Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/verizon-backs-ubuntu-smartphone-7000017954/ <comment><USER2> I'm bored by Ubuntu, much less the promise of a Ubuntu smartphone. I thought the appeal of Ubuntu was that it was a freedom-respecting but user-friendly alternative to Windows and Mac. Turn out, their Unity interface ships your desktop search results off to Amazon and tried to sell you something when searching for a program or a file on your system.

So, for a Ubuntu phone, at least on the privacy/respect front, it's no better than Android. Android has better support, has a ton of third party support and the weight of Google behind it. Can anyone explain why should I switch to a Ubuntu phone?

<comment><USER3> I think its killer feature is how it's an all-in-one OS. In you pocket, it's a smartphone; docked, it's a complete linux desktop environment.

<comment><USER2> I thought that was a feature for 'Ubuntu for Android' (a different product). I could be wrong, but I don't see that feature available under the 'Ubuntu Phone' list of features.

<comment><USER4> It's right here on the Ubuntu Phone homepage: [http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/operators-and- oems](http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/operators-and-oems)

<comment><USER5> Running a full unity desktop on your average smartphone would be dog slow. Looks like the idea is to use it to deliver thin client services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems a shame that the backing of a network operator is still required to successfully sell a hardware device in this day and age (especially in the US). It's like only being able to buy a Thinkpad if your broadband supplier will sell you one. I look forward to the day when most phones are not tied into contracts, but I think I may be waiting a long time.

<comment><USER7> Note that implicit in the deal is that the carrier provides support. You can take the phone to the store and ask questions, or call them. For faulty hardware they will replace it (warranty services). The carrier will typically also do insurance for those that want it. The consumer has an ongoing relationship with the carrier. It is hardly surprising phones mostly get bought that way.

There is no such relationship with the phone manufacturers or retailers, with the Apple exception, and even they depend on carriers. (You can fairly accurately predict Apple sales by how many carriers carry the devices.)

Note that being available on a carrier doesn't automatically lead to success (eg Blackberry and Nokia are available on about 3 times as many carriers as Apple is). However it is a prerequisite for getting a foot in the door.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The problem is that any Ubuntu phone that is released will likely be just as locked down and filled with bloatware as everything else with Verizon.

<comment><USER9> iPhone doesn't come with bloatware? Why couldn't Ubuntu pull that off as Apple has? Less bargaining leverage, I guess...

<comment><USER8> Well the iPhone didn't come to Verizon for years because Apple would not let Verizon put its bloatware on the phone. Verizon only caved because Apple sales were so strong. iPhone only comes with Apple software, you have to manually download any Verizon apps.

My parents both got Androids recently, and while you can "hide" the pre- installed bloatware you still can't delete it. It took me about 30 minutes to clean the phones of all the widgets and crapware.

As the newcomer, a Ubuntu phone really wouldn't have any bargaining power and would be as bad or worse than Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't like the way there are going with Network operators. Depending on a network operator is adding bloatware and less control, more fragmentation and hardware innovation.

Rather, How about they start a fund raising campaign or a Kickstarter - use a crowd-funding platform?

I will love to pay them.

Just to add: I'm mind blown after I switched to Ubuntu a year back. They already have numerous fans like me and Professional users, enterprises who trust them now, even the Server editions.

I would love to see Ubuntu grow independently! Go Ubuntu go, raise money, grow fast.

<comment><USER11> They really should. If a bunch of ex-Nokia employees can form Jolla, and not only create a device but create as much interest as they have for it, I don't see what's stopping Ubuntu.

It's fairly easy these days to get a Chinese company to assemble any type of hardware for you, if you can commit do a decent sized order...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> They've announced a number of companies to join their CAG. What is missing so far is any firm commitment that anyone is going to release one of these devices; without stuff likely to ship I don't see much likelihood of app developers doing anything on this platform.

<comment><USER7> Apple making an interesting contrast. Carriers that sell the iPhone have to make a sales commitment to Apple that about 10% of their subscribers per year buy an iPhone. The notable carriers that do not carry the iPhone balk at this: [http://www.asymco.com/2013/01/17/the-iphone- moq/](http://www.asymco.com/2013/01/17/the-iphone-moq/)

Making that minimum order quantity means the carrier has to actively promote and support sales of iPhones.

As you state, I doubt the CAG includes any form of minimum order quantity, which means there aren't any incentives for the carriers to promote the phones. Canonical rather than the carriers will need to do demand generation. Samsung has a fairly high cost of sales (~25% compared to Apple at 10%). And nobody plays until you are spending a billion or more in advertising: [http://www.asymco.com/2013/04/02/the-cost-of-selling- galaxie...](http://www.asymco.com/2013/04/02/the-cost-of-selling-galaxies- updated/)

Firefox phone at least has the advantage of hundreds of millions of Firefox users which allows a degree of familiarity and awareness. By comparison Ubuntu is a rounding error.

Canonical have a massive hill to climb here. The CAG is at the base of the hill. I wonder what their strategy will be?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The race for third place is heating up! It's very interesting to consider Ubuntu Touch vs. Firefox OS - what happens when two platforms backed by two champions of FOSS come into conflict?

Not that conflict is inevitable, and it's explicitly against the public mission statement of Mozilla, at least, but these platforms will still be competing with each other for the few devs and consumers who reject both iOS and Android (and WinPho, and BBOS, and Tizen...)

<comment><USER14> It is two 'champions of FOSS' but only one clear winner for us privacy- conscious users.

Long-term Ubuntu user here looking forward to retiring my Android phone for a Firefox model. I just got a Nexus 4 for my wife and for the first time ever didn't replace my phone at the same time.

If Firefox releases something a bit higher-end in the next 6-9 months I am very likely to switch.

<comment><USER15> I'm pretty torn about Firefox OS.

On the one hand:

* Mozilla's at the helm. My privacy is more likely to be respected. * Whipping up Firefox OS apps is stupid simple.

On the other:

* They don't seem to want to target higher-end handsets. * There's no NDK and as far as I'm aware there are no plans for one. While most of my Android apps could be rebuilt easily in Firefox OS, the programs with 3D graphics or C library dependencies seem to be out of luck. * As an extension to the above, I can't write Firefox OS apps with Rust, which is shaping up to be a great language.

<comment><USER16> Thing is, there's nothing else that runs natively, it's just Gecko on SurfaceFlinger. FirefoxOS' UI is entirely implemented above that in HTML+JS. So there is no infrastructure that can be opened up to allow native apps, it would have to be written from scratch.

<comment><USER17> Nope, we hit below SurfaceFlinger. gralloc and direct gl, actually.

<comment><USER16> Ah, thanks, I thought SurfaceFlinger was kept from Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm very happy about this. I've been hoping for Ubuntu's mobile OS to catch on, since it doubles as a desktop. Ubuntu's concept (an actual pocket PC), is where I see the next move in mobile computing actually going.

</comment><comment><USER19> This might be a bad thing for Ubuntu. Verizon will preload crapware onto the phone to death thereby negating whatever value proposition the OS has.

<comment><USER7> I doubt whether it is even a "thing" for Ubuntu. In Verizon's shoes I'd certainly claim this, if only to harass existing suppliers to get a better deal from them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would be good for T-Mobile to back Jolla ;)

</comment><comment><USER11> So there's going to be a bunch of carrier crapware, Amazon search results and ads, and no doubt the instability that Ubuntu is known for. No Java/Dalvik, just QML, HTML5 and QT.

I'd rather go with Jolla for a hacker's phone, or just stick to Android. Ubuntu's been dropping the ball alot lately, and their phone project looks DOA...

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm encouraged but I watched the video here:

[http://www.ubuntu.com/phone](http://www.ubuntu.com/phone)

We can't lock the phone? The phone decides how to search? Developers empowered by Java on Android would have to go back 1 or 2 decades to C or C++ to make apps?

That's sounding pretty limiting.

<comment><USER22> Yes, you can lock the phone. The main programming environment is QML, not C or C++.

<comment><USER21> The way I heard Mark state it, it sounded like you don't lock the phone and sounded specifically to me like you can't lock the phone. He mentioned C/C++ within milliseconds after mentioning QML. If QML is sufficient for achieving what Java can great, for those people who want to go back to Qt. I think Qt went out with Nokia. Why didn't they choose Gtk? Why not Java for the language? Why re-invent the wheel with their own thing like Google is trying to do with DART? Java and Gtk rock and should be at the center of Canonical's universe.

<comment><USER4> To see Ubuntu's phone lock feature, please see this: [http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/07/pinlock-feature-demoed- on...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/07/pinlock-feature-demoed-on-ubuntu- touch)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How To Convert a SIM to a MicroSIM with a Meat Cleaver - <AUTHOR> http://www.johnbenson.net/How_to_Convert_a_SIM_to_a_MicroSIM_with_a_Meat_Cleaver/How_to_Convert_a_SIM_to_a_MicroSIM_with_a_Meat_Cleaver.html

<comment><USER2> While meat cleaver sounds way cooler, just some scissors will work _just fine_.

<comment><USER3> What's worse than simply saying something that sounds cool is that he doesn't even use a meat cleaver -- it's just a big knife in his pictures.

<comment><USER4> Because I'm a foodie-tragic, that's the first thing I thought -_-

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure why he did this. I was able to get a Vodafone MicroSIM from their shops here in the UK.

<comment><USER6> This is faster and you can blog about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Step one: line the regular SIM up to a MicroSIM...

<comment><USER8> Not absurd. Whatever device you wish to place your "new" MicroSIM card into likely came with a MicroSIM card.

<comment><USER7> Step 3: Cut with scissors the line scored by the "meat cleaver."

Sure, the method is not absurd. I was expecting something far more absurd or exciting, like opening a champagne bottle with a sword or something.

<http://www.wikihow.com/Open-a-Champagne-Bottle-with-a-Sword>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I worked this out with a friend a while ago; he'd just bought an iphone 4 and his existing SIM didn't fit. He'd been directed to a Vodafone store on the other side of town who allegedly had "the tool required to convert your SIM". We joked that this mysterious tool was probably just a pair of scissors. Maybe it was in fact just a big knife...

<comment><USER10> Basically: [http://www.amazon.com/Micro-SIM-Cutter-Converter- adapters/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Micro-SIM-Cutter-Converter- adapters/dp/B003UEWF8I)

Some cutters actually do a better job, since they create a "holder" that can be used to fit the nub back into an old-type slot. Otherwise, there's pre-made ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sure, a post like this made sense when the µSIM requiring devices were released, but now?

Every telco that ever wants to sell a wireless data plan in the world should offer µSIM cards and it is a much better idea to use the real thing than to take a razor blade, hacksaw or meat cleaver to a normal-sized SIM.

</comment><comment><USER12> I thought this was going to be a joke like the 12V battery hack: [http://www.metacafe.com/watch/773138/12_volt_battery_hack_yo...](http://www.metacafe.com/watch/773138/12_volt_battery_hack_youll_be_surprised/)

Turns out its real and very useful!

<comment><USER13> Why is this a joke?

<comment><USER14> It doesn't actually contain the said batteries stated in the video.

<comment><USER15> That's incorrect. They really do use eight 1.5v button cells to make those 12v batteries. Here's some verification:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue-vFjDxmB4>

You're probably thinking of this 6 volt battery hack video, which is actually a joke:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That is not a Meat Cleaver, it's a Chef's Knife. Used for chopping vegetables. A meat cleaver is more square-shaped with a larger, flatter blade.</comment>


Ask HN: Why have you never used Assembly dot com? - <AUTHOR> I think, Assembly.com [1] could be characterized as "Github for Startups": different people were collaborating on projects and getting part of projects' ownership as compensation.
In my opinion, the concept was quite interesting. And thus I'd like to ask you. Have you ever used Assembly.com? If not, why? What exactly didn't you like about it (was it the idea or implementation details)?
Complaints I've extracted from other discussions on HN and Reddit so far: 1. 10% commission 2. Projects are available for authorized users only 3. The way "shares" are divided.
[1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/assembly <comment><USER2> I really liked the idea of Assembly, and was so eager to work on something on it, but whenever i tried looking for something , it just didn't feel right, the UX was horrible, the way I could contribute to a project was not clear at all, you find something like a wall, where everyone says he will do something or take a step for something , and i could not get started doing that thing and any thing else would be dependent on it, i prefer clicking a Github explore and work on a random project that i like than struggling to just choose what to do, everytime i tried i ended up wasting more than 30 minutes on the website, i would never work on something like that.

<comment><USER3> This was exactly my experience as well (especially the UX part). Moreover, when scrolling the website was freezing (Firefox on Linux Mint).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like they are shutting down.

:( Sorry to see it go.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, here is the related discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10555710](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10555710)</comment></comment>


How Chinese Students Saved America's Colleges - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-30/how-chinese-students-saved-america-s-colleges?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=57761bfa04d301138ca178d3&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> Here's the author's conclusion:

 _All in all, one gets the feeling that, while all those Chinese students aren 't going to suddenly go home, the big enrollment increases are probably over. Then again, one might have thought that three or four years ago, too -- and been totally wrong._

This piece contains minimal data + analysis, and no real argument or opinion. It's just a blog thinkpiece with a clickbaity/controversial title. Don't waste your time.

<comment><USER3> Well there _are_ 2 bar graphs and 1 line graph in addition to _" the feeling"_

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only issue I have with Chinese students is how acceptable cheating seems to be in their culture. Obviously this isn't true for all Chinese students, but it is wide spread enough that my parents (Professors who teach grad classes in physics and oceanography) say that you can't trust the standardized test results of Chinese students because there is a good chance they cheated.

Oh and they are often racist. Really racist.

<comment><USER5> This applies to many "model minorities" that aren't form Western countries. I've heard the same thing about people from India and Russia/Eastern Europe.

<comment><USER6> From my experience Indians (and practically everyone else, except the Chinese who cheat everywhere) only really cheat once they get into college. The Chinese probably cheat because English qualifications are really difficult for them.

But YMMV. It's really pointless to point fingers. Americans cheat by abusing ADHD drugs, heck there's a shortage in most states and a $20 prescription (~20 pills) goes for $20 a pill on the street.

And really, everyone is racist. It's practically innate. It's going to take a while to get over this. I mean as animals we always distrust those who are different from us. Some are just more expressive of there racism than others

<comment><USER4> abusing adhd drugs is not the same as cheating. A person who uses ritalin to study still knows the material at the end of the day. A person who cheats does not!

<comment><USER6> Hardly, it's an unfair advantage. There's a reason it's a prescription drug.

<comment><USER4> you are missing the point. Cheating is bad because a degree is supposed to be a guarantee of a certain level of knowledge about a subject. People who use medication to study have that knowledge, people who cheat do not. Is using drugs to study fair? No. But that isn't what I am arguing.

<comment><USER6> A degree is also a guarantee of a certain level of capability. If I can only achieve it while taking a drug, then isn't it just as deceptive?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Saved? How about robbed?

Not only are the Chinese students crowding out qualified Americans from the few top spots in some of the world's best universities, it is a well-known fact to the FBI that Chinese (and other foreign) intelligence agencies recruit citizens studying in the US to steal research information that the hackers in Shanghai can't as easily get from afar.

My father was a researcher for a major university for decades. He fought tooth-and-nail for every dollar in grant money he could get to create the knowledge that underpins the basic electronics that run our devices. And he would get tens of thousands of hacking attempts from China every single day.

He also spent years building a hardware test environment, and a Chinese grad student that worked in the same lab took the designs and replicated them in China for a tenth of the cost - all without as much as a decent thank you.

But the Chinese pay full price so the few American students who can get in save a little on tuition, so it's all ok.

/rage

<comment><USER7> You are blaming millions of people for a random collection of gripes.

<comment><USER8> Their point stands. The Chinese government is a bad actor with a history of tapping university students for industrial espionage. Their population also dwarfs ours which could justify some concern about American students being "crowded out."

</comment></comment></comment><comment> o0-0o What we could do it triple the cost for each Chinese, and give two Americans citizens a free ride. Does socialism only work one way? Right->Left?

This article ignore a few opinions/facts:

1\. Chinese are taught the US is their enemy, and that they should come here to learn our strenghts and weaknesses and take them back to China. 2\. Chinese poeple have a history of stealing intellectual property through universities and everywhere else. The lack of moral and ethical judgement is stunning and sad. 3\. Chinese have manipulated their currency including tieing it do the dollar, which is on par with just printing fake money for your citizens. Therefore citizens are now 'new rich', and can afford to buy what hard-working citizens of other countries can't because their countries don't manipulate their currencies. 4\. US lets in anyone willing to pay in cash, mostly. Anchor babies, investment citizenship, expedited services for the wealthy, etc. 5\. US has race quotas as a legal precendent, where the universities can set the amount of Asians, etc that are accepted, regardless of qualifications. Not up to par? Who cares, let them in, they got the cash... 6\. US has the best colleges in the world, and has for some time. Do you think the Chinese want to study in Tibet?

<comment><USER9> This is ridiculous. Racial quotas in American universities select against Chinese people in favour of on average less-capable whites. One of the more noxious examples of modern racism is the fact that the ivies have much higher standards for Asain students than for any other race. Basicly a reply of the 1930s Jewish quotas.

<comment><USER10> [https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S11/80/78Q19/ind...](https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S11/80/78Q19/index.xml?section=newsreleases)

Espenshade and Chung found that African-American and Hispanic applicants would see their acceptance rates go down noticeably if affirmative action were ended:

> According to the study, without affirmative action the acceptance rate for > African-American candidates likely would fall nearly two-thirds, from 33.7 > percent to 12.2 percent, while the acceptance rate for Hispanic applicants > likely would be cut in half, from 26.8 percent to 12.9 percent.

White students' numbers wouldn't be affected much, but 4/5s of the "missing" African-American and Hispanic students would be "replaced" by Asian students:

> Removing consideration of race would have little effect on white students, > the report concludes, as their acceptance rate would rise by merely 0.5 > percentage points. Espenshade noted that when one group loses ground, > another has to gain -- in this case it would be Asian applicants. Asian > students would fill nearly four out of every five places in the admitted > class not taken by African-American and Hispanic students, with an > acceptance rate rising from nearly 18 percent to more than 23 percent. > Typically, many more Asian students apply to elite schools than other > underrepresented minorities. The study also found that although athletes and > legacy applicants are predominantly white, their numbers are so small that > their admissions do little to displace minority applicants.

<comment><USER9> >Espenshade and Chung found that African-American and Hispanic applicants would see their acceptance rates go down noticeably if affirmative action were ended

I care about fostering merit more than equality of outcome. Lowing standards for emotional reasons isn't something I care about, or even think is moral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Where in the article does it state how Chinese students are saving our Colleges?

I would expect the most populous country to send the most people to the US for education. Especially one with a rising middle and elite class. The only thing that's holding India back is the poverty, middle class isn't growing as fast as China. Most Indian immigrants I've met here already have degrees.

</comment><comment><USER12> How about a little more color:

There are 20.2 million kids in US colleges (12.2 million college students below the age of 25. There are another 8.2 million over the age of 25).

Source: [http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_105.20.as...](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_105.20.asp?current=yes)

Of these students, 974,000 or about 1 in 20 (round it to 5%) is a foreign student. The important thing about foreign students is that, except for a few cases of truly spectacular talent, they pay full freight and effectively subsidized US students.

Now of those 974,000, about 1 in 3, or about 300,000 are of Chinese origin.

[http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/16/china-us-colleges- educat...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/16/china-us-colleges-education- chinese-students-university/)

That is about just under 2%. I hardly consider that crowding out US students.

(Please also note that some US students who go to China and learn from their schools, though I assume this is tiny.)

So in terms of fear of "crowding", I think this is overblown.

In terms of taking IP over to China, its important to understand that the vast majority of this IP is free stuff that anyone can learn. We are talking about math and science up to the graduate level.

When you talk about the truly advanced PhD level stuff, well they are "stealing" it, but they also "create" it by working on experiments, interacting with other people, and so on. They contribute it as much as they "steal" it. At least, in my experience, you can't really learn at the PhD level without engaging other people.

So if someone here believes the Chinese government has a secret plan to send over their best and brightest to toil for years in top academic institutions and take back the knowledge they helped create, all I can say is: this plan is going to backfire and help the US as much as anyone.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think the reason behind the glut is that India and China greatly outnumber US populations 4:1, while number of universities in China is only roughly 2:1, and India, it is about 2:5.

</comment><comment><USER14> i thought this would be about studying. walking the campus of usc (univ of southern calif) i was struck by the shocking physical and psychological divide between the asian students, huddled in the library, versus the white students attending what looked to be an on-campus rave in the middle of the quad. the former representing the new kind of usc student, the latter representing the greek / legacy / party stereotype of yesterday's usc. note that usc's academics have skyrocketed in the past decade and my theory is that it is on the backs of new students from asia that is propping up those SAT / matriculation rates, while simultaneously dragging along the detritus of the legacy old guard.

</comment><comment><USER15> Chinese students are spending time and money to learn and take knowledge back to China. Meanwhile, kids in USA are wondering if college/education is worth it.

<comment><USER16> Hard to justify spending $80,000 for a degree that leads to a job that makes $34,000. Something is broken.

<comment><USER17> Well, that is if you study something useless like art history, sociology, media, communications or english literature. I laugh whenever I come across someone who's spent thousands of dollars going to university to study english.

Well, if you studied engineering, science, medicine, accounting or law. You'll eventually probably make good money. If you can't land a job in the US, you can go abroad and your American degree will be valuable in other countries just for the fact that you studied in the US.

<comment><USER18> There is a huge glut in some of the sciences. I'll only speak to Biology/Life Sciences, since that's what my degree is in, but I would say well over 50% of graduates, including myself, don't end up working in the field. The jobs I got, and could get, in the Bay Area, were right about in the $34k/year range (and that was for someone fortunate enough to have multiple years of research experience).

Spending a few more years in school and taking on more debt to get a graduate degree might have helped, but I make as much or more now doing IT work than most of the people I know who have Masters degrees in the field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is also happening in Canada.

</comment><comment><USER20> The fact that they found a population willing to overpay and sustain their disgustingly wasteful bureaucracies is _not_ a good thing.</comment>


Hacking the City: A new model for urban renewal - <AUTHOR> https://newrepublic.com/article/124470/hacking-city <comment><USER2> This isn't exactly anything new and leaves off what happens once the artists/artisans finish making the neighborhood attractive to more development.

Actually, it's exactly what happened to Dumbo in Brooklyn through the late 80s and 90s. Two Trees bought up most of the neighborhood for $12 million, gave free space to artists and performance venues like St. Ann's Warehouse for 9 years, and shortened leasing arrangements to 2-4 years in order to attract startups and small shops that couldn't sign 10 year leases.

Once they moved in enough people to make the neighborhood desirable they started developing luxury units. David Walentas went from hearing about Dumbo from an artist at a party to becoming a billionaire with Two Trees.

What I'd really like to hear is how this revitalization can include the artists that kicked it off. I have friends that grew up in Dumbo throughout this process, kids of artists that moved in in the 80s, and they've long since been evicted from their homes to make way for condos costing $1000/sq ft.

<comment><USER3> I appreciate the ingenuity in getting the landlords to open the spaces up for free to the program.

And I'd offer that they do deal with what happens if gentrification appears. It would seem to me that the effect requires a critical mass of speculative property and people with money waiting to spend it. Brooklyn had both, and as a borough of one of the biggest cities in the world there are other reasons it's inflated so drastically. That'll be different from the sort of 50-200k person cities I think they're talking bout here.

I wonder if gentrification in a lot of the cities in the US will last the way it's currently rearing itself (with the exception of maybe NY, SF, Washington DC, where geography is a complication for city expansion).

Anyways, I've lived in a few of these sorts of ideal Midwestern cities and would love to see some experiments in this direction.

<comment><USER2> In what way do they deal with gentrification? It seems like your argument is that it just doesn't happen to such an extreme in places that aren't major cities? I don't think that's true -- take a trip up to Beacon, NY.

Regardless, my interest is in how we can compensate artists that kick this process off rather than just using them to make a landowner's property more valuable. Can they be compensated in some sort of equity like early stage startup employees are, so that after 10 years of producing work and making somewhere hip they aren't just thrown out to make room for some luxury project? Can there be tools made to make it easier to purchase these distressed properties as co-ops that they can collectively own and produce out of?

No one wants the blight of old, abandoned buildings that could otherwise be productive. However, this plan they've proposed just sounds like a way to get artists to make landlords and real estate agents money in the long run.

<comment><USER3> My comment was that, yes, though I'd really want to see counter-examples that aren't New York City's suburbs I guess. It's kinda a world unto itself.

The idea here seems to be reducing starting capital needed for brick-and- mortar start-ups. How do we compensate the artists? I think they're already being compensated with nearly free workshops/office space, which sounds like the tipping point between starting the business in the first place for a lot of these folks.

The article talks about how it was a non-starter to purchase the buildings from the property owners because of a host of reasons I'll not reprint...

It's about craftspeople and small businesses, and helping little people in these communities to experiment with new business ideas, not about making landlords rich. Both both sides have to see a benefit for it to work, and just trying to legislate turnover of old buildings to non-profits to build co-ops isn't going to get much love from the property owners (who probably have more political power)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "A false wall rested on dusty display cases and was supported by sandbags. "This is not architecture," he said, because the building's historic status prevented any changes to the interior. And besides, according to the rules of the arrangement, Newcastle's artisans could use vacant properties like this for free as long as they promised not to alter their interiors (and thus their tax statuses)."

The cities create burdensome regulations, in the form of historic building status or adhere to ADA compliance, driving up the cost of any remodel and thus driving away any business opportunities at these locations, then turn around after realizing the loss in taxes, allow for utilization of a building with a look-the-other-way mentality fraught with legal craziness.

If one of those buildings catch fire, will the insurer pay out for a non- stated use of the building. If the insurer does pay-out, it is a one-off option as they will most definitely increase premiums to handle the new risk of these "artisans."

It is a great concept, however, it just points to how regulatory burden price out competitive up-starts and defends entrenched players.</comment>


How Much Does It Cost to Run a Serverless API on AWS? - <AUTHOR> https://alestic.com/2016/12/aws-invoice-example/ <comment><USER2> I'd love to see this for a "real" project - running 60 lines of code per request is a bit different than calling many different services across the AWS architecture.</comment>


Towards RESTful PHP - 5 Quick Tips - <AUTHOR> http://www.krisjordan.com/2008/12/02/towards-restful-php-5-basic-tips/

<comment><USER2> This is what I love about YC, there is a better hidden gems to noise ratio here than any other site I've been to. Kris please let me know when you're done with your framework. I would love to tinker around with it for my next project.

\- Mathew

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish he would release his framework already. I know I do the same thing with my open source projects though so I don't blame him. I would just like to see what makes Recess! more clever/effective than cake (other than the obvious ground up support of REST as mentioned in the post)/rails etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Shaun: Working on Recess! as rapidly as I can.

Trying to polish up some rough edges and hope to have a public preview available on GitHub next week.

Glad to hear your interest and I hope you'll enjoy it. The project is a couple of months old so there is still a long path ahead but I'm excited about how it has shaped up thus far.

Stay tuned!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Entrepreneurship to escape depression? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I'm stuck in a vicious circle: because of my depression I don't find a job, and not finding a job feeds my depression. And after having applied to countless jobs without luck, I guess my chances are very low to get out of it following this path, despite a strong local economy.
So I think the only path that remains is to start something on my own, even though I am a complete newbie. But I have nothing to lose as I already lost (almost) everything. Are there any such resources specific for people with depression, or success stories? Any other thoughts?
Thank you. <comment><USER3> Have you considered volunteering instead? Volunteering will look great on your resume and it will give you skills that you can apply in your next job. Also it will help you expand your network which might be the main reason why you're not finding the opportunities you are seeking.

Entrepreneurship can be quite difficult, and it takes a really heavy emotional toll on people. If you consider yourself a person with depressive tendencies, I would consider dealing with those first before starting a company.

[https://www.inc.com/magazine/201309/jessica- bruder/psycholog...](https://www.inc.com/magazine/201309/jessica- bruder/psychological-price-of-entrepreneurship.html)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanwestwood/2016/01/08/psychol...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanwestwood/2016/01/08/psychological- price-of-entrepreneurship/#2efd983f10fc)

</comment><comment><USER4> Entrepreneurship is not an easy road. It can be ultimately very fulfilling but being depressed is not the state to start it.

You have to hit upon an idea (note that, it need not be THE idea), take it to customers. If you get positive response, you go with it and build the core of your product and take it to customers again. Get their feedback, iterate. Spend more than 50% of your time marketing. If at anypoint you believe the product is not the success you estimated it to be, you will need to pivot. All of these are very hard decisions and grueling work. And you need to do it alone. You will also need several months of backup to see you through till you get your first sales.

Being your own master is the ultimate freedom. Before you go that path, take a vacation or meet friends to alleviate the depression. If that is not enough, see a professional.

If you do go the entrepreneurial route, these tips might help you.

1\. Finding a compatible cofounder can help keep loneliness at bay and focus on what is truly important. Ideally they should complement your skill set.

2\. Any product, big or small, should be decomposed into small chunks. Each chunk you finish should be releasable. i.e there should a concrete output at the end. That will give tangible feedback and keep your morale high.

3\. Split chunks further into tasks that are very specific and unambiguous, and finishable in small period of time, say two hours or less. So every time you sit to work, you will know exactly you are going to do. Makes it easy to get into flow. Also, time tracking will give you the satisfaction that progress is made. A common pitfall is for founders to force themselves to work night and day to finish it at fast as possible, at the compromising health, sanity and relationships . Unfortunately this can lead to burnout.

4\. Design is secondary. Domain names are secondary. The core product is all that matters. For my first product, i wasted so much time just coming up with that perfect name! Nope, does not matter.

5\. Market, market, market. You need to learn how to take it in front of your customer. There is no escape from this part. And if you are not already familiar with it, that in itself is a big undertaking.

Wishing you the best.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think I have depression too and anxiety. A direct impact of my depression is that I can't sleep. But unlike you, my depression is accumulated through work, knowing each day I die a little in my cubical and losing my time to become who I wanted myself to be. I actually want to quit my job to cure my depression.

<comment><USER6> Would a better job help? One that is aligned with your goals?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I doubt it, otherwise doctors would be prescribing becoming an entrepreneur as a solution to depression for millions of people. However, i'll tell you what entrepreneurship gives me. Even when I've been failing, even when the number of sign ups is not living up to expectations, being an entrepreneur makes me happier by giving me hope for a better future. Having a job, anywhere outside Silicon Valley perhaps, just doesn't pay enough, I've been a senior developer and I can't save any meaningful amount of income to escape constant working, I don't want luxury things, I just want the freedom to spend my time in a way that I want before I'm dead. Entrepreneurship makes me feel like anything is possible. However it's hard, and you may not generate any revenue for several years so often having a job while doing it on the side is necessary. I don't think it will help with depression unfortunately, but it can help provide hope.

</comment><comment><USER8> Think of starting a startup as a long road trip where everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Now imagine you have an emotional gas tank, and there's a really long distance between gas stations. If you start your journey out with your emotional gas tank near empty, you're probably not going to make it.

A startup will only amplify your depression, and when that happens you'll find yourself slowly pushing the rest of the way instead of driving.

Source: someone who went that route primarily out of having nothing to lose, almost five years ago.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would try to get some cognitive behavioral therapy in if you can. An 8 week course may change your life. You have these automatic thoughts that aren't you and are not true so CBT gives you the skills and tools to recognize them and deal with them. Journaling or writing down your thoughts can help as well.

<comment><USER10> Seconded, CBT is very good with this.

There should be free or discounted CBT therapy (with graduate students) available in your area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Taking on contract/consulting work is probably a bit easier to start out with compared to starting a full on company, and can give you the flexibility needed to work your own hours and from home while dealing with your mental health.

This may be hard to find in Switzerland though and you may need to resort to trying to find relatively low paying work on Upwork, at least to start. The fact that your English is decent should help find you a gig. You should also go in with the mindset that finding a gig is a numbers game, and you will not get the first gig you apply to, even with a perfect application.

Once your portfolio, experience, confidence, and health is built up, doors should start to open.

</comment><comment><USER12> Entrepreneurship is for the insane. I think depression counts.

Depression can also be source of energy and it powers creativity. It's a double edged sword; it can either drive you forward or drag you back.

But don't expect it to cure your depression. The highs are high and the lows are very low. You still have things to lose - your reputation, bankruptcy, your employees' livelihood. And like an effective drug, you might actually be reliant on depression as a form of energy.

Also be careful as you can easily get trapped in a bad business, making too little revenue to grow but also invested too much to quit. This is much worse than being stuck driving for Uber.

It's also harder to pitch while depressed. Investors like optimism. So I would recommend something you can completely bootstrap.

I'd go for low hanging fruit that you can almost immediately cash in on. You can do ecommerce on a niche. SaaS is nice but it needs a lot of time to start. Avoid things like games which are difficult to monetize.

Inexperience isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, people tend to do better when they can't just quit for some high paying job. You will get stuck at some point, and it's usually people like you who push past the obstacles.

You can check out indiehackers.com for a broad range of stories.

</comment><comment><USER13> Literally "run away" from your problems. As in start running 5 miles a day if health permits.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, only a different way to tackle the problem of having no money and depending on social security.

<comment><USER14> So says your depressed mindset! But, have you actually tried it? You might be surprised at the change in your mindset. With the more positive mindset that would result from running/exercise, then good things may well happen. (Saying this as someone who has been there, done that, bought the t-shirt). I would also look into CBT/professional help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Job interview is all about an impression. You can tweak that impression.

Wear bright clothes, white or light blue. Avoid dark colors. Wear some glasses even if you see perfectly. It makes you look more friendly and competent. Be like an actor. Smile and practice. Remember; It's not personal, it's a show.

With respect to options, have you tried applying for jobs in western Europe? You can legally work in any EU country.

Starting a company is like climbing a mountain. Doing that while depressed, without financial runway and in the most expensive country is not a good start.

You could do something very different. You could go to south east Asia, teach English to survive while starting a company on the side. Cost of living is very cheap, nice weather too. As a westerner you can also easily get a girlfriend there. All nice things, but the real reason is financial runway of course.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have serious health problems that make a regular job not work for me. I asked around and Patrick McKenzie suggested a writing service to work for and that has worked well for me. I also blog about my experiences with that and how to make that work. I am slowly branching out into other related things, such as resume editing. My income is gradually going up.

You can also blog, comic, create an Etsy shop, try to make money online with things like Zazzle, etc. I would shoot for getting some money coming in, then trying to improve on it. Google for examples of people who did something vaguely similar and read their stories.

I still don't make very much money, but I make more than I used to and it pays better than not being able to work at all. And, yes, that fact does a lot for my mental health.

</comment><comment><USER17> As a depressed person that's about 5 years into a reasonably successful startup, I would say no, entrepreneurship is not a silver bullet. It sounds like you, as do I, tend to take things personally. You might feel that every minor failing of your business reflects on you as a person, and I can tell you that it can be crippling.

That's not at all to say that running a business can never be rewarding - <USER2> often is! - but I do not think that it is a good surrogate for talking to someone, whether that's a therapist or even a loved one. You are more than the sum of your faults and I find nothing to be more helpful than periodic reminders of that fact.

</comment><comment><USER18> First off take a listen to Sherry Walling's podcast, it's made for you.

ZenFounder.com

I'll also recommend her husband Rob's podcast as well.

StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com

I would recommend starting with episode 1 for both.

You can follow Rob along over the years from drop shipping beach towels through .net invoice and hittail to drip with a $XXM exit. Inspiring.

What type of skills/business are you thinking about?

Starting your own thing is hard, not sure I'd recommend it if you are feeling depressed.

You might want to take a job outside your skill set, even part time to get back in the game. Do something interesting you've always wanted to try. If it's part time you could do contract work the remaining time if that's a possibility.

Take a look at your resume are you providing too much information or maybe not showing something that was keeping you busy in your gap areas. Maybe review your resume with someone to make sure you're presenting things honestly but in a better light. You might be too hard on yourself.

Good luck getting on track and getting your own thing going.

Feel free to email me at my HN username at gmail. I can provide some guidance if you're a developer.

</comment><comment><USER19> There are no guarantees in life, but if I am you, I'll forget about startups and focus on a way to earn my FU money. This will give you the ultimate freedom and cure your depression. One idea to get you thinking is the stock market. You don't need money to start, just time and looks like you have plenty... Find some data and start building and testing trading strategies and ideas and who knows, maybe you'll find your edge and once you do, you'll have a proof to convince friends/relatives, your doctor, dentist, accountant, banker, etc to invest in you... Believe me, this is the perfect business and it is truly location independent...

</comment><comment><USER20> Well if you need to raise, then it's not that different from applying for a job. You won't be making a salary for quite a while either. Whatever you end up working on might often feel like a disaster.

Maybe you can get a free psychiatrist in Swiss? And if money isn't a problem perhaps you could think of a broader range of things to do? A very low paying job at a startup? Volunteer work? Research work? No work? Helping family? Getting married? So many things you could do!

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER21> Hello, I was in a similar situation 10 years ago. Wanna talk with me? firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER22> I may not believe in depression, but I'm trying to do this in response to having a hard time in life (issues with well-paid employment and belonging) while severely autistic/Asperger's.

It isn't helping much for finding a place in the world, but the activity this is generating is making me much happier. I have realised how powerful I am. I am actually pretty awesome to be doing the things that I'm doing. That feels good!

Not much luck with earning money though. I'm fine with it, my part-time job provides for me well enough. If money is an issue, you may want to first try to get some financial stability before you take a leap into creating something of your own.

EDIT: Post an anonymized resume here. Can't hurt. Worst case scenario you'll get some feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> My resume isn't in English, so posting it wouldn't be helpful. I guess the main problem of my resume is the long time, years, of unemployment, combined with not much work experience.

<comment><USER10> Where are you located?

<comment><AUTHOR> Switzerland

<comment><USER23> Mail me your resume to the email in my HN handle. I am a tech recruiter located in Zurich and might be able to help.

cheers

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Depressed? Try microdosing shrooms. Might even help get your startup ideas off the ground.

</comment><comment><USER25> Have you pinpointed a specific problem that you have at interviews?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, as I have not been invited to any interviews so far. In the past I have been judged as reserved and quiet, which I guess could be a problem at interviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> imho the best help itt: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15741151](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15741151)</comment>


One Million Years of Isolation - <AUTHOR> http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/million-years-of-isolation-interview.html <comment><USER2> The purpose of Yucca Mountain and similar facilities is _not_ to store nuclear waste. Rather, they are built to _be expensive._

This sits well with those who profit directly from their construction, and pleases environmentalists - who want nuclear power to be seen as astronomically expensive. Breeder reactors and proper reprocessing could eliminate the need to store _anything_ longer than about one hundred years, and yet they are forbidden. Why do you suppose that is?

<comment><USER3> I think you are on to something.

No one in the nuclear industry thinks Yucca Mountain is anything but an idiotic boondoggle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love this blog. To use the author's words, it is about architectural conjecture, urban speculation, and landscape futures. It's an incredibly fun series of thought experiments. Geoff is certainly one of the more creative people I've come across. I recently pared my RSS reader down to four feeds. This is one of them.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm certainly in favor of building for larger timescales, but I have enough trouble believing the Long Now Foundation's projects will last beyond a dozen generations (though I'd certainly like them to). Building something that could last a million years is something I can't really comprehend.

<comment><USER6> That's kind of the point of the Long Now foundation. The point isn't building clocks, the point is that _by_ building a clock which has a real chance of operating on such a timescale, you put yourself into a frame of mind where you start accounting for effects of your actions far into the future. The idea is to get you really, seriously thinking about how you are changing the world over the next million years.

<comment><USER5> Oh, sure. Like I said, I'm in favor of the the mindset—but Yucca Mountain less intellectual-idealism than Long Now, and if it's improbable that a clock will last maybe ten thousand years, what are the odds a nuclear coffin will survive a million? I just don't think it's something even the (no doubt) highly- skilled engineers on the project can truly grasp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So stupid. We don't worry about this with dangerous chemicals, and those _don't have_ a half-life. They'll stay deadly forever.

There is no need to treat nuclear waste massively differently than other kinds of waste. There are some special considerations, but it's not so dangerous as to require the vast storage expenditures being talked about.

This problem is endemic in the whole nuclear industry. People don't make rational risk/cost assessments when it comes to nuclear power. They don't even make _irrational_ risk/cost assessments. The locals where I live are deadly afraid of a local air force base's small reactor. But nary a worry about the actual nuclear weapons they have that could (potentially) devastate the entire area.

<comment><USER8> I could be wrong, but it's my understanding that these timescales won't even matter. We will be digging up this "waste" in a few years to recycle it anyway. I guess fissile material is pretty rare.

<comment><USER9> Not that rare, if you use it efficiently and don't do anything ridiculous like throwing away perfectly good nuclear "waste".</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook releases HHVM, 60 percent faster than its current PHP interpreter - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150415177928920&hn=2 <comment><USER2> Hats off.

I have no love for Facebook's product or business model, but their engineering is diesel, and it's very cool that they're sharing such a deep piece of work.

<comment><USER3> I know some great Facebook engineers and some terrible ones. An ex-colleague of mine who loves writing spaghetti php code joined Facebook almost a year ago.

I would say that 30% of Facebook's engineers are top notch, and 70% are just average php and javascript developers.

<comment><USER4> _I would say that 30% of Facebook's engineers are top notch, and 70% are just average php and javascript developers._

Pet peeve of mine: why is the word "engineer" thrown around so much on HN? Is it meant to distinguish a certain class of people from mere coders? Or is it just a fancy word of saying "coder"?

I've always referred to myself as a coder. Should I change this?

I am genuinely curious, not trying to put anyone down.

<comment><USER5> It's how Facebook refer to their 'coders', and in many ways it's a better word because it suggests something more than just hacking [insert language] all day. For example, an engineer might be concerned about how their code fits into the bigger picture, whether there is a better way of doing things etc., rather than thrashing out code for a daily rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it interesting that the economics of inertia work out in favor of Facebook expending so much effort in improving the performance of a historically technologically poor language like PHP.

Jason Evans is the author of jemalloc (and more). Given all the things he would be capable of applying himself to, it's surprising to see him working on PHP runtime performance (though, the problems are interesting).

<comment><USER7> > the performance of a historically technologically poor language like PHP

One of the biggest reasons PHP supplanted Perl as the de facto web programming language ~10 years ago was that Perl running through CGI was incredibly slower than PHP.

<comment><USER8> mod_perl was there, it performed better but little bit extra memory footprint.

I don't know why mod_perl was known to very few and PHP become popular.

<comment><USER9> Shared hosting services offered php. You can't do shared hosting with mod_perl.

<comment><USER10> Umm, actually you can... it just requires some skills on the apache config side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
        var_dump($hit);

Good to see that Facebook's engineers still have a startup-y sense of humor.

<comment><USER12> By which you mean juvenile. I don't mean that in a condescending way. No one wants to work with a bunch of uptight folks. I think it's good too, but let's call a spade a spade.

<comment><USER13> Believe it or not, my $hit meter was too insensitive to notice the visual similarity to a four letter word until it was repeatedly pointed out by readers. Now that we're all on the same wavelength, let's call a spade a shovel, or even a $hovel, and, well, now we have $hovel and $hit to work with. Imagine the possibilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting that so far most of the comments are pretty positive. Every time Facebook gives a HipHop talk at my university, it seems the general feeling in the room is "ugh, why?" The PL people wonder why they're bothering with such a broken language, and other language zealots get angry that they aren't using [insert-favorite-language-here].

I wonder if there is a point where they can't squeeze anything more out of HipHop and have to do a drastic rewrite.

<comment><USER15> The thing is, when they can't squeeze any more out of HipHop, the _last_ thing they are likely to do is use one of those [insert-favorite-language-here], because HipHop will be so much faster than any implementation of those other languages. An important point to remember is that languages, as interesting as they are, are simply means to translate ideas into machine code. If they translate it into really fast machine code, it doesn't really matter that much (except academically) how "correct" the language is. I do not enjoy writing in PHP, but I have a lot of respect for the real world work that Facebook is doing with it.

<comment><USER16> If you want fast, why would you use PHP and then write a new VM, when you could just use Java or Common Lisp or Haskell or C? Those already exist and are already damn fast.

<comment><USER17> You could also write your software in assembly and it'll be faster than all of those you mentioned. The point is to select a language that is feasible for a business. Facebook is not an academic exercise. PHP has a lower barrier to entry, which in practical terms reduces the wages that need to be paid. You then get a few guys who are great at C (PHP is written in C) and fix whatever parts are getting in the way of great performance. Which is exactly what Facebook is doing. Remember, Facebook is a business.

<comment><USER16> Maybe if it's a video decoder that uses special video decoding instructions. For real world code, though, a good JIT is going to make most code very fast, and you will actually be able to maintain it. I don't think Java is any harder to maintain than PHP, but it runs much faster. (I think Perl and Python are much easier to maintain, however, so if that was what we were arguing about, then it would make sense. PHP is objectively the worst "P" language.)

<comment><USER17> You're missing my point so completely that it becomes a fine example of why engineers make poor businessmen.

The best _business_ solution is the one that accomplishes the task at hand with the least resources. By that metric, PHP is far superior to Java, regardless of the technical merits at hand.

It costs less to hire an army of PHP devs and a small team to optimize PHP, than it does to hire an army of Java developers.

<http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=PHP_Developer/Salary>

and

[http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Java_Developer/Salar...](http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Java_Developer/Salary)

The difference in pay is around $20K. If you have 500 developers, that's a difference of $10 mil per year. Over the span of a decade, you're talking about over $100 million in savings.

As I said, Facebook is a business, not a pet project or an academic exercise. Decisions on which platform to use and keep are made based on dollars and cents ... not on which is more elegant or technically superior.

<comment><USER18> > It costs less to hire an army of PHP devs and a small team to optimize PHP, > than it does to hire an army of Java developers.

Is that what Facebook is doing? Everything I've read about interviewing and getting hired at Facebook leads me to believe that they are not hiring an army of cheap PHP developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Their logging server Scribe, which they also open sourced, is equally awesome. Kudos to Facebook for releasing such cool technology.

</comment><comment><USER20> The discussion of this over on Ars Technica centered around their current PHP interpreter being twice as slow as the Zend PHP engine so a 60% improvement would still leave HHVM slower.

What am I missing?

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=php&lang2=java)

so x30 more to go..

<comment><USER22> Ignoring the fact that these are all running on the standard PHP interpreter, not one of Facebook's creation...

The benchmarks linked ran on a 4 core machine with varying amounts of parallelism, generally with Java being more parallelized. When running a server farm, as Facebook does, aggregate CPU time is more important than wall time^, since one can easily scale the number of processes to fit the machine. By CPU time the difference is down a factor of two at least, possibly more.

Be careful with benchmarks. They distill a comparison into a single value for easy use, but it's not going to be the most appropriate metric in all cases.

^So long as wall time is "sufficiently small", which it generally is.

<comment><USER23> So check the single core version: [http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=php&lang2=java)

Oh look, PHP is still 30 times slower than java. A 60% improvement to that still won't get it within an order of magnitude. And PHP is not significantly faster or easier to develop in than java, so you are losing execution speed to gain nothing.

<comment><USER17> Java is a compiled language. PHP is not. If you need to do a benchmark to realize that a compiled language is faster than its dynamic counterpart, then I really don't know what else to say to you.

<comment><USER23> I don't know why you are saying anything to me since you are responding to something I didn't say and that has nothing to do with the post I made. Is "dim witted attempts to respond to poorly thought out strawmen" really the level of discourse here?

<comment><USER17> What? Who are you responding to?

<comment><USER23> You. You may want to consider that if there's two replies to your post, and both are "your post is entirely irrelevant", then perhaps your post genuinely is entirely irrelevant. Protip: read the whole thread from the top.

<comment><USER17> Where did I say "dim witted attempts to respond to poorly thought out strawmen" or "your post is entirely irrelevant"? Either you're confusing me with someone else or you don't understand the concept of quotes.

<comment><USER23> Again, read the entire thread. I am not confusing you with anyone else, and I understand the concept of quotes. You are failing to grasp the context of posts, and assuming everything anyone puts in quotes must be a statement you made. There are other people who post, why on earth would you think "your post is entirely irrelevant" is something I claim you said? I very clearly pointed out that two people replied _to you_ saying that your post is irrelevant.

<comment><USER17> > I very clearly pointed out that two people replied to you saying that your > post is irrelevant.

So you're just repeating what other people said? To make yourself feel better? Still a bit confused.

<comment><USER23> >Still a bit confused

Clearly that is not a situation I can remedy for you. I suggested you read the thread, as that would resolve the confusion for anyone with basic reading comprehension skills. If that is not sufficient for you, then you'll need to ask an adult to explain the words you don't understand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'll probably get dinged for making a sophomoric observation.

Their example code makes use of the variable $hit, performs a var_dump($hit) and then returns $hit. Am I the only one that noticed this?

</comment><comment><USER25> How easy/hard/logical would it be to implement this for a medium-size website with about 250k monthly visits?

<comment><USER26> I don't think it's logical. Stock PHP can _easily_ handle a website with 250k monthly visits. Or, rather, your speedups will most likely come from talking to the database less, doing less IO, that sort of thing. CPU probably isn't your bottleneck now.

<comment><USER25> Fair enough answer. Thanks! I'll report back when we hit 800m. ^^

<comment><USER26> The ironic thing about Facebook releasing this is they're (and a handful of other sites) are the only ones that would really benefit from this. I do love that they release it as open source.

At my last company, we handled about 20 million API requests a day through a PHP API. Granted, the request and response were smaller than a standard webpage, but that was using stock PHP (hell it wasn't even custom compiled, it came straight from the Debian packages).

So, you need to hit a pretty huge amount of traffic before something like this makes sense. Of course, it's always neat technology to play with.

<comment><USER27> Surely you used opcode caching?

<comment><USER28> Presumably he just installed the php-apc package

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have two reactions:

1\. it's still PHP

2\. why are they still using PHP in a world where things like Python, Ruby and Java exist?</comment>


Ask HN: Is a Macbook battery consumed when plugged in? - <AUTHOR>

When a battery is charging, does it also get consumed simultaneously? Like, is the device still powered from from the battery instead of the power adapter, though it is also charging?<p>Does it differ for MacBooks and iPads/iPhones? <comment><USER2> Different adapters are different wattages. It's definitely possible, for both laptops and phones, to have an adapter that outputs less than the device is using. So you can be both plugged in and drain your battery especially if doing something intensive like running a high frame rate game. Some of the older macbooks, if you remove the battery, will actually refuse to run at full speed and clock down their processors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. If power consumption varies with usage then the wattage doesn't seem relevant, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Do you have any idea of how the 65W adapter of rMBP 13" works?

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what kind of adapter is on which kind of Macs, but if you're asking because you want to use a larger brick, then it might be just fine. Let me tell you a little story:

I have a 13" MBP since 2008 (or 2009?) on which I replaced the power brick at two times, just a few weeks after the warranty was gone. Every time with another Apple charger, the same model, despite the fact that rating on their store was one star. All this time, the charger was so hot that i could barely touch it.

I was somehow disparate because it was ridiculous to take the charger as a consumable that needs to be replaced every year, so I started to do some research and I found that I could just use a larger charger (from the 15" model). I bought one back in 2013 and it runs ever since, with no issue at all. The brick is also barely warm, so that's nice :)

If you want to use a smaller charger, it will also work. Somehow. It will wear out the charger very quickly and it will take a lot of time to charge the battery.</comment></comment></comment>


Controlling the Controller - <AUTHOR> http://localhost/recess-v0.20/helloworld/ <comment><USER2> The link doesn't point to where (I assume) you intended.</comment>


Show HN: Reduce install times on production, clean up package json - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vijaysutrave/clean-package-json <comment><USER2> Isn't it pretty fast starting with NPM 5?</comment>


IBM Watson Language Translation and Speech Services – General Availability - <AUTHOR> https://developer.ibm.com/watson/blog/2015/07/06/ibm-watson-language-translation-and-speech-services-general-availability/

<comment><USER2> This is exciting news - great work! Look forward to seeing more smart people collaborate around speech technology in the coming years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great news! A lot of improvements relative to the beta service!</comment>


Ask HN: How to find a Co-founder for your startup? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I recently joined HN. This is my first post. Sorry if I haven't followed any HN etiqoettes. I have a question for your guys.
Let's say you have a great idea and you are novice to startup world(like me). And you need very good hacker(has startup experience) who can partner and make this idea into a reality and mutually share the benefits. Now my question is how do you find a trustworthy hacker.Do you guys have any approach?
How to tackle this hypothetical situation. 1. You announce that you are looking for a cofounder. Many show interest. You contact some one and share your Idea. After that he doesn't show interest and walks out. He implements the idea by himself (or through his friend) with out your knowledge. You will be in deep trouble.
One approach I am thinking is announcing on HN ("Looking for cofounder"). Then Hackers who are available and would like to venture will get back. As I need proven hackers, I will ask for their earlier creations, their email IDs, photo. Once I am interested, I will ask them to commit on HN with their actual IDs or their creations(which would be proof that they are joining me). Then I will share my idea with them. If they are interested, I will close the post on HN that I am partnering with this person. Else,will look for some other by posting "not partnering with previous person, looking for other".
Please share your thoughts. <comment><USER5> There have been a few previous submissions and threads on this question - <USER2> might want to look up some of the previous discussions. Here are some of them:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2073239> Guide to Finding a Technical Co- Founder

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2056630> Can't Find a Technical Co- Founder? Do It Yourself

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2018618> Non-programmer founders: learn code first, find tech co-founder(s) after?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1983569> Finding co-founders, where and how

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1882090> How to Find a Technical Co- Founder

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1872960> Finding a Technical Co-Founder

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1866516> Dont look for a co-founder. Find a Right Hand Man

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1823724> Find Co-Founders, Don't Get Screwed

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1820875> Not in the Valley? How do you find co-founders?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1779750> How To REALLY Find A Technical Co-Founder

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1779092> How find co-founder online?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1778191> Ask HN: Finding a Co-Founder at a Hackerspace

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1689751> Can't Find a Technical Co- Founder? Do It Yourself

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1677066> Network Launches to Help Entrepreneurs Find Co-founders

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1576186> Last Call: Pitch to find a Co- Founder at The Founder Conference

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1575105> Does "finding co-founders" ever work?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1567469> Ask HN: Where is the best place to find a co-founder?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1512715> How to find a co-founder

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511965> Ask HN: How do you find/meet tech co-founders outside of the hotspots?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1509775> Finding the Right Co-Founder for Your Startup

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1373858> Strategies for Finding the Co- Founder of Your Dreams

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1367637> FoodSpotting founder on finding co-founder, marketing & female entrepreneurs

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1347723> Ask HN: How do I find the right co-founder?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1307167> Help a Startup Out - <USER3> feedback, find co-founders, find advisors, etc.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1297382> Ask HN: Where To Find Design Founders

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1294713> Vokle founder: how to find great programmers & making the most from events

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1238947> Ask HN: I'd like to find Co- Founder(s) / Developers

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1086852> How to Find the Ideal Co- founder: A Seattle Startup Experiment

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912667> Find a co-founder with this new MeetUp

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876010> Finding Your Co-Founders

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=849737> Ask HN: Finding Developer/Engineer Co-Founder?

<comment><USER6> woah the item id of the links are sorted! can't be a coincidence, right?

<comment><USER5> Extracted programmatically, then roughly checked by hand. A few removed that were genuinely irrelevant, but I can't guarantee that they're all good.

But to some extent, that's not my job. The OP should now check the info there and see if it's of any use. _Ideally_ they could provide a summary of the information they feel is relevant, and then we'd have a potentially useful resource.

<comment><USER6> I was not saying anything about the relevance of the links. All I pointed was that the id# are sorted (order). You extracted it programmatically makes it clear :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Being that I am just on the other side of your situation:

1\. Your concern is not finding a very good hacker who will implement your idea. Your concern is getting your idea nailed down and showing hackers that YOU drive value. (Hackers have great ideas too, can build it, and don't have to share, so why is yours better?) \--I solved this problem by getting a major corp. and name-brand school interested.

2\. Great quote: "People rarely have time for their own great ideas, they sure don't care about yours" \--Aka don't worry about them stealing your idea, 99% is execution and getting them to sign something == you signing your own death warrant.

Hope that helps.

</comment><comment><USER8> Idea theft is something many people freak about, but in actuality it happens more infrequently than you think.

I have visited several inventor's guilds where complete strangers meet up and share ideas. At my first meeting I expected to sign some sort of non- disclosure or confidentiality document to protect others' ideas, but I never did! Several of the inventors explained why:

1.) If your idea is truly good, then only you know how to immediately implement it. You will be hard-pressed to find someone that thinks exactly like you and will be able to discover the nuances of your idea. Still exercise a little caution when explaining an idea and don't give away the punchline too early!

2.) Execution is always the key to success and frankly, you would be surprised by how few people there are who have the time and resources to effectively implement your idea. Chances are, those who try, will only scratch the surface of your idea's potential.

3.) If by some freakish chance someone does end up implementing your idea in the exact manner as you had dreamed, then you just found yourself a partner!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hansy, very well said and all points well taken.

You said "only you know how to immediately implement it", but my problem is I am not aware of web technologies and how to market it. I come from a different programming world of C/C++. Thats why I am looking for hackers as partners who can implement my ideas.

will be cautious and wont give away the punchline too early.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Since I'm actually in the process of building a site that helps you find co- founders, I've just set up a Facebook page that you can "like" to get an announcement when the site is up:

[http://www.facebook.com/pages/Find-a-co- founder/155551604502...](http://www.facebook.com/pages/Find-a-co- founder/155551604502198)

(I'm using a Facebook page for this because I haven't decided on a domain name yet, and if I were to ask people to sign up for an announcement email list, some people would be hesitant to provide their email address, I guess).

</comment><comment><USER10> If you are seriously looking for a cofounder, it would help if you posted your idea. You don't just want someone with experience, you want someone who has as much of a passion for your idea as you do.

It is also important to realize that an idea is worth next to nothing (and that many people have probably thought of the idea before you). What matters is the implementation and your ability to deliver what users want.

<comment><AUTHOR> Posting my Idea is no problem. I can provide the abstract of my idea. But I would like to hear from other hackers about their approach. I second your point on Idea execution.

I am true believer of "Ideas are just a multiplier of execution". - <USER4> Sivers

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You have to give the very good hackers with previous startup experience some sort of indication of why they would want to give up whatever they're doing to partner with you. Otherwise they're not going to get as far as sending you their photos and lists of earlier creations.

</comment><comment><USER12> Start learning how to code and try and flesh out your idea/app on your own. This will give you a better perspective from which to interact with potential founders and go a long way towards helping you flesh out your idea.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [Edit] Adding something about me: I am not aware of web technologies, its implementation and how to market it. I come from a different programming world of C/C++. Thats why I am looking for hackers as partners who can partner and implement my ideas.</comment>


Germany's SEC Dismissed a Decade of Warnings About Wirecard - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-germanys-sec-dismissed-a-decade-of-warnings-about-wirecard-11594907212 <comment><AUTHOR> I'd previously read about BaFin investigating FT journalists but have never seen a comprehensive list of all of the times their protections of Wirecard. This jumped out at me:

> An early chance to look into Wirecard came in 2008, when an association of > small shareholders filed a suit with a Munich court targeting Wirecard's > accounting practices. It alleged Wirecard counted customer deposits as its > own cash and that its margins were suspiciously high.

> BaFin opened a probe into the accusers. Wirecard had complained after the > suit caused its stock to slump. Two former officials of the staid > association were charged, convicted of market manipulation and handed > suspended prison sentences.

I'm struggling to see a non-corrupt explanation to this pattern of behavior.</comment>


A public health campaign to stop C/C++ - <AUTHOR> http://trevorjim.com/a-public-health-campaign-to-stop-c-c++/ <comment><USER2> In the cases that you've seen C/C++ being used, what alternatives do you recommend, that would have satisfied the same requirements without compromising on the safety? Rust?</comment>


Can no-discrimination be taught through technology? - <AUTHOR> Monkey see, monkey do (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_see,_monkey_do)
A lot of people in this world have grown up in bubble-like environments where discriminatory ideas and ways of living are passed on from generation to generation. A lot of times this happens without questioning anything, and marking people for life.
For the people in question, there is no incentive to 'learn' why they shouldn't discriminate, or to ask themselves if they are wrong acting this way.
Is it possible to mitigate this through technology? Can incentives be created via technology so that this is appealing to new generations? Can you come up with a way to do so? <comment><USER2> I believe you can aid people in dismissing _irrational_ discrimination. If it is based on a logical error than it can be corrected.

Something that is true has a way of needling away at people's brains until it gets in.

Discrimination is a very deep brain function. It is the ability to discern patterns.

Sometimes this system results in false positives, such as when you jump at shadows at night or get spooked because you imagine somebody to be in a room when they're not.

But most of the time it works. That is why it evolved. It had enormous survival value despite some of the drawbacks.

Thinking otherwise is magical thinking. Turning discrimination into an original sin is in of itself a path towards discrimination.

In truth nobody has 'the benchmark' for reality. Nobody is consistently right all the time.

Take CFAR - the Center For Applied Rationality.

They found a very interesting result when they studied people's opinions. They found that when people were polled on a large variety of different questions, that when their confidence level was 100%, that they were only right 66% of the time. I repeat, that was for their highest confidence level.

CFAR has a program where they study rationality and have come up with a list of ways to improve our own rationality by using clever heuristics.

[http://rationality.org/checklist/](http://rationality.org/checklist/)

Here is an excerpt:

"Reacting to evidence / surprises / arguments you haven't heard before; flagging beliefs for examination.

When I see something odd – something that doesn't fit with what I'd ordinarily expect, given my other beliefs – I successfully notice, promote it to conscious attention and think "I notice that I am confused" or some equivalent thereof. (Example: You think that your flight is scheduled to depart on Thursday. On Tuesday, you get an email from Travelocity advising you to prepare for your flight "tomorrow", which seems wrong. Do you successfully raise this anomaly to the level of conscious attention? (Based on the experience of an actual LWer who failed to notice confusion at this point and missed their plane flight.))

When somebody says something that isn't quite clear enough for me to visualize, I notice this and ask for examples. (Recent example from Eliezer: A mathematics student said they were studying "stacks". I asked for an example of a stack. They said that the integers could form a stack. I asked for an example of something that was not a stack.) (Recent example from Anna: Cat said that her boyfriend was very competitive. I asked her for an example of "very competitive." She said that when he's driving and the person next to him revs their engine, he must be the one to leave the intersection first—and when he's the passenger he gets mad at the driver when they don't react similarly.)

I notice when my mind is arguing for a side (instead of evaluating which side to choose), and flag this as an error mode. (Recent example from Anna: Noticed myself explaining to myself why outsourcing my clothes shopping does make sense, rather than evaluating whether to do it.)

I notice my mind flinching away from a thought; and when I notice, I flag that area as requiring more deliberate exploration. (Recent example from Anna: I have a failure mode where, when I feel socially uncomfortable, I try to make others feel mistaken so that I will feel less vulnerable. Pulling this thought into words required repeated conscious effort, as my mind kept wanting to just drop the subject.)

I consciously attempt to welcome bad news, or at least not push it away. (Recent example from Eliezer: At a brainstorming session for future Singularity Summits, one issue raised was that we hadn't really been asking for money at previous ones. My brain was offering resistance, so I applied the "bad news is good news" pattern to rephrase this as, "This point doesn't change the fixed amount of money we raised in past years, so it is good news because it implies that we can fix the strategy and do better next year.") "

This and not a rote education, is what we need. There is an infinite number of lies, you can't fight them all one at a time. CFAR is a great organization, I'd go to their meet-ups in a shot if I could afford to. These are the true crusaders for looking at the world scientifically.</comment>


Berkeley CS 61AS – Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Self-Paced - <AUTHOR> http://berkeley-cs61as.github.io/ <comment><USER2> Thank you for sharing! I've been looking for a well structured course to help me navigate through SICP.

It's kind of funny how at my university (one of the better public unis in the world, or so they say), there is no rigorous introduction to computer science. Sure, we have our architecture, and our data structures, OS, and algorithms, and even a "here's how to Java" introductory course. Yet there is no "This is the way to think like a computer scientist and how to understand as a computer scientist would" class.

The result? You can clearly tell there are a lot of people in the cs program who just sort of go by and learn all these periphery (but still important!) topics without ever touching the core principles. I've even seen seniors who are just clueless! I guess the idea is they're meant to figure it out for themselves through a eureka moment? That doesn't seem like a sound structure to me. I'm realizing that I, myself, fall into the lacking-understanding camp and I'm doing my damn best to rectify that. When I get my degree I want to be able to say I'm a computer scientist, and I want those words mean something. I'm hoping that SICP will truly help me understand the core principles.

<comment><USER3> My impression is that computer science education is light-years behind things like physics and math.

I feel a lot of it has to do with the amount of money you can make straight out of college even as a mediocre coder, compared to the low-paying, unrewarding mess that education currently is.

Good on you for trying to do things right :) I was lucky to take the non-self paced version of CS61A, and I do think the class is top-notch. But even then there's tons of room for improvement, but no one has the time. We're all too occupied with our start-ups here (professor was amazing, but it says a lot that he was a full-time employee of Google while he taught our class).

<comment><USER4> I don't know if it's that, or if it's just that it's muddled.

Physics is really two different fields: There's Physics for people who want to a rigorous understanding of the underlying theory, and possibly also want to become research scientists or academics within the field. And there's engineering and all its subfields for people who are primarily interested in applying that knowledge to make stuff.

There's the potential for CS to be broken up along similar lines, but it hasn't happened. I'd argue that this does students a great disservice, since it's hard for someone getting in at the ground level to tell what a program's real focus is just by reading the course catalog.

I took the SICP route and I'm very glad I did. But plenty of my classmates hated it, and I don't see a problem with that. It's terribly dry stuff, and there are plenty of people who've got only a high level grasp of the theory and still make amazing software and make it well

<comment><USER2> That's a good point. I like the fundamentals and really digging in, and for my friends who don't I ask why learn less about the fundamentals of what you're doing!? Those same friends seriously questioned their life choices during the theory/core classes. They later found their calling when they had a chance to explore things like web dev or mobile dev and they're happy now.

Different strokes for different folks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hi all. Glad you find our site useful. Just wanted to add some context that we just spun up this website this summer, and are currently porting all of our lessons to the Racket programming language. Since we're developing course material to work well with Racket, some lessons might be broken/have typos. This means that this summer, the website is mainly for supporting the students taking the live course. Thanks for understanding. :) \-- CS61AS Staff

</comment><comment><USER6> As much as I love racket/scheme/lisp, I truly believe that the 61A (sans-s) where python is taught, helped me much more for my career/future just because it was taught in python. For programming fundamentals, either works great, but I think working with python is more helpful for future environments.

One example of this is when a classmate of mine was taking an artificial intelligence class at Berkeley (Cog Sci 131) and was at a loss because she was taking 61as which was taught in strictly scheme, and the artificial intelligence class was taught in strictly python.

Both classes are wonderful and I can proudly say that it has made me a better computer scientist. [http://cs61a.org/](http://cs61a.org/)

<comment><USER7> I too took CS61AS in scheme and AI in python, but my experience was different than that of your friend. I didn't find it difficult to pick up python, and learning it after scheme made me appreciate python all the more.

Unless one plans on developing mostly in python during his or her career, I think its beneficial to be forced to learn multiple languages.

<comment><USER8> I've found that each incremental language I've learned typically improves my ability to write code in the languages I already 'knew'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> These are great notes. Just bookmarked. I'm a self taught programmer (but have EE degree) and have just started to read SICP. I'm actually a Vim guy, but because it was awkward to use Vim, I've decided to use DrRacket. Why not MIT/Scheme? Because every single review would suggest me to use DrRacket, as it's more intuitive to use and it's still developed.

So what I'm doing is using DrRacket with this module: [http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-sicp/](http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket- sicp/) This adds and makes the environment SICP friendly, and so far I didn't have any single problem (I'm at Chapter 1, page 67).

From Berkeley, the SICP lectures from Brian Harvey are highly recommended. You can watch them from: [https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EC3E89002AA9B9879E](https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EC3E89002AA9B9879E) And of course the lectures from MIT itself are good too: [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- comput...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs- spring-2005/video-lectures/) I'm going to watch those once I've finished Chapter 1 myself, to re-read and go over the chapter again.

Because it would be good to observe what I've done and track my progress I've setup a Git repo with my thoughts, notes and solutions about SICP and Scheme: [https://github.com/fatih/sicp](https://github.com/fatih/sicp)

This is the first time I'm exposed to Scheme/LISP and it's just wonderful. I really like the examples (though they to much based on mathematical proofs and functions).

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm a community college student in California looking to transfer to Berkeley.

I am currently two weeks into the CS 61A Summer Course here in Berkeley and I can confidently say that it is the best class I have taken in my academic career. A few reasons:

1\. It follows the mentality of guided discovery. Topics are covered in class, and just enough is taught such that the basis of a solution can be formed, but the implementation requires each person to discover something new.

2\. The breadth of topics. The course is 50% students who have never programmed before, I have been programming for 4 years, but still I am learning new things about optimizations, tail recursion, and Big-O notation. If you look at the calendar at [http://cs61.org](http://cs61.org), it goes from "these are variables" to "AI" in 8 weeks.

3\. Resources. CS 61A Staff during the summer course if legendary already. They're extremely knowledgeable and very welcoming to everyone. The main lecturers, Albert and Robert, both cover the material well and make themselves available to students of any programming knowledge. There are also dozens and dozens of TAs and Lab assistants which are actually useful, unlike some other courses.

4\. Intrigue. I have never wanted to bunker down and learn everything there is to know about recursion, interpreters, and algorithms more than I have in the last two weeks. The way the course is structured, as mentioned above, actually inspires learning in a way that some other topics don't achieve because they follow archaic teaching methods.

Here's to an awesome 61A course.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is there any way get access to the homework auto-grader they are using?

<comment><USER12> It looks like 61AS still uses the old glookup system that's restricted to enrolled students, but you could go through the regular 61A course (which is taught mostly in Python but covers most of the same material as 61AS) which started using the new OK autograder for all assignments last semester ([http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp15/](http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp15/)). The tests are all run locally, so just add the --local flag to the command you run to prevent it from sending data to the server (which requires a Berkeley login).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Also:

[http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- comput...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs- spring-2005/video-lectures/)

[https://github.com/sarabander/sicp](https://github.com/sarabander/sicp)

</comment><comment><USER14> While the non self-paced version of this class (CS 61A) uses Python, it's great to see Racket used here.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's great to see Racket being used for this course, as I'm sure many students will go on to explore the language more deeply and see that it has a lot to offer.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is the class using only Racket? Wonder what made them chose that language? Also what is the language used in MIT these days?

<comment><USER17> As another commenter mentions, MIT used MIT/GNU Scheme [1] for the introduction to CS class 6.001, so if you're following SICP, this is probably the least-friction distribution of Scheme to be using (hints: use rlwrap, or use scheme-mode in emacs, or figure out how to use its built-in scheme-based emacs clone "edwin").

MIT ran(/runs?) a one-month short course covering material from 6.001, and they used PLT Scheme when I took it (now Racket). I seem to remember needing to go into one of the rnrs language modes to get things like mutable cons cells. (How impure.) From what I understand, MIT Scheme is much more in the Maclisp tradition, vs. Racket being more from programming language theory (though both are firmly rooted in the Scheme standard), which reflects in their extensions to the core language.

Nowadays, there is no equivalent to 6.001 at MIT, except maybe 6.945 can substitute. They have a survey course sequence 6.01/6.02 which covers EECS in general, using Python when programming is needed. As a challenge exercise you can make an interpreter for a language, though that's not very metacircular.

[1] [http://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/](http://www.gnu.org/software/mit- scheme/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is great, just started reading SICP on my own last week. These lecture notes will help a bunch as well.

</comment><comment><USER19> Just as I decided to learn a LISP! Great!

</comment><comment><USER20> Is this a mooc also? If so, how and where does one sign up?

</comment><comment><USER21> The best CS course I've taken yet.

<comment><USER22> Easily one of the most valuable. I agree.</comment></comment>