single, and they do a great job. It just isn't the ideal situation, according to research.

</comment><comment><USER8> Our parents form the basis for all other attachments we are able to form with people. Our parents form the basis of how humans are able to interact with others.

I certainly disagree with "So if you want to improve the way children behave in school—for instance, by making them more diligent and less disruptive in the classroom", I think most people can see a correlation between poor quality parenting and badly behaved children. Inside or outside the home. This certainly proves it's point when the average family of University (or College) child age is shown demographically. (Assuming that you exclude financial issues).

Parents have far too great an influence over their children to not matter. This research certainly hinges on undermining the whole of attachment theory, and Freud's work on personality types. If parents did not support certain behaviours then they wouldn't develop. I think that this research on it's own represents a narrow minded view of later development, not something which explains how parents shape their children.

Parents do matter because they create who we are today.

Read more: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_Theory>

<comment><USER9> There is a good book about why parents matter, that addresses Harris's ideas: Hold on to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld, a clinical psychologist. See: <http://www.gordonneufeld.com/book.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For another great article on Judith Harris, see Malcolm Gladwell's 1998 piece in the New Yorker:

<http://gladwell.com/1998/1998_08_17_a_harris.htm>

</comment><comment><USER11> If we take evolution as our the model for our species then parents and parenthood are vitally important to the survival of the species.

At certain times peers might play a bigger role in forming who we are but to say that consistently peers are more important than parents, I think, is incorrect.

<comment><USER12> Some studies of the most closely related primates suggest that peers may be more important for them than parents are, as well as for humans.

How many people posting here are parents? I have four children. Since I have had my second child, I have cherished the saying I learned from another parent: "Parents of one child believe in nurture, and parents of two or more children believe in nature."

<comment><USER6> No children, but if I did I have the feeling I'd one of those parents welcoming the findings of this researcher.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yea, right. Every time I was influenced by my peers to do something stupid, I used the acid test, "Will my father kill me?" He's gone now, but I still use that test. That's influence.

<comment><USER14> I agree. Furthermore, I don't think Asian teachers necessarily have a special knack for controlling kids. I behaved well in class (I'm Asian, btw) because I knew my mother would beat the shit out of me if she heard anything bad from my teachers about me.

<comment><USER15> My parents were the same way.

There was a very clear line drawn, and we knew the consequences for crossing it, thus we didn't (too often at least).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary evidence. I'm not seeing any.

Here's a quick counterpoint that speaks to the "norm": Almost to a man, every sports icon I can think of cites the influence of parents in their lives. (I'm talking real icons here, not T.O. types that happen to be gifted.)

I'm not ready to accept this theory without significant evidence.

<comment><USER5> Why do you think that sports icons know anything about what influenced their lives?

<comment><USER16> Why do you think they don't?

They are at the top of their game. The effect of years of passion, skill and above all, hard work. Pretty much exactly like an entrepreneur. One would think that along the way they have been able to surmise and account for many of the things that got them there.

I've yet to see one that doesn't have extremely dedicated and supportive parents, notably fathers.

<comment><USER5> I suspect they usually don't because human psychology is non-obvious, and most of them don't spend much time learning about psychology.

I think you will agree with me that even many experts make large mistakes in their views on human psychology, as the linked guy has done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The point of the article is kind of subtle. The research is pointing out that _excluding genetic factors_ , parents don't really matter. So parents do matter in the sense that they are the gene providers but not in the sense that they are the jean providers.</comment>


Astronomers discover there are 10 times more galaxies than previously thought - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/10/13/13269254/10-times-more-galaxies <comment><USER2> So 2 trillion galaxies. Now let's multiply that by 1 trillion stars in the milky way galaxy alone [1]. And then multiply by 1.6 planets per star on average [2]. Sure is a whole lot of planets.

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-sten-odenwald/number-of- sta...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-sten-odenwald/number-of-stars-in-the- milky-way_b_4976030.html) [2] [http://www.space.com/14200-160-billion-alien- planets-milky-g...](http://www.space.com/14200-160-billion-alien-planets- milky-galaxy.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Does this change our theories around dark matter? If there is more observable matter does it mean there is less or no dark matter?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEbLT_U0XyY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEbLT_U0XyY)

Shows the history of Galaxy observation via HST and the latest news.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> arXiv.org paper: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1607.03909v2.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1607.03909v2.pdf)</comment>


10 cool Safari Extensions worth installing - <AUTHOR> http://www.edibleapple.com/10-cool-safari-extensions-worth-installing/ <comment><USER2> There's the chrome adblock extension that is safari-enabled now too: [https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gighmmpiobklfepj...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom)

It doesn't look like there's a binary you can just install yet, but if you grab a (free) Safari Extension Developer certificate from <http://developer.apple.com/safari/> you can build/install it yourself. It seems nicer than the old SIMBL adblock stuff, and will presumably be kept fresh because it's used by Chrome users too.

I'm still looking for a "keyword in location bar -> expand an URL" extension. E.g., typing "wiki foobar" in the location bar expands it to "<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/foobar> automatically. Is there one of those for Safari 5 yet?

<comment><USER3> <http://safariadblock.com/>

He packaged it up when he got back from WWDC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've just ported OnePage from Chrome to Safari, give it a try here:

[http://blog.libinpan.com/SafariExtensions/HackerNews/HackerN...](http://blog.libinpan.com/SafariExtensions/HackerNews/HackerNews.safariextz)

<http://j.mp/hn4safari>

Hope you will like it. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER5> Sadly Safari 5 inhibits SafariTabs which is a SIMBL based plugin (<http://stuconnolly.com/projects/safaritabs/>).

Any idea on how a similar feature can be made available on Safari 5 (which I love for his "reader" feature).

(edited for grammar)

<comment><USER6> It doesn't look possible right now. I've looked through the extension docs ([http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/Tool...](http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/Tools/Conceptual/SafariExtensionGuide/)), and the overall architecture is very similar to Chrome's. Safari extensions are essentially user scripts with a limited API for access to the UI and user data; if Apple doesn't provide an API hook for a given UI feature, the extension can't touch it. SafariTabs would be possible to implement if Safari fired events when tabs and windows are closed, but it currently doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are Safari extensions starting to increase dramatically in number now? If so is it because of Safari 5?

<comment><USER8> Safari 5 actually introduced support for extensions. They were not possible before. What was possible before were plug-ins, but they were and are unsupported by Apple, and required coding in Objective-C instead of HTML and JavaScript, which more people know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can i use extensions in webkit nightly or just safari 5?

Cool extensions btw, love the gmail checker.

<comment><USER10> WebKit Nightly is only a wrapper to make Safari use newer build of WebKit, you still need Safari 5 installed for extensions.</comment></comment>


How to Write Computer Programs - <AUTHOR> http://www.civilized.com/programming.html

<comment><USER2> Please add "(1995)" to the title.</comment>


MySQL: Choose Something Else - <AUTHOR> http://grimoire.ca/mysql/choose-something-else <comment><USER2> Bravo! How have I never read this article. Every single one of these points, plus:

1) It's INSANE handling of GROUP BY. In any other RDBMS, a GROUP BY that is missing non-aggregated fields in the result set of the query would throw an error, but MySQL just lets it fly defaulting to some random ass behavior that will return garbage 100% of the time.

2) It was mentioned that it lacks Windowing Functions, which is a HUGE miss, but it also lacks native Recursive Views. The workaround is some horrid mess of self referring variables. Why Recursive views, a T-SQL standard that is in nearly every other adult RDBMS, is lacking here is beyond me. (I know it's not a T-SQL standard database by design, which is just another nail in it's coffin if you ask me.)

I was just reading through a very lengthy StackOverflow question where the poor schmuck was trying to migrate from MSSQL to MySQL to save money. Noone at her shop, including her, had heard of Postgres. It's free. It's been around a hell of a long time. There is a huge community that uses it. And it's T-SQL based. It's just 100% better.

MySQL is some Kool-Aid that we should all just put down and back away from.

<comment><USER3> T-SQL is Microsoft (and Sybase, from whom they bought it) specific implementation. I think you just mean "Standard SQL" everywhere you say "T-SQL".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> MySQL is free and has been since its inception. Most developers will always choose (free + good enough) over $10K-per-installation licenses for functionally complete solutions. The same is true of PHP.

<comment><USER5> Postgres?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5122299](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5122299)

</comment><comment><USER7> This write-up is at least three years old.

<comment><USER2> And MySQL is still a poor choice.

<comment><USER7> That may very well be true, but I think the author of this article and other MySQL skeptics would be surprised by how far MariaDB 10.1 has come in addressing these limitations and others since the bygone days of MySQL 5.5.</comment></comment></comment>


Elephant intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_intelligence

<comment><USER2> Interesting article. I went on a real animal intelligence kick a few years ago when I read Eugene Linden's _The Octopus and the Orangutan_. The books full of fascinating stories of animal emotion, intelligence, and tool use. (My personal favorite was the Orangutan who learned how to pick the lock on his cage and kept the improvised pick he used secreted behind his bottom lip, thus allowing him to escape several times before handlers got wise to what he was doing.)

On a separate note, Wikipedia may have its flaws, but it certainly excels at giving accessible, digested information on pretty much every conceivable topic. This is a perfect example of that: a complex topic adequately summed up in a few digital pages.

<comment><USER3> Brilliant beast! Wonder if my local liberry has the book (a library card is highly recommended to you frugal, bootstrapping types as the cheapest entertainment).

Regarding Wikipedia, I agree. I'm disappointed by the behind-the-scenes manipulation and gamesmanship, but believe the sort of topics I tend to be interested in are less likely to be manipulated.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. As in so many things, the strongest and weakest elements of Wikipedia are both the human element. Of course, with Wikipedia, that's a pretty big element . . .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I sincerely wish that humans leave the intelligent gentle animals to live their life happily.

<comment><USER5> I think the article about the young male elephants that went on a killing spree, brutally ripping apart entire hurds, their own family, siblings, infants, in an uncontrollable rage is relevant here. Link anyone? Of course this example further shows that they are indeed quite similar to us in basic psychology.

<comment><USER6> I don't know what article you mean, but read this:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?p...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?pagewanted=print)

Long, but fascinating.

The rampages you're talking about have been linked to elephant culling. Elephants grow up in structured societies, where older elephants teach younger ones proper behavior. Because of culling (a sterile word, if ever there was one!) and the elimination of older elephants, younger members of the herd (1) have not had the chance to learn proper behavior, and (2) suffer traumatic grief early in life. Hence the rampages. Very humanlike, indeed. (Lord of the Flies, anyone?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love elephants. That's what made it hard for me to read this last week: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7262951.stm> I'm going through a Frans de Waal-fueled chimp phase, too, and the news for them isn't much better. Same for dolphins. Damned naked apes.

</comment><comment><USER8> I find it particularly interesting that they have death rituals.

<comment><USER9> Smaller animals have a death ritual: Being blown away with the wind.

<comment><USER8> I would have upmodded you; I thought this was a poignant observation.</comment></comment></comment>


Why A.I. Researchers at Google Got Desks Next to the Boss - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/technology/ai-researchers-desks-boss.html?hpw&rref=business&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well <comment><USER2> It is hard to express how much this story reads like a submarine: [http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

Particularly, there seems nothing super newsworthy here, in terms of the fact that normally speaking, internal arrangement of a workplace office doesn't make the New York Times. But if one of the aforementioned three companies is pushing the AI buzz, dropping the names of Silicon Valley's top executives in a piece like this seems pretty much the stock way to do it.

Google in particular has revamped it's entire imagine and identity as a company around being "an AI company".

It's hard to imagine where this article originated from other than a PR firm.

<comment><USER3> Almost all "news" articles fit this description. Some of them are just more clever at concealing the sponsor.

<comment><USER4> Look at the NYT front page at some random moment. What ratio of stories plausibly fit this description? Right now I'm having trouble finding one out of >25.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Brings back memories of Plus team all being close to leadership at Google... this is more of an ego thing for leadership and the lucky few deemed to be the most important.

If the "most important" were really seated next to leadership at Google it should be Adwords team.

<comment><USER6> While I can't speak to the exact climate at Google, to me it's more about igniting teams and showing focus.

Friends at Tesla, FB, and other have mentioned this happening when a company is moving into new frontiers or needing to drastically improve certain product areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Counterpoint, just for the heck of it :-)

How awful! One would expect the vicinity of high-level managers to have a lot of activity... people walking in and out for discussions, visitors throughout the day, high-level management walking around potentially asking questions which might pull a researcher out from 3-levels deep problem solving! Maybe what researchers need are comfortable working environment (desks, chairs, boards, discussion rooms) and the right amount of stimulation -- maybe a few discussions with colleagues to spark ideas, and not too much generally distracting bustle.

My only point is that it is far from obvious whether this seating arrangement is beneficial.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why on earth would yo want to sit next to the "boss"?!

<comment><USER9> You hope to become a boss in time to watch the corporate reorg in which the scenario will have you as the boss, and your brainchild AI as the AI researcher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kind of reminds me of this old HBR article on a similar topic

[https://hbr.org/2012/02/does-it-matter-where-your- top](https://hbr.org/2012/02/does-it-matter-where-your-top)

which had a link to this interesting paper

[http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0014279)</comment>


Netscape Internet Service - <AUTHOR> https://isp.netscape.com/ <comment><USER2> Why does this exist? What's the story? Is it on autopilot? Does Verizon maintain it to keep up trademarks? Is there some legal weirdness like "Universal Service Fund" that compels Verizon to do this?

</comment><comment><USER3> We're sorry, this website is not available in the European Union Please try one of our sites that is available such as:

CompuServe Home</comment>


Death - <AUTHOR> http://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/death/content/class-sessions <comment><USER2> Confirms my prejudice that studying maths and economics is much more worthwhile than philosophy. (Edit: I have only read chapter 23, which is concerned with choices and values - really, game theory and economics give you much better insights here, with fewer words).

<comment><USER3> That's not very fair. "Worthwhile" can be judged in lots of ways. I agree that math and economics are very practical, but that doesn't mean philosophy is without value.

I was a very interested in philosophy in college, and if I had chosen anything other than CompSci, that probably would have become my major. I have a lot of respect for people exploring metaphysical questions. While it's easy to dismiss them as "non-practical", I can't think ill of people who try to seek underlying meaning behind the day-to-day sciences/morality/etc. and improve our understanding of truth and logic.

Those questions are really far harder than the ones I tackle day-to-day or even in my highest math/CS studies. I still feel like a wimp sometimes for not trying to attack "deeper" questions and paradoxes.

In a sense, philosophy asks questions that all the sciences, ultimately, try to get us closer to answering. I don't think there's as much glory in asking the questions, but there's still a whole lot of them to ask.

That being said, I understand your position entirely. Had I become an engineer without being introduced to philosophy first, everything there (sans the logic/fallacy discussions) would seem impractical. Now I see it as a fundamental that helped to start most of the major branches of science, and keeps growing discussion around some of the tougher problems we've yet to solve.

<comment><USER4> Most philosophy questions are a result of language not abstract ideas. When someone says something 'blue boy dry kite' you try and extract meaning so when encountering an idea that lacks meaning you still try and parse it. Some words even imply a world view that could be wrong. So: Q: What is ethics in a random universe? A: They are not compatible concepts. (In other words the question is wrong.)

PS: As to the few big questions like life after death there is nothing in philosophy that let's you tackle such questions.

<comment><USER3> Philosophy (as I see it) is about asking big questions before science has a good answer. It's not about _tackling_ questions as much as it is about posing questions and testing possible answers with logic before experiments or empirical evidence are available. Saying it has something to do with language parsing really sounds like a misguided generalization from some discussions.

For an example nearer to a hacker's heart, take the "brain-in-a-vat" concept: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat>

While science can't simulate this (well) for someone we can ask quite yet, I believe there's value in thinking about the implications of a fully simulated reality. This discussion was more or less started in the 1600's before we had any sort of technology that could remotely get us near to this. We still can't explore it yet, but it's a valid question and it's an important discussion on subjective reality.

I think it's very healthy and productive for people to ask and explore deeper questions about reality. To pretend that you can't study things without experiments is taking the scientific method. True, experimental evidence is required (in my mind and for most educated folks in our era) to confirm or disprove even the most well-founded theories. Still, there is a very abundant space of theories that are nearly impossible to prove. I feel there's value in discussing them, building conceptual models, and reasoning about them before science is ready.

<comment><USER2> Stuff like "brain in a vat" is exactly why I dismiss most philosophy. Where is the reference to that possibility in the lecture that was posted here? If we (or one of us) is just a brain in a vat, surely it would have a lot of implications for the value of life?

I think "brain in a vat" only makes a stronger case for mathematics. After all, in the end what else but information and it's transformation matters? Everything else can be stripped away. And stuck with pure information, I think we are talking maths.

<comment><USER5> Amusing that you dismiss philosophy in the first paragraph and then go right ahead and engage in it in the second.

<comment><USER2> Yes, as probably becomes evident from my other posts, I am just disappointed by the shallowness of most philosophy out there. In the sense that I consider mathematics to be philosophy, of course I accept it. I just don't like that almost all non-mathematical philosophy texts I have encountered start from invalid assumptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does the Yale philosophy department have a "Taxes" course, as well?

<comment><USER7> Certainly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dying is easy to understand, and you won't fail to accomplish it. Living well on the other hand...

<comment><USER9> "well"

Dying is not easy to understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What about the "Hacking Death" lecture? I'd really love to find a cool hack to make death a little more palatable ;-)

<comment><USER11> I think the 60's discovered a few.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 27\. Parrots, and

<comment><USER13> could someone enlighten us as to what this means?

<comment><USER14> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Parrot>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thank you. This is the most thoughtful and really mind expanding thing I have read in months.

I notice a lot of commentary on lecture 23. Skip that. Read 16 onward. The meat of this whole thing is his really long treatment of the questions of why we fear death, what it is we fear, what about death is so bad, and what that suggests about how we should LIVE.

These are not new concepts, but it is easy to try to ignore them.

</comment><comment><USER16> Most Philosophy departments have something like this, although with more wordy names. At Rutgers, there was (01:730:371) Philosophies of Death and Dying.

[http://catalogs.rutgers.edu/generated/nb- ug_current/pg20657....](http://catalogs.rutgers.edu/generated/nb- ug_current/pg20657.html#82082)

<comment><USER17> Yeah, and at Rutgers I think this is usually a summer class taught by a grad student and taken by nonmajors trying to fulfill a requirement. Probably for good reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> -1 off topic

<comment><USER19> I don't think this is necessarily true, but in this case I'd agree with you. This link utterly fails to _convince_ me that it's on topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A major philosophical problem with death is that its character changes dramatically depending on what happens afterward, and nobody knows what does happen, which makes the whole topic rather difficult to evaluate. The best we can do is to study how death's approach affects our lives, which has more to do with our attitudes toward it and what we _think_ will happen.

If there's no afterlife, death is to be hated intensely, but not feared at all, because no unpleasant experience will come from death itself, though the prelude may be terrible. In fact, the great casualty of materialism is not death but aging. Death becomes neutral, while aging becomes terrible, pointless, and ultimately disgusting. The fact that we're aging from the first moment of life makes materialism especially horrifying. No offense to the atheist materialists here, but I'd become severely depressed if I thought materialism were the case, because the omnipresence and inevitability of eventual bodily failure are rarely far from my mind.

If there is an afterlife, death is not to be hated, and possibly to be loved, but it _is_ to be feared, because it marks a transition into a sort of existence we know nothing about. Many atheists who have near-death experiences describe an initial, liminal point of awareness, surprise, and fear. They anticipated eternal sleep in death, and yet experience a moment of awareness while being "dead", and this is shocking to them.

So it seems like exactly one of these two attitudes-- hatred, fear-- is appropriate for death. It seems like very few people can sustain the sort of metaphysical confidence that would prevent them from having one of these two attitudes; I think it's psychologically difficult to keep perfect faith. Death could be hated _and_ feared by a person who anticipated a negative afterlife, but few people anticipate such a fate for themselves, and indeed this scenario seems far more unlikely than any of the alternatives (namely, a positive afterlife such as heaven, a neutral-positive one such as rebirth, or the dismal but ultimately neutral scenario of annihilation).

</comment><comment><USER21> You gotta figure something's gone horribly wrong if you're still reading Plato for _anything_.

Anyone got some decent resources to wash away the taste of fail?

<comment><USER22> You're right. Classics are _such_ a waste of time. Let's throw out Ovid, Homer, Dante, Bach, and Mozart while we're at it.

<comment><USER23> You're comparing oranges to apples, and depreciating philosophy, which is more science than art. No one seriously discusses papers of guys who believed odd scientific theories from XVI.

<comment><USER22> My point is that, even if you dismiss those works as having little scientific value, they have great literary value as well.

<comment><USER23> So, their place would be in the literature courses, not philosophy ones.

<comment><USER22> You're still not getting it. What I'm saying is that Plato's works have both philosophical and literary value. Even if you dispute the first, there is still the second. I'm not sure why this is would mean moving them from philosophy to literature courses (or why those should be mutually exclusive in the first place).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Future No Longer Works the Way We Thought It Did - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/12/predictability_is_going_through_some_unpredictable_changes.html <comment><USER2> "The future isn't what it used to be" ;)</comment>


Hey Google When did I ask you to read my purchase details - <AUTHOR> https://kanoki.org/2019/01/01/data-privacy/ <comment><USER2> > We are living in a scary world and I DO NOT want someone to use my personal > data to grow their business or run analytics without my consent.

Site has Google ads that are tailored using Google's analytics, so site owner IS profiting off of visitors' personal data.

<comment><USER3> You cannot make more than few cents using Google Adsense. You are being rude here. He is sharing a credible information here. With the adsense amount I'm pretty sure he can't buy coffee also..get it right?

<comment><USER4> Then why use it at all? Would you sell out your beliefs for a cup of coffee?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anecdotal, but when I visit my mom, I make sure we sit down to make sure she's being safe on the internet. Last time I visited, I used that link to double check she knows what she's subscribed to. To her and my surprise, I found a second Netflix account with 4 people on it under her email (but fortunately not her credit card). Looks like someone with a similar first and last name accidentally used her email for the account. I cancelled the account, but it's concerning that Netflix never sent a confirmation email to make sure they actually owned that email.

<comment><USER6> Maybe your mom saw the email, thought it's for her for whatever reason, and hit "Confirm E-Mail"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > During a Census (the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording > information about the members of a given population) I willingly share my > personal details such as Name, Age, Gender, Employment Status, Salary > details to the agency so that they can take a better decision in providing > the government schemes and services like how many new roads to be built, > Town Planning, Employment Generation etc.

If you don't willingly the government can compel you to by force. The census is not a good example of voluntary information giving which is why its questions are a contentious political issue.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ok, that's is strange! Thank you for this! On the list you can check the little (!) icon and find out, how google got the information. In my case two order items was extracted directly from gmail.

<comment><AUTHOR> The bigger question is why Google is reading and extracting this data from my email id? I don't feel safe and secure. God knows what else they are reading from my mailbox.

<comment><USER9> (disclaimer: My opinions are solely my own and not that of my employer.)

If you are a merchant, there are standards for sending package/order information in a machine-readable way in email:

[https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/overview](https://developers.google.com/gmail/markup/overview)

The purpose is to provide personalized useful features like package tracking. When logged in, you can search for something like "my packages" or "where are my packages". This is a feature that users expect from other assistants (e.g. Amazon Alexa) and email clients (e.g. Outlook).

[https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1710607](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1710607)

The categories that are being extracted for personalized search should be fairly limited (primarily hotels, flights, online purchases).

If you don't feel safe or secure using Google products, you should strongly consider switching away. I personally would suggest Outlook.com, but you could also self-host or use an indie hosting provider like FastMail.

(Most product folks make trade-offs for the average person. There are some great security tech coming out of Google (Security Keys, Chromebooks/Chrome OS) but a lot of the security assumes at least moderate trust in Google.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm fairly certain everyone with a gmail account, agreed to this behavior, I think its unnerving to see it categorized like this, they haven't been underhanded about this (not to say companies haven't been underhanded), or hiding it in anyway.

Too many people seem to skip reading what they are agreeing to, and then get upset when the company does what they agreed to allow them to.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've closed my google account (and moved to proton) because I noticed this "feature". Of course, the positions are disappearing once mail gets deleted but google didn't ask me if I want this or had my permission to fetch data and prepare such list, not mention I don't find it in any way useful.

</comment><comment><USER12> I saw that today and though the same thing, looks like they are getting it from email but I do wish I could limit what I let google link to these kinda things.

<comment><USER13> Stop using Gmail and they won't have the data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Valve and gog.com usually don't release sales data, but Google surely knows.</comment>


Nancy - a lightweight web framework for .net - <AUTHOR> http://nancyfx.org/

<comment><USER2> Maybe it's the half-Italian in me...but I love the framework trend for Rat Pack and Co. allusions.</comment>


1960s Visionary Film "The Home of the Future: Year AD 1999" With Wink Martindale - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RRxqg4G-G4 <comment><AUTHOR> A retrospective interview with Wink Martindale:

[https://vimeo.com/15063245](https://vimeo.com/15063245)</comment>


Soundboy – My talk from YC startup school (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://soundboy.tumblr.com/post/93314139065/my-talk-from-yc-startup-school <comment><USER2> I used to be in this space as well, and I'm trying to figure out who Ian is referring to in this quote " remember being terrified by a competitor to Songkick that launched while we were only just getting started. They rapidly grew to millions of users."?

I'm thinking maybe BandsInTown, but I always looked at SongKick as the guys who were leading in the space.</comment>


Scientists Watch as Heat Moves at the Speed of Sound - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-watch-as-heat-moves-at-the-speed-of-sound/ <comment><USER2> This is so strange. Just 2 days ago I realised that although excessive sound production is usually a symptom of a machine that is not working properly, if a machine is designed to produce sound to dissipate energy, that energy would not be converted into heat within the machine. The energy is carried away at the speed of sound.

I have been thinking about using a similar process to make a "middle of the room" air conditioner that creates a localised cold spot, and sends the heat absorbed out of the room through the walls and into the surrounding atmosphere using low frequency pressure waves.

All of these processes are likely related, and macroscopic systems based on these principles almost seem magical.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious if the numbers work out to yield you anything within the galaxy of useful.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that's the actual question and probably a reason why it's not an established technique

Also, low-frequency waves naturally are lower energy. Why not bury the output and increase the frequency?

It would have the added benefit of supposedly keeping away ground-dwelling pests; _supposedly_.

<comment><USER5> >> low-frequency waves naturally are lower energy

Just to be clear here: are they really? Sound waves have an amplitude which also defines the amount of energy they contain.

<comment><USER6> Sound waves also have a maximum amplitude (without distortion) because the minimum of the pressure wave can't be below atmospheric pressure. Although Wikipedia indicates that maximum is quite loud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As I understood the article, in one part of the experiment they set up alternate regions of heat and cold within a sample of graphite using interference patterns from two laser sources. When they turned off the lasers, instead of the hot regions dispersing their energy until the troughs were the same temperature, the hot regions "overshot", becoming cooler than the (former) troughs, with wave-like behaviour.

This seems to me like energy is momentarily flowing from a cooler region (the former "peaks") to a hotter area (the former "troughs").

Would a Real Physicist be kind enough to explain to me why this doesn't violate the 2nd law? Probably the answer is "you misunderstood".

<comment><USER8> Not a "Real Physicist" but the information is not being lost, it's only being kept static-ish. This is the same as that waves don't violate the 2nd law (it's telling that they being called the phenomenon second sound.)

> The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of an > isolated system can never decrease over time.

So instead of entropy increasing, it's hanging around for a while. No violation, still unusual though.

<comment><USER9> Heat often correlates with entropy, but they are not the same thing. Increasing heat doesn't always mean increasing entropy.

<comment><USER10> I'd highly recommend Arieh Ben-Naim's books on entropy for anyone looking for more on this point.

TLDR he makes the argument that entropy is a measure of the probability of probability distributions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So the effect was known for a long time, and the new development is that it was now observed at higher temperatures. But 120 K is still pretty cold, so it doesn't really matter much for practical applications.

<comment><USER12> Depending on the concentration of defects and the length scale of the system, theory suggests that it may be possible to observe second sound at much higher temperatures beyond 120 K.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is the arxiv version of the Science paper mentioned in the article: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.09160](https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.09160).

</comment><comment><USER13> This is the theory of phonons: pseudo particles which transfer heat in materials.

</comment><comment><USER14> Asking because it's an interesting phenomenon and I don't know enough to understand the question I'm putting forth:

If conductive heat is radiated through quanta, phonons[0], why would it be limited to the speed of sound? Is there a limitation to waveforms in matter that limits the speed at which it travels or is it purely dependent on the energy "type"? (Thinking of light travelling in waveform, when I posit this, which is the reason the ridiculous ask.)

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonon#Acoustic_and_optical_ph...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonon#Acoustic_and_optical_phonons)

<comment><USER12> Long wavelength phonons are the familiar sound waves. Smaller wavelength phonons have different group velocities due to dispersion.

The speed of second sound is not the same speed of first sound. The speed of second sound is essentially determined by a weighted contribution of the different of speeds of the different phonon modes that collectively participate to produce a temperature wave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The effect appears at 120 Kelvin, or -240°F, so the article's assertion that this could revolutionize microelectronics seems like a stretch

<comment><USER16> Right, and the article says you wouldn't need to do it at "cryogenic" temperatures. I thought this was funny: "Nobody ever thought that you would actually be able to do this at such high temperatures."

<comment><USER17> -150℃ is almost halfway up to ambient temperature though, so it halves the energy requirement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A quick first impression question: how important is the laser interference? Could you do this with a multi-centimeter graphite rod, by heating one end?

<comment><USER12> Laser interference is not required. The original second sound measurements in superfluid Helium used a geometry similar to the one you describe, where a heat source (as a pulse or periodic in time) is positioned at one end and the temperature is recorded at some point(s) along the sample.</comment></comment>


Pentagon conducts first test of previously banned missile - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/a21db991b4004d14a40c6d095ad9dda5 <comment><USER2> "The U.S. military has conducted a flight test of a type of missile banned for more than 30 years by a treaty that both the United States and Russia abandoned this month, the Pentagon said".

No not all all, the US arbitrarily abandoned the treaty. It's to do with the US trying to distract from economic and social problems at home by picking a fight with someone, anyone.

</comment><comment><USER3> >He disputed the notion that abandoning the INF treaty will spark an arms race.

>"I don't see an arms race happening here," he told reporters on the day Washington and Moscow withdrew from the treaty. "Russia has been racing, if anybody, to develop these systems in violation of the treaty, not us."

Umm, that sounds exactly like an arms race.</comment>


Why the Japanese stock market has done so badly - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/jamessurowiecki/2008/10/theres-a-reason.html

<comment><USER2> Think it might have something to do with the "Hodo Hodo" generation?

[http://www.careerjournal.com/article/SB122548483530388957.ht...](http://www.careerjournal.com/article/SB122548483530388957.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Please. Disdain for shareholder value does not lead to incredibly low profitability. There are several examples of US companies who put shareholders last and still do extremely well (P&G comes to mind).

The primary problem of Japan's economy is lack of competition. In the US and Europe, exclusive contracts are illegal. In Japan, they are the norm. In Japan, the standard growth tactic in new product spaces is to gain market share as quickly as possible. Often at a loss. Then once a (small) group of companies collected up a critical mass, they would lock in some customers with exclusive long term contracts and segregate the contracts. Middle men are rampant. Export/Import controls are rampant, protecting the inefficient domestic companies from foreign competition.

Japan has a two tier economy. The extremely efficient export economy, efficient because it must compete internationally, and the extremely inefficient import economy. Inefficient because, for the most part, it does not even has to compete domestically.

</comment><comment><USER4> Japan has long been a "two tier" economy. They have a handful of world class corporations that do very well, but most of the domestic economy is actually extremely inefficient businesses.

<comment><USER5> This observation runs quite deep. This two-tier economy is the price Japan paid for its export obsession and its long post-war tradition of mercantalist trade policies (export good, import bad ...)

Here is approximately how it happened: Japan exported heavily, piling up trade surpluses. Eventually the currency appreciated sharply (250 yen to dollar in 1980 to 100 yen to dollar by 1990), making Japan a first-world nation in terms of per-capita GDP. Yet, Japan's overall economic structure wasn't and still isn't as balanced as more mature industrial economies like Germany.

Imagine a kid who has been trained and trained from age 4 to be a world-class chess player (with no exposure to anything else). He/she could achieve world- champion chess player at 25, but would be a highly imbalanced individual. Japan's economic story in a nutshell.

You can see this when you travel to Japan: their service sector productivity sucks. Over-staffing is rampant. As a society they have chosen to redistribute the enormous surplus from exports to sustain inefficient employment in a lot of far-less-than-world-class businesses. Their totally undeveloped software sector shows the real cost of their mercantalism. Their woefully tiny housing (NOT to be attributed to population - Singapore has higher population density, has lower per-capita GDP than Japan, yet Singaporeans enjoy larger apartments and overall live better than the Japanese) is an everyday reminder of the cost.

On balance Japan has done fine, but considering that they are the hardest working people on the planet, they could have lived better, and could live better today, if they hadn't developed that export obsession. They gifted the rest of the world a lot of their hard work, while denying themselves those fruits.

As an outsider, I can't complain, I love my Japanese luxury car ;)

<comment><USER6> I think some of this rampant over-staffing is more cultural than the product of a funny economic buildup. If you've been to other Asian countries, you'll see people doing ridiculous jobs (sidenote: many people in Taiwan have someone else wash their hair, there are people who have never washed their own hair before and don't know how).

Also the second to last paragraph is so true. Japanese people are somewhat crazy about their savings. They tend not to invest but instead put it in banks (sometimes at rates below inflation).

<comment><USER7> _"... Japanese people are somewhat crazy about their savings. They tend not to invest but instead put it in banks ..."_

Maybe because they are more experienced with an older culture. It makes sense to have cash in hand with larger, older populations. You can see the consequences of not doing this reading the quote below...

 _"... the deteriorating financial condition of our federal government in the face of skyrocketing health-care costs and the baby-boom retirement could fairly be described as a super-subprime crisis ..."_

This is the reality of US retirees who will hit the US economy very soon ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=351351>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> japan has simply been in a secular bear market. we are now in one too.

the distinguishing difference will be why their bear has been more mild than ours will be...because they started theirs as the world's largest creditor...we have started ours as history's greatest debtor</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News Lock Screen features trending stories from HN front page - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hackernews.lockscreen <comment><USER2> I like the idea of seeing the latest news on my lockscreen. I hope you won't start inserting ads! :)

I'm used to unlock my phone with pin code. I see it only supports patterns.

Also custom feeds would be a great addition.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> We already support pattern unlock, if there are requests for pin unlock, it'll be really easy to integrate it. Custom feeds is on our roadmap. Sometimes in the near future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've got something going on that is forcing a pattern, pin, or password for stock lockdown...

Also doesn't look like weird DPI is handled.

I like the idea ahs would be near I reckon, Good luck ;)</comment>


As the Jeffrey Epstein Case Grows More Grotesque, NYC and DC Brace for Impact - <AUTHOR> https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque <comment><USER2> How did this article miss name-dropping George Stephanapolis? I've read his name elsewhere associated with Epstein.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also absent, Ehud Barak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It sounds like SFO needs to brace for impact as well...</comment>


We're students combining AI and Adblockers (and want you to take a quick survey) - <AUTHOR> https://umdsurvey.umd.edu/jfe/form/SV_5mVKdNp4AvwRAMJ <comment><USER2> This is a fascinating subject that people can leverage in multiple industries! Good luck!</comment>


Spotify – Large Scale, Low Latency, P2P Music-on-Demand Streaming [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.csc.kth.se/~gkreitz/spotify-p2p10/spotify-p2p10.pdf <comment><USER2> Are ISPs okay with organizations using P2P to offload their bandwidth requirements to clients?

[http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/02/cnn-p2p-video- stream...](http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/02/cnn-p2p-video-streaming- tech-raises-questions.ars)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I understand - the data has to come from somewhere, and go somewhere. If both endpoints are on the same last-mile ISP, the ISP wins because there's less traffic to and from peers, so their peering costs are lower. Other than that, why would it matter if the data came from a central server or from some other PC?

<comment><USER2> I agree that if the end points are inside the ISP, it's good.

But peering is different from transit; peering is a delicate relationship where ISPs route traffic to each other for "free", as long as the demands are not too asymmetric. If this software results in a lot of traffic generated from a peering ISP, then it could be causes of worry for the receiving ISP.

<comment><USER3> But the "receiving" ISP is only receiving the data because its users asked for it. It doesn't make a difference if the data comes from a Spotify server or from a PC. It's still the same amount of data being transferred.

<comment><USER4> Receiving data over a transit connection may be more expensive than from a CDN. In DOCSIS networks, P2P also tends to introduce last-mile upstream congestion which is expensive to fix.

<comment><USER5> The last mile problem is presumably exasperated by P2P users being mostly consumers, rather than businesses, and therefore paying next to nothing for the connections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The very fact that the Spotify team was willing to publish this paper demonstrates how confident they are in their offering. Spotify is (albeit at a high level of abstraction) telling competitors exactly how its service works! They're begging Amazon and Google and Apple and the likes to copy their model. Those are some cojones.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great paper.</comment>


Review my startup: RegistryStop, a centralized wedding registry - <AUTHOR> http://www.registrystop.com Registry Stop grew out of my frustrations with the wedding registry process. During the process managing multiple in store registries, getting duplicate items, and just the problem of dealing with sales people became quickly frustrating. We created Registry Stop to allow couples to not worry about which stores they registered at, instead they only have to focus on the products they want. As a result we let users register anywhere, meanwhile we show their guests where they can find the best price.
http://www.registrystop.com
Our goal was to make adoption and use as simple as possible for users. Whether they started with us, or used us later into the process we wanted it to take no more than a few seconds for them to be fully ramped up on us. If they start with us, they have the ability to download an iPhone app and begin scanning barcodes immediately. If they've already registered at an existing store we search and find their registry for them, then import all of that data.
We'd love any feedback on any areas people are willing to offer up. In particular: - If the message is clear - If the signup and adding process is clear - Styling for the target market (weddings) <comment><USER2> Cool idea.. I really dig the site design, looks professional yet still light- hearted.

As far as suggestions, I was a little underwhelmed with the 'Example Registry' section. Really didn't show a lot of the features you have available. I would suggest more items in the registry, and maybe a screenshot of the mobile app in action.

Also, without delving into the FAQ there is no easy way to determine the cost of the service. I had no idea that it was free at first, and just assumed you took a cut of online sales, had a processing fee for each purchase, etc. I would definitely put some more info about the associated costs (or lack thereof) more prominently on the main page.

Otherwise, looks sweet! Hope it goes well for you! One cool moneymaking idea here might be using Amazon Associates to get referral $ from amazon items (or let the couple use their own amazon associates account). Not sure if that would work with their TOS but it would be more $ for you...

<comment><USER3> We already add affiliate links for Amazon (and other stores). That's the primary business model. Thanks for the feedback though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It might also be helpful if you search Amazon or Google Product Search and show me where I can buy the registered items at places other than the registered stores. Reversing that idea, you could allow someone to add an item from any website on the Internet, and then automatically add the item to the existing registries.

Here are some design-related suggestions:

\- The Example Registry does not load properly in IE8.

\- In the slider at the top of the homepage, I think it would be easier to read the text if it was left justified.

\- The text on the site is hard to read in general. Try increasing the line- height to the font size plus 4 pixels.

\- There are many spelling and grammatical errors throughout the website. For example, on the homepage, "whereever" should be "wherever".

</comment><comment><USER5> cool idea, was going to implement something similar when i got married a few months ago but i couldn't think of an elegant way to confirm when a gift was actually purchased.

you pop up a window and ask the user if s/he bought the gift. not every user will see that. duplicate gifts are huge pain.

that said, there's definitely a need for this kind of site. the only site that does this right now is myregistry.com. you can certainly compete with them on usability/design.i'd focus on that. make your interface simpler and less cluttered.

<comment><USER6> The way I did it for my own wedding was to put unique registration codes on invitations so that people could login to respond to the invitation, see the gift registry and then lock in a gift that they had or were going to purchase. Guests also entered dietary and transport requirements so that we could easily export lists and spreadsheets for drivers, caterer, etc.

Everyone seemed to find it really straightforward and it wasn't that time- consuming to add unique codes to the invites manually (e.g., EN8A).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As I am sending out wedding invitations today, this is well timed. Looks like a great idea and I will try it out.

By the way - looks like a search and replace for form -> registerForm went awry. The sign up page has inregisterFormation in place of information.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's a good start. If you want to grow, I'd hire a UX/UI designer to tweak the layout.

</comment><comment><USER9> I ran this by a friend who is getting married soon. The following is a blend of her thoughts and mine. I don't mean to be harsh, but there were a lot of issue.

\- The interface and layout is too cluttered/busy. It's difficult to see what's going on. Color pattern is atrocious, and contrast is poor. The fonts are too small. \- In the Example Registry, she couldn't figure out how to use it. I can't imagine that anyone in the older generations would be able to figure out how to use it, assuming that they would be able to read it with the tiny font. There is no call to action telling the viewer what they can do with each item.

\- It's not at all stylish. A wedding registry in part reflects the bride's sense of style, and this would not make the cut for most of the brides-to-be that I know.

\- What's the value proposition? (Why should someone use this site?) Similar sites already exist from established players, and those associated with stores usually add a discount to items purchased from that store or their partners. Many of the biggest players allow you to import lists from other registries. Furthermore, if you use a wedding planner, absolutely all of this is handled by the planner with minimal fuss.

\- Why would someone care about automatic syncing, or a support community? What's the point of the mobile app? IOW, why are you making the tech features such a big selling point?

\- Do you actually sync with the individual stores' registries? If the user has to add each list, then what's the point of using your site? How are you getting around the TOS that some of these registries have?

\- When you say "Everything in one place" are you referring to the registry only, or to all the wedding stuff? A bride is likely to thing the latter, though you appear to mean the former. If you mean the former, see my first question.

\- How you do plan on making money?

\- Are you aware that most brides pick out their registry by going to a store, and using a special bar-code scanner to select the items they want? They do this because the items on their registry are usually carefully chosen, in person, after viewing and handling. How does your site work with this?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. I think several of your feedback points are things that we need to clarify to users, because we feel like there is definitely a significant value proposition to users. For example:

-Managing multiple registries at multiple stores is a pain. Automatic sync helps alleviate that headache.

-We allow people to add any item on the web or with a barcode. Now you can register for a random item at a random store without having to set up a whole registry there (if they even offer the option).

-We do price comparisons on each product. Other players just aggregate your registries, but don't detect that you might have the same exact mixer at Target and Bed Bath & Beyond. This way, we can show guests where the mixer is the cheapest -- you don't care where it comes from.

As far as making money, we use affiliate links for any product at stores with affiliate programs. Fortunately, Amazon tends to be cheapest for most products and has a good affiliate program.

Thanks again for the feedback.</comment></comment>


Amazon Echo and the Hot Tub Murder - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/amazon-echo-and-the-hot-tub-murder <comment><USER2> This is a dupe. This story was posted like 20 times in the last few days. Here are the most popular discussions...

* Police seek Amazon Echo data in murder case | Hacker News || [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263894)

* Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect's Echo recordings | Hacker News || [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13269930](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13269930)</comment>


Live fulltext search in Ruby on Rails - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zmok.net/articles/2008/07/10/live-fulltext-search-in-ruby-on-rails <comment><USER2> Word of warning: many in the Rails community believe Ferret/ActsAsFerret is totally unable to handle a production environment, even WITH distributed ruby.

You're probably better off with Acts_as_solr + Solr or Ultrasphinx + Sphinx. I personally can recommend Sphinx -- it's like nginx, very fast and Russian. =)

The syntax / setup process is similar to Acts as Ferret, only instead the search indexer / daemons are running Java (Solr, based on Lucene) and Sphinx (native).

Here's a great thread about it on ruby-forum.com: <http://www.ruby- forum.com/topic/137629>

<comment><USER3> I can second the recommendation for Ultrasphinx. Ferret is like a bad word in many Ruby development circles. I'm not a search expert, but I know some talented guys and they all say Sphinx is the way to go (even over Solr).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Everything depends on the use case. We use Ruby on Rails for prototyping. Thus we are not interested in high throughput, but in easy setup.</comment>


Why do we let hostile users dictate the perception of Stack Overflow? - <AUTHOR> http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/191089/why-do-we-let-hostile-users-dictate-the-perception-of-stack-overflow

<comment><USER2> This is a prime example of why Stack Overflow is well past its prime.

It started out as a community built to help others, but as the comments indicate they've gown into bitter, self obsessed reputation point hunters.

Heaven forbid someone new come in and ask a question without having gone to the very edge of the internet first because the mods and the user community there would rather close the question - with no comments - rather than help the new person or even just point them in the right direction.</comment>