Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform - <AUTHOR> I'm curious what everyone would recommend for a new blog?  I really want to focus on the writing and not deal with updates and viruses. But I'd still like to do a good degree of customization and plugins and a custom domain name. <comment><USER2> To avoid updates and viruses, go with a static site.

There are a ton of good static site generators out there. My blog[0] runs on Jekyll[1]. Hugo[2] is a popular option. I've fiddled with Gatsby[3] and heard good things. Eleventy[4] looks as close to Jekyll-but-in-JavaScript as I've seen.

Since you want to be able to customize it, I'd probably take the static site generator's language into account. Do you like...

Ruby? -> Jekyll[1]

Go? -> Hugo[2]

JavaScript? -> Gatsby[3] or Eleventy[4]

Some other language? -> google "[language] static site generator" and see how many GitHub stars it has.

Once you've figured that out, most of the hosts support custom domains. Netlify[5] is free, and works very well. It's what I use currently. I used to host my site on DigitalOcean[6], but Netlify is definitely more painless, especially from a devops/patching standpoint. Plus it has a CDN so your site would be faster.

[0] [https://daveceddia.com/](https://daveceddia.com/)

[1] [https://jekyllrb.com/](https://jekyllrb.com/)

[2] [https://gohugo.io/](https://gohugo.io/)

[3] [https://www.gatsbyjs.org/](https://www.gatsbyjs.org/)

[4] [https://www.11ty.io/](https://www.11ty.io/)

[5] [https://www.netlify.com/](https://www.netlify.com/)

[6] [https://www.digitalocean.com/](https://www.digitalocean.com/)

<comment><USER3> Static blogs are ok until it's a smallish blog with not much content or many visitors. But can't recommend it for a serious blog proect. One would have to jump through the hoops and use hacks for even the basic things like commenting, searching etc. And forget about slightly advanced stuff like popular posts, related posts etc without some Hugo or Jekyll hacking. WordPress has the lowest barrier to entry as most shared hosts offer one click installs, is the most feature rich blogging platform and even for a complete noob, it is much easier to get started and even customize their blog to a great extent with plugins. I would also like to add that virus affecting WordPress is much of a myth now, WordPress has improved greatly in the recent years and if you just stick with the basic install and just install the reputable plugins, you should be fine. The hacking cases related to WordPress are very few and far between.

<comment><USER4> I agree that getting things like comments and search running on a static site is a lot work. But I'm of the opinion your personal site doesn't need those things.

Rarely have I seen interesting discussion happen in the comments of a personal blog. All great discussion is held in aggregators like HN.

Similarly search is best left to specialized platforms such as a search engine. Blogging software may have decent search by why recreate a search engine when duckduckgo.com will far exceed capabilities with _site:_ and _filetype:_?

For me a personal site and blog are mostly single visit kind of stops. I end up on a blog via a link but almost never do I feel the need to read the top 5 best posts of some blog. I got some interesting information from the current article but then I'm of to the next link that shows up in my feed.

In my opinion a website needs readability[0] and an ATOM/RSS feed. All the rest is part ego ("my content is so great people just have to see what else I wrote") and part feature creep.

[0] [https://www.sinax.be/blog/general/guidelines-for-spartan- web...](https://www.sinax.be/blog/general/guidelines-for-spartan- webdesign.html)

<comment><USER3> Sure, for a personal site or a portfolio site, they are not even needed. I also use Hugo for one of my sites, which is just a 5 page website. It is great for such stuff. But for a personal blog, I think both of those things(commenting and search) are absolutely essential.

>Rarely have I seen interesting discussion happen in the comments of a personal blog.

I disagree with this and even more so if we are talking about programming blogs. A lot of interesting discussions and rebuttals happen in the comment sections.

Regarding outsourcing search to a dedicated search engine, its a mixed bag. 99% of the users don't even know about the `site:` and `filetype:` stuff. You also have the option of embedding Google site search but the first four results are ads which isn't very ideal. Wordpress search is decent out of the box but if you want something advanced, it has some nice plugins that allow advanced searching with fuzzy matches.

<comment><USER5> > But for a personal blog, I think both of those things(commenting and search) > are absolutely essential.

What I've found to work well for commenting is to put an e-mail address on the page where people can send their comments. When there is a good comment, I put an update in the article.

The main advantage of this approach is that it weeds out garbage responses. By making it ever so slightly harder for people to post a comment, they are forced to take an extra few seconds to consider if they really have something meaningful to add.

<comment><USER3> That is a good idea but would people really want to leave the site to open their email client and make a comment?

I had once thought about a different approach - Creating a Google form (for each blog post) and then embedding it on the blog post. Then whenever anyone submits a comment via the form, it would get saved to a Google spreadsheet(this needs to be made publicly readable). The unwanted comments can just be deleted from the spreadsheet. The contents of this spreadsheet can then be obtained in a JSON format and displayed on the blog post using Javascript.

<comment><USER6> Hmm interesting approach. What about reply notifications? If Jane replies to Joe's comment? Maybe with Zapier or ifttt it'd be possible to construct automatic reply notifications. ... But then, what about unsubscribe, hmm.

> saved to a Google spreadsheet(this needs to be made publicly readable)

Hmm, then, people's email addresses cannot be remembered, meaning, no reply notifications?

<comment><USER3> Yeah this is just a hacky solution, not very effective. Forget reply notifications, even replying to a comment in a threaded style would be tricky using this approach :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While it doesn't seem very popular in Hacker News, I think WordPress [1] is an excellent platform for a blog. The community is terrific, there is a tremendous amount of documentation out there, and it is entirely customisable.

If you go with the managed hosting route, most companies handle security and updates for you, so you can focus on writing and leave everything technical to someone else.

I am working on one myself — and have a private beta running, if you are interested [2], —, but of the top of my head, some companies that will go above and beyond as far as WordPress is concerned, include Kinsta [3], Pantheon [4] and Presslabs [5]. The last one is based in Romania and open sourced a bunch of their stack, worth checking out.

[1] [https://wordpress.org](https://wordpress.org)

[2] Just email me at email@example.com for information

[3] [https://kinsta.com](https://kinsta.com)

[4] [https://pantheon.io](https://pantheon.io)

[5] [https://www.presslabs.com](https://www.presslabs.com)

<comment><USER8> Wordpress falls over under an even modest amount of traffic without jumping through a bunch of caching plugin hoops, it's written in PHP, it requires dynamic hosting, and it regularly has major security issues. It's not good.

<comment><USER9> IMO, the only reason that you gave that holds water here is that it requires dynamic hosting and that the resulting operational complexity just isn't worth it for a personal blog. Having to add caching plugins/config for a PHP CMS isn't out of the ordinary, being written in PHP is not in itself a negative point (modern PHP really doesn't suck).

I will never, ever, ever advocate for running Wordpress for much of anything, but I would also argue that any nontrivial piece of software has a fair number of security issues and that Wordpress vulnerabilities are particularly visible because of how widely used it is and the public-facing nature of the software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you have a gun pointed to your head with the requirements you have listed then you go Wordpress. Updates aren't difficult. I'm not sure about plugins (I haven't used WP in a long time,) but you can set the core Wordpress updates to be automatic. It will handle everything you need.

If after a week of coding you arrive to the weekend and think "I want to do a bunch more coding" then you go with a static site generator. Then you don't finish over the weekend and have to screw with it the following weekend as well. Then you finally publish the thing with "good enough but not quite what you wanted" functionality and let it sit there for weeks. Then you come back to it and scratch your head trying to remember how to publish / build / deploy it (or you cycle through your shell history hoping the commands are still in there.) One day you decide that you want to add that functionality you left out the first time and find that you have to relearn everything you had to learn to build the thing in the first place. Sure, you vaguely remember the easy stuff, but you have to refresh on the easy stuff to get back to the harder stuff which you never had time to figure out from the beginning.

Anyone been there? ;) In this case, I'm thinking of Hugo, but I imagine it's much the same for all the others.

With Wordpress you get enough balance of customization and ease of use that you can just get on with it. If you need a bit of help, then get on Fiverr or similar and have someone throw you pointers (or just do it for you) to save you time in getting past tricky parts.

There's a reason loads of sites on the internet are using WP. People use it to GTD and move on to something else.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Outside of the nerd bubble of HN, Wordpress is still the defacto choice for a blogging platform. Nothing comes close to WordPress in terms of customization freedom and "zero to deploy".

<comment><USER11> I agree. A social (card gaming) group I'm involved with used self-hosted WordPress and it's been great. We use it primarily for events and post-game blog posts. Non technical people can contribute blog posts and other stuff, and I can occasionally pretend to be a sysadmin.

Cost is essentially free since it piggy backs on a VPS that would otherwise be running anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you like writing Python code, I recommend [https://github.com/sunainapai/makesite](https://github.com/sunainapai/makesite) (makesite.py). As the README says, it is a simple, lightweight, and magic-free static blog generator. The entire static blog generator code is in a single file named makesite.py.

Add your content to the `content` directory. Then run `python3 makesite.py` to generate the static blog. It writes the generated blog to the `_site` directory. Finally copy this directory to wherever you want to serve your blog from, e.g., GitHub repo with GitHub pages enabled, virtual private server, cloud storage, etc.

It works pretty well out of the box and it is highly customizable too because doing so involves just modifying the existing Python code or writing your own Python code.

Disclaimer: This project has been written by my wife. I use it myself to render my static blog at [https://susam.in/](https://susam.in/).

<comment><USER5> FYI: That's a disclosure, not a disclaimer. A disclaimer would be something like "This project has been written by my wife, so I don't take any responsibility for its quality", which is clearly not your intention.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for correcting me. Indeed, I meant it as a disclosure, not a disclaimer. I was aware of the difference between the two words but I made a thinking error while writing my comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ghost [https://ghost.org/](https://ghost.org/) [https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost](https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost) is best for the need you've described, it's no-nonsense fast as lightning, unlike bloated WordPress.

<comment><USER14> Hosted Ghost is _really_ expensive.

Self-hosted Ghost is a pain in the ass to maintain.

Disclaimer: the above is my own experience, and not necessarily that of others.

<comment><USER15> How is it a pain to maintain? I'm using the Dockerized version and apart from increasing the version number in the Docker Compose file there's 0 maintenance in the last years of running it.

<comment><USER14> The Docker community maintains that image, not Ghost directly.

I ran into several problems writing Ansible automation to spin up and configure a Ghost server. Eventually I gave up and used a different blog engine that was more amenable to automation.

Granted, this may just be a low motivation on my part to use Ghost, in favor of just getting something up and running.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sadly even though it is not popular in HN WordPress is the best for you.

Easy to set up and try and you can customize it as well. With lots of plugins for everything.

You can go with the paid WordPress.com and they will handle all the updates for you.

Static sites are good but when it is time for SEO and customisation you will realize that it can get really painful in a static site generator.

<comment><USER17> > Static sites are good but when it is time for SEO and customisation you will > realize that it can get really painful in a static site generator.

care to explain? because that makes _no_ sense to me. SEO is primarily about content these days. The little "add this tag for SEO WIN" type things stopped being useful years ago. Have a good title, have good content, link your stuff well, update regularly: success!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you really want to avoid updates and viruses, you need to go _static_. There's hundreds of static site generators out there.

I recommend [1] hexo, for it's simplicity. You can write in markdown files and generate a static blog for static hosting.

But [2] Gatsby is another similar framework, but it uses React.

[1] [https://hexo.io/](https://hexo.io/)

[2] [https://www.gatsbyjs.org](https://www.gatsbyjs.org)

<comment><USER19> Another static site generator that is gaining traction is Eleventy[1]. It's very small and simple, entirely build in js, supports most templating languages you already know and it's more flexible than GatbyJS. For a more complete blogging solution, though, I'd recommend Ghost.[2]. If you're building a small blog just for fun you should definitely go static and scratch your hacker's itch.

[1][https://www.11ty.io](https://www.11ty.io) [2][https://ghost.org](https://ghost.org)

<comment><USER20> You can also combine the two and use a Ghost back end with an Eleventy front- end, fwiw: [https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/eleventy/](https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/eleventy/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wrote my own one-off static site generator.

It is freeing. Anything is possible, and nothing is in your way. It really doesn't take that much time.

[https://github.com/pauldotknopf/pauldotknopf.github.io/blob/...](https://github.com/pauldotknopf/pauldotknopf.github.io/blob/staging/generator/src/Blog/Program.cs)

[https://pknopf.com/](https://pknopf.com/)

<comment><USER22> Yeah I find just knock something up in NodeJS. Then when you need to do something custom you are writing JS. Familiar stuff. Compare that to the headache of figuring out how to get Hugo templates to do anything non trivial. Or even getting Jekyll to run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I used Wordpress for years. It was such a hassle constantly getting emails about patching. In the end I got fed up and moved to hugo hosted on netlify. Fantastic. Zero maintenance.

<comment><USER24> I was also impressed by Netlify. I tried multiple other solutions to host my website but Netlify was my favorite at the end. Easy to setup, free and fast. I configured my account, access to Github, deployment, custom domain and SSL in 5 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Static sites are cool but annoying to customize. WordPress is cool but a server is annoying to maintain.

Solution: build on WordPress, use wget to pull a mirror, serve that as a static site. This is way more common than you may initially guess.

</comment><comment><USER26> I also wrote my own static site generator using Python [0] that I use to generate my personal site [2], and that I introduced as a blog post here [1].

Posts are written in Markdown with simple formatting, templates are HTML/CSS with Jinja2 templating, and it includes support for things like automatic table-of-contents generation for posts, blog index pagination, tags, related posts (manually tagged, for now), comments (using utteranc.es and GitHub issues), and automatic image compression/scaling/caching (between builds). Eventually, I intend to add things automated 'related posts' list generation, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[0]: [https://github.com/ggoss/sitegen](https://github.com/ggoss/sitegen)

[1]: [https://garrettgoss.com/blog/2019/05/sitegen.html](https://garrettgoss.com/blog/2019/05/sitegen.html)

[2]: [https://garrettgoss.com](https://garrettgoss.com)

</comment><comment><USER27> WordPress all the way. I genuinely think it's the self-hosted solution that offers the best combination of control, flexibility and ease-of-use. You just need a couple of plugins for performance and safety and you are set [0].

There are literally tens of thousands of themes - open source and commercial - that you can try out in a matter of minutes instead of wasting days or weeks designing your own theme.

You rarely have to code stuff by yourself because there is a plugin for any functionality you can imagine.

Latest version of WordPress comes with the new Gutenberg editor which I'm personally not a huge fan of as it obfuscates too much of WordPress' inner workings. You might, therefore, want to use the Classic Editor plugin as a solution.

If you haven't already bought a domain name, I recommend Porkbun. Moved several domains to them in the past months and have found them to be cheap and yet reliable straight shooters.

[0] My list of must-have plugins: Yoast (for SEO), Autoptimize (caching/performance), Wordfence Security (multi-layer security).

<comment><USER3> For any serious blogging project, WordPress is by far the best choice, nothing comes close in terms of features, ease of use and ease of customization. I would also add contact form 7 to the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I got tired of dealing with WordPress. I moved to Jekyll hosted on Netlify. I use Forestry as a frontend. You can read more at [https://dev.clintonblackburn.com/2019/03/31/wordpress-to- jek...](https://dev.clintonblackburn.com/2019/03/31/wordpress-to-jekyll/).

</comment><comment><USER29> After years of trying different things, I found something that works great for me, though I suspect you'll have to try a few things until you find what is comfortable for you.

I publish my blog as a static site served by nginx on a $5 / node (which also hosts a dozen other things—I don't get much traffic). Every once in a while I ssh in and run an apt upgrade but no updates to manage beyond that. I use [https://getstatik.com/](https://getstatik.com/) to generate the site from markdown files. I'm surprised it hasn't caught on more given how flexible it lets you be with defining how your site should work. The whole thing is stored on git and I can deploy with a push to my server remote.

That said if you want to focus on writing I would start with something as simple as ghost of medium to see if you're actually as into writing as you think.

</comment><comment><USER30> I personally started with a hand-rolled static html site and some content. When I decided to self-host, I got a super cheap VPS and just ran the site off of Node.js with an nginx reverse proxy.

After around 10 blog posts, I just wrote my own static site generator: [https://smalldata.tech/blog/2018/08/16/building-a-simple- sta...](https://smalldata.tech/blog/2018/08/16/building-a-simple-static-site- generator-using-node-js)

Most importantly, what works for me is just writing in HTML. It is more expressive than markdown and the browser preview _just works_ (including displaying images and/or running inlined js if certain posts require it)!

</comment><comment><USER31> I've been using pelican [1] with S3 for my blog [2]. It comes with a nice makefile that handles the generation (markdown -> HTML), dev server (localhost:8000 that regenerates files upon modification) and deployment to S3 (uses s3cmd along with API keys to upload to a designated bucket). It offers GitHub, ftp, ssh, and dropbox options for deployment as well, but I've never tried them.

[1] [https://blog.getpelican.com](https://blog.getpelican.com)

[2] [http://nil.wallyjones.com](http://nil.wallyjones.com)

<comment><USER32> Also _rsync_ (the one I use).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I use both, WordPress and Hugo.

I use WordPress for personal blog, which consist mostly of links, highlights from books, photography, and stream of concise writing.

And I use Hugo for my professional website with a few blog posts but it is mostly focused on resume.

WordPress makes it super easy to share content via its app or bookmarklet on computer. Writing experience on WordPress editor is okay. I get average of 100 visitors per month but don't get any comments. I leave comments turned on because if I want to add a note when using someone else's machine, I can. Otherwise, I would turn off commenting and reduce one risk vector.

For Hugo, I use dedicated writing app, iaWriter[0]. It is definitely better experience of writing. My Hugo blog also has a private area where I write my fiction projects or write private notes. Of course, Hugo has no comments or search. Not really important for me. You can easily modify Hugo template to your liking but stuff like scheduled posts, automatic sharing on social networks, related posts, etc is not easily doable.

Based on the fact that you want to focus on writing, I would suggest Hugo with a good writing app. Of course, you can write blog posts in any editor and copy paste into WordPress or wherever.

[0]: [https://ia.net/writer](https://ia.net/writer)

</comment><comment><USER34> I've spent countless days trying various static site generators and alternatives. I was trying to replace a self host Wordpress site with github pages to save money.

I am now planning to instead build a new wordpress site and self host somewhere cheaper. WP is a PITA from a security point of view, but the alternatives are IMO uniformly terrible. WordPress just works and has a good ecosystem of plugins and themes.

I was really disappointed with the static site generators. I'd love to write one that works as I'd expect - a simple way to turn markdown into a site with a single config file and python command, no complex setup, no using git as a package manager etc. with a ready set of auto-generated based on themes for other packages - but this will be a future project.

It would look something like:

/pages - contains markdown pages /posts - markdown posts /themes - one subdir per theme /output - generated html

To generation html "ssg" in the root dir.

The themes would be anything you like, with very few template tags. The markdown would be translated to simple html and inserted in the files.

      pip install ssg
      create a page in /posts with a title and body
      ssg
      open output/index.html

</comment><comment><USER35> I also wrote my own static blog generator. It's available as either a Perl or a Python program [0]. I use it to write a static microblog [1].

[0] [https://github.com/john-bokma/tumblelog](https://github.com/john- bokma/tumblelog)

[1] [http://plurrrr.com/](http://plurrrr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I use Hugo for my blog but also for other non-blog sites. Generating static HTML gives me peace of mind and Go is super fast at regenerating the site. Deploying is a joyful process using GitHub and Netlify. I'd go static just to use Netlify. And the best part for me is the tech is "boring" so I just focus on the content, rather than on the blog platform.

<comment><USER37> Your posts have been helpful, thanks for the writing you do!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you like writing some code, want full control (i.e. payload size, extensibility, theming, etc) with some OOTB features (i.e. zero setup, server rendering, static exporting, etc), and don't mind react or markdown, I'd recommend nextjs + netlify.

I find Gatsby and Hugo very powerful; but miss the simplicity of Jykell. Even if you don't think nextjs is great for blogging, it's still worth checking out! Their docs + getting started guide are some of the best.

For example; writing up a small MVP site to test out a business idea ([https://www.hiredsomehelp.com/](https://www.hiredsomehelp.com/)), it's in progress, but even still, only took about 15 minutes to push up via netlify.

That being said, I feel like all these new static site generators are terrific; a real sweet spot in web development in my opinion :)

Stay the hell away from Wordpress. It. Will. Get. You. When you least expect it

</comment><comment><USER39> This may not be for everyone but here is what I did.

I wrote 5 articles that I thought were interesting. Then I bought a domain name, wrote a php script to serve them. (If url1 do x, if url2 do y) nothing fancy.

Only when I saw that I could sustain writing regularly I started worrying about the platform. And there is no best platform, only the one you are familiar with.

<comment><USER40> Curious, why didn't you just make it a static site then?

<comment><USER39> Only to have a reusable header and footer.

<comment><USER41> You can do that with a static site and includes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I ended up with a domain purchased on Gandi.

A Hugo static website on Github.

Netlify hosting that Github repo.

It's really turnkey and zero maintenance, and free.

[https://sergio.dev/posts/genserver-webcrawling-in-pure- elixi...](https://sergio.dev/posts/genserver-webcrawling-in-pure-elixir/)

</comment><comment><USER43> Github Pages + Jekyll.

Can use it with your custom domain, pretty customisable, and since its a static site, relatively secure.

<comment><USER44> That's what I use, but one word of warning: if you rely on GitHub to generate the pages for you, you can't use any custom plugins aside from the ones they've whitelisted.

<comment><USER45> I had a similar issue - turns out you can generate it statically locally and commit the generated HTML files: [https://help.github.com/en/articles/using-a- static-site-gene...](https://help.github.com/en/articles/using-a-static-site- generator-other-than-jekyll)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Unless you absolutely cannot stand PHP I will always recommend Kirby. You get blogging out of the box, comments, search, tags, related posts, featured posts, metadata stuff like SEO/RSS/Sitemaps is easy, a decent amount of themes out there, easy to make your own, can be deployed on shared hosting like Siteground or a bespoke server like Digita Ocean and the CMS interface is a joy to use.

Downsides: all the code is on github but it's not technically open source. I forget what the license is but it's not MIT or anything like that.

It also technically costs money. The maintainers let you download a working basic site and never nag you about paying. It's an honor system.

</comment><comment><USER47> Highly recommend the ghost platform. It gets out of your way and lets you focus on writing. Nothing else. You can customize it as much as you want but it's primary focus is getting you to writing first.

This is assuming you are willing to pay for at least your own server. Their hosted option is also great and highly recommended if you want to just start writing before thinking of customizations.

I find static site generators to be awesome but generally a hindrance to the flow of wanting to start writing spontaneously. More often than not, more time goes into figuring out the perfect workflow for the blog system rather than writing. Caveats, YMMV etc apply :)

<comment><USER3> Does Ghost support commenting yet? Can't imagine a blog without a commenting feature.

<comment><USER48> There's several comment integrations you can choose from [https://ghost.org/integrations/community/](https://ghost.org/integrations/community/)

<comment><USER3> That is exactly my point. With Ghost, I would have to resort to a third party service to have something so essential as a commenting system for a blog. Comments are a part of your blog's content and it is necessary to have your own control over it, as these third party providers can shut down or just ban your site for any reason(take Google Plus comments for instance which many blogs were using as a commenting platform for their blogs). Relying on a third party provider for comments should be a choice, not a compulsion.

<comment><USER48> Aren't comments a response to your blog content and not part of the content itself? Having the option to use a multitude of commenting services seems like lots of control surely?

If you look at the various options being suggested in the comments here you'll see many of them don't come with comments out of the box. Jekyll, Gatsby, Hugo, 11ty all require you to use a third party service or roll your own.

<comment><USER3> I strongly believe that they are a part of the content, just not in the traditional sense. Many times I find more substance in the comments than in the main content. Sure it's great to have more control over which commenting system to choose, but would adding a native commenting diminish that control? Certainly not right? (If you check out ghost's forums, you will find many people asking for a native commenting system)

Yes none of those static site generators support commenting, making them not very suitable for blogging(they dont even support searches). That is why I am not a proponent of static generators as a blogging platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> wordpress always felt really overkill for what i wanted, and static site gens are fun for people who like to tinker under the hood. personally i use hugo, but i am still shopping around for something a little less convoluted. stumbled onto a super old package called blazeblogger and it'a been neat, but we will see

when i just want something i can setup with minimal hassle, i have always loved GetSimple ([http://get-simple.info/](http://get-simple.info/)) although i imagine mentioning a flat-file platform will probably elicit some reactions - flat-file meaning it doesn't use a database to store content, but instead simply stores the data, encrypted, in actual textfiles on your webserver. when i was using godaddy as a host, their mysql db's were always a bit laggy, and something like wordpress would always have that extra, noticeable pause during loading that bugged me to no end. getsimple with the blogging plugin was always faster, configuring it was easy, and i didn't have to stray too far outside my limited knowledge of html/css/php to play with the styling and theming.

</comment><comment><USER50> WordPress is hard to beat. For a simple blog the updates are minimal and there are even Managed WordPress hosts that will keep it updated for you as part of the hosting plan. They typically also have on boarding.setup wizards to get it all fully setup in a few minutes.

Sure, you could use something more custom, but you'll just spend more time coding rather than writing on your blog.

</comment><comment><USER51> Static is great: more secure, stands up to very high loads, minimal maintenance.

I'd actually recommend writing in plain html+css at first, and then moving over to a static site generator once you have ~10 posts. You'll have a much better idea about what makes a good system at that point.

(I wrote my own static site generator after ~100 posts, which is longer than I'd recommend going!)

</comment><comment><USER52> In my experience Hugo has been really nice and simple to work with. I just push markdown to git and it shows up on my site.

</comment><comment><USER53> Tiddlywiki! Currently I'm working on having Tiddlywiki in a serverless env: Lambda + DynamDB + API Gateway.

</comment><comment><USER54> We're working on a security focused managed Wordpress hosting platform with custom email and templates included. If you'd like to beta test it email admin@ sitebay.org and we'll put you up for however long you need free. Thanks to YC summer startup school for hooking us up with some compute credits.

</comment><comment><USER14> You're describing hosted WordPress (wordpress.com, instead of wordpress.org).

If you don't care as much about customization or plugins, then WriteFreely is quite nice.

If you're willing to put in a fair amount of coding and design effort, you could use a static site generator, backed by Netlify as the host.

</comment><comment><USER55> Another options that seems promising is Netlify CMS: [https://www.netlifycms.org](https://www.netlifycms.org)

It puts the content in the git repo so that your SSG can read from that. Then your CI can trigger a build and deploy after each push to the repo.

</comment><comment><USER56> Gatsby, Hugo or plain(ish) Jekkyl.

Simple, clean, fast. Updates and viruses are a non-issue.

Depends what plugins you're talking about, but if you're a non-programmer/dev type, then you're probably better off using Wordpress as a blogging platform if some serious customisation is wanted.

<comment><USER57> Tried gatsby recently and I hate it. Their choice to use graphql for a static site generator makes no sense to me.

Trying to build anything beyond a super generic blog is a huge chore. Hugo has a much, much better community IMO

<comment><USER21> I agree. Gatsby is one of the worst products I have ever worked with. The code itself isn't bad, but the tech stack and UX is horrible. It's the epitome of hipster JavaScript.

I'm amazed that they got funding for it...

<comment><USER58> I hate to be negative about products others have built as I tend to believe that if it "sucks" it's because I'm not the target audience.

That said, I am happy to hear I'm not the only one with this sentiment.

<comment><USER57> I'm the same way, but there's a big difference between using a technology that's not designed for your use case and using a technology that just sucks, and frankly gatsby is the latter. It in no way outshines any other major static site generator available today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's Zola, a bit like Hugo but written in Rust,

[https://github.com/getzola/zola](https://github.com/getzola/zola),

and, looking at the readme, a bit more features than Hugo, e.g. built in search (how does that work?).

</comment><comment><USER59> > I really want to focus on the writing and not deal with updates and viruses.

In such case, html+css might be a good choice for you. Using static site generator could make it easier to maintain your blog. I personally like Hugo due to its speed.

</comment><comment><USER60> Humorously, you can (probably) do all that with BlogSpot.

<comment><USER3> Blogspot is still a very good platform. If I am not hosting it myself, I would choose a Blogspot blog over a GitHub pages one anyday. And blogspot also allows advertisements which is great.

<comment><USER14> I would argue that advertisements are not, in fact, great.

But Blogspot as a blogging platform is still a viable choice.

<comment><USER3> Yes of course ads aren't great but I love me some money on the side while I am blogging away :). Also I don't find adsense small text ads to be very obtrusive. 10 years ago I knew a few bloggers that were making 4 figure earnings via just blogspot blogs and adsense. Adsense pays like shit these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I use hugo with gitlab pages. Hugo is customizeable and portable. You can host with anything, not just gitlab. nginx even.

</comment><comment><USER62> [https://micro.blog](https://micro.blog) is nice too.

</comment><comment><USER63> Recently I looked into the landscape to see what I felt comfortable with.

tl;dr: I ended up using eleventy with tailwindcss.

It depends what you are comfortable with...

There are a few blogging sites (their names escape me at the moment but are similar to [https://write.as](https://write.as)) that seemed interesting. Again, I did a quick search but couldn't find the one I had in mind.

My preference is python, so naturally I looked there first. I can't remember what happened to pelican, why I didn't go for it. Nikola seemed nice until I started reading the documentation. I also looked at some that were further down static gens list. But something was missing.

Jekyll has great documentation, but there are a lot of moving pieces. You can make it into a full fledge website that has a blog, or make it into a blog - quite easily. It seems that whoever states that Jekyll is geared towards creating a blog..... who knows why?!

Played around with Hugo last year and meh...

Now, I don't know how much looking into different ssg influenced the ease it was to pick up eleventy, but it just made sense. It's a bare bones static site generator that - just works. There are several blog posts that will get you up and running quickly. There are several skeleton GitHub repos, some use tailwindCSS, some have netlify Cms already configured, some are plain. Or you can just build your own.

Another I picked it, which is on a personal level. Since it's such a well structured, bare-bone project, its helping me learn/practice JavaScript and it's ecosystem. npm scripts is all you need.

All the other tools, gatsby, etc - are great if you already understand react. And even if you don't but are interested - I got the impression (gatsby at least) that it's documentation was good and you could learn a great deal about react going through it. Maybe, I don't know.

Finally... I feel that some projects could do with an overhaul, at least with their documentation. Some parts felt like an afterthought instead of one cohesive, linear explanation. Not an easy task in the least, but what is?

But more importantly, pick one thing and stick to it (unless it proves to be hindering productivity).

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm a Suarepspace guy myself, have been for 9 years in November.

</comment><comment><USER65> Github + github pages.

Keep your text in md files and host them for free.

</comment><comment><USER66> If you're looking for a blog to help you with your productivity, I highly recommend [https://quire.io/blog/](https://quire.io/blog/)

<comment><USER14> This has nothing to do with the OP's question, though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> jekyll, ghost, and wordpress are the easiest to setup and customize

</comment><comment><USER68> Publii + Netlify

</comment><comment><USER69> github pages, and commit my own vanilla html</comment>


Data intelligence complex is the real story - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a1dd626c-cf80-11e2-be7b-00144feab7de.html

<comment><USER2> This article by Walter Russell Mead says a massive intelligence effort is an necessary corollary of Obama's position that the Global War on Terror is over, that we can return to a 9/10 mindset: [http://blogs.the-american- interest.com/wrm/2013/06/06/public...](http://blogs.the-american- interest.com/wrm/2013/06/06/public-peace-secret-war-the-snooping-scandals-and- the-presidents-war-strategy&#x2F):

Key bits:

" _From the day he took office, President Obama has sought to defuse the war and decrease public concern about it....

"It is in many ways an excellent strategy, but it has one serious flaw: it leaves the President terribly vulnerable if a significant terror strike should succeed....

[ Details the intelligence effort required. ]

"More than that, he has to be able to act. If terror is to be nipped in the bud, drones must fire down from the skies. If the al-Qaeda leadership is to remain stunned, scattered and incapable of large scale actions against the United States, houses in Waziristan must mysteriously blow up. American citizens making war against their homeland must die, even if that means they don't get to hear their Miranda rights first.

"President Obama's core war strategy depends on massive intelligence capabilities that were undreamed of twenty years ago. It depends on the substitution of drones for troops. PRISM and similar programs aren't a ghastly misstep or an avoidable accident. They are the essence of Obama's grand strategy: public peace and secret war. To cool down the public face of the war, he must intensify the secret struggle._"

<comment><USER3> This reads like pro-Obama propaganda. Why does Obama want to decrease public concern about war? I'd say he doesn't want a public debate about it. He doesn't want a public debate about PRISM/NSA either.

<comment><USER2> Oh, but Obama says he welcomes the latter, even congratulates us for wanting to have one, " _[...] it 's a sign of maturity because probably five years ago, six years ago we might not have been having this debate._" ([http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/07/obama_on_n...](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/07/obama_on_nsa_surveillance_i_welcome_this_debate_i_think_its_a_sign_of_maturity.html)). Who could possibly complain?

<comment><USER2> Heh, Richard "Wretchard" Fernandez points out in an essay ([http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/06/07/all-we-are- sa...](http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/06/07/all-we-are-saying/)) that quotes Mead's essay that this total surveillance state puts a rather sinister cast on "Obamaphones".

" _[...] he had no difficulty convincing his base ... that it could have free Obamaphones. He forgot to say there was one problem with those phones …._ "

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the site behind paywall? I don't want to register just to read one article.

<comment><USER2> Last time I checked it's a staged paywall. You get X articles for free without any action, X+Y articles if you register, there may be another "free" stage, and of course you can start paying and that may have more than one level.

They compete with _The Wall Street Journal_ , which is famously about the only paper that made a success of on-line subscriptions a long time ago.

<comment><USER5> FT apparently requires you to register to see your 8 free articles every 30 days. So you have to do something, not just nothing.

Any other sources on this story? The fact that the US spends $80 billion (overall?) on signals intelligence would not be particularly surprising.

<comment><USER2> I guess they've changed their policy and I didn't notice because I registered a long time ago. Not a good idea, there should be no friction until you've tasted a bit of the fruit they're offering. Then again, such mechanisms tend to make it too easy to entirely circumvent the subscription system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article is free if you click on it from google's search results. Here is a link: [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=data%20intelligence%2...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=data%20intelligence%20complex%20is%20the%20real%20story&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fa1dd626c-cf80-11e2-be7b-00144feab7de.html&ei=W12zUa29O8jnqAH7u4DwDA&usg=AFQjCNH7qCOhtl9YgRoHYyW206cuJ-4Vag&bvm=bv.47534661,d.aWM)

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA)

<comment><USER8> NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NSA = National Security Agency.

<comment><USER9> Pretty sure they were trying to demonstrate that we could have continued to fund NASA at a full burn rate for a few years with these funds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> William Binney talks about the military-industrial complex in this video from the last HOPE conference:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqN59beaFMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqN59beaFMI)

</comment><comment><USER10> Well if you look it the other way, that's a good market to build a start-up for.

</comment><comment><USER11> You have to admit, the US is doing a pretty good job with that $80 billion/yr.

I mean, what's the alternative? Spend $0 on secret data intelligence gathering? Of course not! I for one am happy to know that there are people on my side, looking for people who are not.

Furthermore, I can't seem to understand why people are so up-in-arms over US data gathering. I for one, have nothing to hide. Every crime I've committed online is so small, the NSA simply doesn't care. Obama said in his latest press conference, "We collect the meta data, not the data. We can see who is calling who, and if we need to listen to that call, we need to go before a judge."

I, a person of the people, am fine with the government spending this kind of money on secret data intelligence, because it keeps me safer. Period.

</comment><comment><USER12> The individual in me says "Wow, that's a lot of spying". Yet, the larger, money-hungry side of me says "what service/product could I develop to get a chunk of that $80 billion".

</comment><comment><USER13> while the education budget is less then 70 billions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ed...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education)

<comment><USER14> That's just at the federal level. Total is about $800 billion[1].

The US is regularly on top of the OECD for spending per student in school. The idea that it doesn't spend much on education is one of those bad memes that never goes away.

[1] [http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_education_spending_20...](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_education_spending_20.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Patroits don't work cheap.

<comment><USER16> Maybe call it "nationalism" to avoid implanted emotional implications of the word.

<comment><USER15> Maybe I'll just wait a day or two for someone at the Pentagon to leak guidelines on how to provide constructive criticism of their budget.

Meanwhile enjoy this quote from Nicholas Negroponte - "Nationalism is the biggest disease on the planet. Nations have the wrong granularity. They're too small to be global and too big to be local, and all they can think about is competing."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> We should use that money to drop bombs via drones 24/7\. Eradicate them out of existence.

<comment><USER2> Errrm, and what, exactly, tells us _who_ to "drop bombs" on?

<comment><USER18> It's obvious — the terrorists that hate your freedoms!

Your skin is brown? DROP A BOMB. You're a Muslim? DROP A BOMB, AND ONE MORE, TO BE SURE. You're a goddamn Ruski commie? BOMB, BOMB, BOMB.

<comment><USER17> Calm down before you get a stroke. I wasn't serious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is exactly what terrorists want: the impact of a terrorist act is, in the end, measured in money much more than in lives.

They are not going to kill that many people in the end, what they want is to make people afraid and pervert all the freedom in a country. Because what they hate is our freedom, do not forget it.

EDIT: BTW, being wrong (if I am) is a cause for downvotes? Grow up, you people.

<comment><USER20> The terrorists do not want to see the U.S. turn into a police state.

The terrorists do not hate our freedoms.

The terrorists -- and specifically I'm talking about al-Qaeda and related groups -- want "atrocities against Muslims" to end, they want support for Israel to end, they want U.S. presence in the Middle East to end.[1]

Terror sects aren't B-movie villains.

[1]: [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military/july- dec96/fatw...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military/july- dec96/fatwa_1996.html)

<comment><USER19> I probably explained myself badly.

What they want is to terrorize. Their success is measured in money.

Any economist will just point out that money is how most things are measured as regards human relations in a normal society.

<comment><USER21> No, their success is measured in how well they achieve their goals such as ridding an invader from land they consider sacred.

You know why they're pissed off, right?

Knowing our enemy is rather essential if we want to stop this war one day.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Waste of Money - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2012-05-03/recycling-eyeglasses-is-a-feel-good-waste-of-money <comment><USER2> There are several competing efforts to produce low-cost eyeglasses. Focus On Vision has adjustable eyeglasses.[1] Project Congo has some kind of eyeglass- making kit.[2] Briefcase-sized eyeglass kits used to be popular in India. They contained round frames and several hundred round lenses. The idea is that glasses have three parameters - spherical curvature, elliptical curvature, and axis of the ellipse. The usual options for the first two are only about 100-200 lenses. With a round lens, you can set the axis in any direction. There's a little notching tool in the kit, and once you have the axis set, the plastic lens is notched, then snapped into the frame, where it locks.

Not that they really cost much. The manufacturing cost of eyeglasses is about $2. The insane price of frames comes from a monopoly by Luxottica, which owns most of the retail outlets in malls in the US.

[1] [http://www.focus-on-vision.org/](http://www.focus-on-vision.org/) [2] [http://projectcongo.org/photocollections/eyeglassmaking.html](http://projectcongo.org/photocollections/eyeglassmaking.html)

<comment><USER3> >The insane price of frames comes from a monopoly by Luxottica, which owns most of the retail outlets in malls in the US.

How is owning most of the retail outlets in malls a monopoly?

<comment><USER4> Luxottica owns many things, but the most important thing any company can own are distribution channels. Then you can just refuse to sell your competitor's goods.

<comment><USER2> That's how they took over Oakley. They cut off their distribution channels. Luxottica took over Sunglass Hut and pushed out Oakley. Oakley had to sell out to Luxottica. Then the prices for Oakley went way up.

Luxottica did something similar with Ray-Ban. Their products used to sell for around $19 in gas stations. After the Luxottica takeover, they became a "luxury" brand, with prices from $129 to $300.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Questions unfortunately not answered by the article:

a) Who profits from this recycling program? How many people get a western salary to coordinate all this?

b) Following from (a), how many optometrists and lens makers could make a living in Cambodia if people just put $1 in a collection box each time they'd dump their used glasses in a box?

This suspiciously sounds like the "2nd hand clothes for Africa" scam that only profits the collectors of those in western countries and destroys local tailors' businesses in the target market.

<comment><USER6> > scam

I'm glad someone makes money off of my old clothes rather than they go in the trash.

> destroys local tailors' businesses

That's a variation on the broken window fallacy.

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

<comment><USER5> > I'm glad someone makes money off of my old clothes rather than they go in > the trash.

I don't have a problem with that per se, only that it happens under the pretense of charity and that the model exploits economic inequality in a globalized world on the expense of those the "charity" claims to help.

> That's a variation on the broken window fallacy.

I fail to see the connection because the broken window fallacy is about a coherent economic system, not about a global economy where one can make a profit by exploiting inequalities. The proverb says: Give a man a fish and you feed him for the day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Following that idea, I am much more for transfer of knowledge than for transfer of goods. And in extension also for sourcing urgently required products locally (and if required donating to build the required industry) than just sending products.

One does not have to see that in any ideological way: Just publish all numbers, show me that it's more cost-effective to send assembled products to a place and I won't object. But the article just showed that we again failed to run the numbers, thereby _wasting_ money and potentially harming the local economy in the target country.

<comment><USER6> By sheltering tailors, everyone else in the economy pays a higher price and is thereby worse off. It's a net loss. Might as well go around smashing windows so the local glaziers can make money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This goes for most (almost all) recycling programs.

Recycling programs are a worse than a waste of money since you are using up some of people's limited support for environmental causes. This would not matter if we did not have some really huge, long term problems that we need to deal with that we are not doing enough about.

<comment><USER8> What would you mark as the worthwhile ones?

Personally I place high value on raw material recycling. Even if it's more expensive monetarily, so long as it uses less resources it seems worth it to me.

 _Aluminum cans are currently recycled more than any other beverage container in the U.S, which is good for business and the environment, says the Aluminum Association, because making a can from recycled aluminum saves not only aluminum but 92 percent of the energy required to make a new can_

<comment><USER9> Aluminum (and steel) is one of the very few things that is in any way worthwhile to recycle. Most of the things that we are urged to recycle (glass, plastics, paper, cardboard, etc) are cheaper and easier to make new from the abundant raw materials.

<comment><USER10> Corrugated cardboard is a net benefit to recycle, I've heard. Otherwise you are correct. It's just feel-good. Most of what you drop off at recycling centers is just trucked to landfills after it's out of your sight.

<comment><USER11> > Most of what you drop off at recycling centers is just trucked to landfills > after it's out of your sight.

This is definitely not true in Germany. And for glass bottle recycling, most bottles are washed and reused up to 50 times before being melted down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The price of the physical glasses is minor -- only $1.88 for a new pair of > ready-made spectacles.

Sigh. Why is it I can't get a pair of prescription glasses for under $500?

<comment><USER12> Monopolies. Why don't we have an eyeglass startup?

<comment><USER13> I think that's Warby Parker. They're few years in now, but their low-cost acetate frames are pretty much the norm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think these programs are a legacy of a past era where the costs of manufacturing glasses was relatively high.

But the suggestion that cheap glasses should be just put in racks is simplistic. Getting people sort of okay glasses isn't acceptable. My vision is asymmetrical, and using the same power lenses would leave me with a debilitating headache.

There should be a few standard cheap lens patterns so you can mix and match.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think I read somewhere that it used to be standard practice to go to the eye doctor (or glasses-monger?) and just try on pairs until you found one that worked, rather than getting a laser-precise eye exam. At the time I thought it was a terrible, backwards idea, but it makes sense in this context. Getting an affordable, almost-fit pair of glasses is probably a lot better than no glasses at all.

<comment><USER16> That's pretty much what I did. I bought a super cheap pair (0.5 SPH) at $5, split the lenses and placed them over each other until what I saw at a distance was clear enough to read. I added up the SPH (they were 0.5 lenses, I ended up overlaying 4 pieces - so 2.0 total) and bought the resulting glasses. That was about 2 or 3 years ago and those glasses are still perfect for me.

<comment><USER15> I could probably do the same, but I'm blessed with one eye that's twice as myopic as the other, so I'd have do some lens swapping.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This study is old, but glad it's getting published on major media sources.

The cost of distributing the glasses and reaching rural locations is often more challenging than the cost of the glasses itself. One of the leading companies distributing low-cost eye glasses is VisionSpring (www.visionspring.org), and they are also main partner for Warby Parker ([https://www.warbyparker.com/buy-a-pair-give-a- pair](https://www.warbyparker.com/buy-a-pair-give-a-pair)).

VS is making radically affordable quality glasses ubiquitous in frontier and emerging markets. Their customers earn less than $4 per day and are highly price sensitive. They sell to seed markets, are accountable for delivering on a value proposition, and gain consumer commitment for a product customers will need for the rest of their lifetime.

<comment><USER18> You could have warned of an incoming message from our sponsors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Either way it's done, providing glasses to people who can't pay for them is a charitable act, and humans are not very rational about charitable acts.

Given two choices:

1) Give $5 to a program that provides brand new custom prescribed eyeglasses to people who need them but cannot buy them

2) Give $10 to a program that provides shitty, old, out-of-date, recycled eyeglasses of questionable prescription to people who need them but cannot buy them

Many people will respond more supportively to #2 and see #1 as fundamentally unfair ("I worked hard to earn the money for _my_ glasses, why should a needy person have something just as good as mine? They should count themselves lucky to have anything at all!"). Many people see it as a moral imperative that the poor should suffer.

</comment><comment><USER20> This argument seems really weird to me. It's a "waste" compared to what? If the alternative is glasses going in the garbage or plastic recycling to recover nothing more than raw materials, then 7% of donations surviving the donation process seems like a massive win.

<comment><USER21> That doesn't make sense: spending $24 to retrieve 75¢ of materials is a massive _loss_ , not a win.

Throwing stuff away isn't a problem (the world's huge; besides, today's landfills will be a future generation's mines); throwing recyclable stuff away isn't a problem (why, every day you excrete water which you could distil & drink — at a ridiculous cost); throwing away stuff which could be recycled or reused profitably _is_ a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> But not a waste of resources and CO2.

</comment><comment><USER23> I read the complete article, and I'm kind of skeptical of the conclusions.

Having travelled in Asia, for example, they have the skill and parts to repair eyeglasses and cut lenses to old frames. (In fact, I get my glasses repaired in Manila since the eyeglass cartel in the USA refuses to do major repairs. I've certainly tried in Silicon Valley multiple times.)

Also, eyeglass cases are considered to be valuable and resold for $1 - $5 each.

And finally, somebody with a suitcase could haul 100 - 200 frames on their next trip at no cost.

I think if they were willing to do minor repairs and record the measurements in a database, donations could be a much more efficient charity.

<comment><USER24> At a $1.88 to make a pair of glasses, I fail to see how your economics works. Minor repairs, databases, etc all cost more than that for a potentially inferior product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would've expected people to throw their glasses into a recycling bin, where it's melted down and made into beer bottles.

</comment><comment><USER26> Recycling is Garbage (1996)

[http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is- garb...](http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-garbage.html)

<comment><USER20> Wow, hard to believe this was actually linked to. That opinion article article was thoroughly debunked two decades ago, yet somehow it's still doing damage.

Debunking the Myths of the "Anti-Recyclers" [http://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/174_Sep96.pdf](http://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/174_Sep96.pdf)

Recycling is not garbage - MIT technology review 1997 [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/400100/recycling-is- not-g...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/400100/recycling-is-not-garbage/)

<comment><USER26> Think Globally, Act Irrationally: Recycling

[http://econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungerrecycling.htm...](http://econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungerrecycling.html)

[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/07/munger_on_recyc.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/07/munger_on_recyc.html)

<comment><USER20> Munger makes the same mistake that Tierney does by focusing on something that's easy to attack, and sounds good on the face, but is in fact nearly irrelevant to the discussion.

Tierney's argument that it takes energy to recycle is completely moot; the point isn't energy at all, the point is to recover materials & to slow production and consumption of wasteful single use containers. Combine that with our ability to use abundant and unending solar power, and you can see that Tierney's assumption that energy is part of the economy of recycling is a straw man and doesn't stand up to reason or reality.

Munger's entire argument is that recycling is expensive, there's a cost to recycling. Like Tierney, this is a misdirection. Cost is not the point of recycling. He's right, there's a cost, but he doesn't compare it to anything. What's the alternative to recycling, and how much does that cost? There's a cost to landfills too -- how much does it cost to throw away? Munger ignores the long term costs of not recycling. Running out of resources is going to be a lot more expensive than recycling. The byproducts of plastic production are toxic, and historically there have been some plastic factories that made workers fatally sick. Munger didn't try to factor in the health care costs of people who work in or live near factories. He hasn't attempted to consider the heavy cost of pollution. He doesn't calculate the costs of transporting garbage. He hasn't attempted to calculate the environmental costs of not recycling at all -- and this is the entire point of recycling, the entire basis upon which the economics of recycling is evaluated. The recycling movement is not even remotely concerned about the transaction price of recycling a bottle, it's concerned with slowing our frivolous and wasteful use of this planet's finite and valuable resources on one time deliveries of 12 ounces of Coke.

There's a lot of information on the many large costs of not recycling that Munger is deliberately ignoring, here's just one: [http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/dangers- of-p...](http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/dangers-of-plastic)

Thinking about cost alone is a persuasion strategy, it's a way to manipulate the argument and the audience, it's a way to put something seemingly tactile on the perceived downsides of recycling. It's a way to convince you that you're being cheated out of money -- but he's the one trying to trick you -- don't let it work on you so easily!

If nothing else, if I haven't convinced you at all, at least Google all the articles you can on the critiques of Teirney and Munger, read them all and try to rebut them yourself.

<comment><USER26> > the point is to recover materials & to slow production and consumption of > wasteful single use containers

You are simply assuming throwing single use containers in landfill is more wasteful than recycling.

> our ability to use abundant and unending solar power

Yeah, that's why electricity is free, right? Also by this logic you can equally argue that recycling is pointless because in the future we can use robots (which run on free energy 24/7) to go through landfills to recover useful resources.

> Munger's entire argument is that recycling is expensive, there's a cost to > recycling

Way to simplify the opponent's position. Munger says recycling things like aluminium would probably make sense.

He's accusing recycling proponents of not calculating the long term cost of recycling (which you demonstrated), which in many cases would be higher than simply throwing garbage away in landfill.

 _Munger argues that recycling can save resources, of course, but it can also require more resources than production from scratch. Some curbside recycling, for example, makes sense, while other forms (such as green glass) may be akin to a form of religious expression rather than a wise policy that is environmentally productive._

Why I'm Not an Environmentalist

[http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPol/EnviroPhil...](http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPol/EnviroPhilo/WhyNotEnviro.pdf)

<comment><USER20> Whew, that essay is its very own brand of crazy. It seems both freightened and mean spirited through and through. I feel really bad for you if recycling and environmentalism scares you as much as it appears to scare Steven Landsburg.

I know why are you _are_ an environmentalist: because you breathe air and drink water, just like I do. I'd guess you are just as interested in those things being non-toxic as I am. I'd guess you're just as interested in your grandchildren and humanity finding abundant clean air and water in the future as I am. I could be wrong about these things since I don't know you, but I'd still be willing to bet money that you enjoy being outdoors sometimes.

> Yeah, that's why electricity is free, right? Also by this logic

What a nice straw man you have there. You're trying to change the subject, just like Tierney and Munger did. I was talking about energy, not about cost. I claim energy is abundant, not free. Tierney argued against recycling by claiming that recycling uses more energy than new production. Tierney is pretending to miss the point of recycling completely. He's fully aware that debating the relative energy consumption of recycling vs new products has nothing to do with why people recycle, and he's fully aware that even if recycling uses lots of energy, even if recycling wastes tons of energy, there are still compelling reasons to recycle.

Petroleum is limited, while neither energy nor money are limited. Arguing over the percentages of waste of energy & cost is arguing over margins of the two things that won't run out. The earth and it's oil, on the other hand, are finite, and we're starting to see their limits. You can choose to ignore that, if you want, and continue to argue over the margins of the unlimited resources.

Just curious, but why are you using the weak political opines and outright rants of non-expert journalists who have agendas to argue economic and scientific issues, when there are actual economists and scientists who are writing about these things? I'm sure there are real scientists who have good arguments against recycling, if what you really want is to oppose recycling.

<comment><USER26> > that essay is its very own brand of crazy. It seems both freightened and > mean spirited through and through.

You don't seem to have any rebuttal to the actual content of the essay. As a professional economist Landsburg is very open to different preferences people have. He's only asking for the same kind of open-mindedness in return by environmentalists (e.g. not calling anyone who doesn't agree with their dogma "crazy" and respecting those who don't participate in their quasi-religious rituals).

> I know why are you are an environmentalist: because you breathe air and > drink water, just like I do. I'd guess you are just as interested in those > things being non-toxic as I am. [...]

This doesn't make me a kind of naive environmentalists as described in Landsburg's essay.

> [...] even if recycling wastes tons of energy, there are still compelling > reasons to recycle.

So far you cited none that's compelling. The issue of pollution from landfill sites is a concern but you don't talk about (a) how big the impact is (probably different in different landfill facilities) and (b) why people's effort to recycle can be an effective solution (my hunch is it's not very effective). Also we are far from running out of fossil fuels anytime soon so that's not a compelling reason either.

I understand that you personally prefer recycling though (for religious/aesthetic reasons). I respect your choice.

> why are you using the weak political opines and outright rants of non-expert > journalists who have agendas to argue economic and scientific issues [...]

I cited Steven Landsburg, Mike Munger, and Russ Roberts who are all professional economists. Your 2 links (one from an environmental advocacy group) are virtually identical in their content written by the same 2 authors and only one of them is an "economic analyst" who doesn't seem to have published any academic paper in the field of economics (he's still entitled to his view but I don't think he made a good case for recycling in the article).

<comment><USER20> > You don't seem to have any rebuttal to the actual content of the essay.

What would you like to argue about? There's nothing for me to rebut. Steven's experience is his own, he's free to interpret the world however he wants. If he's scared of environmentalism and wants to rant about it, that's his choice. He forfeits any reasonable discussion automatically by comparing a general desire to have clean air and water with religious fundamentalism. It's an ad hominem that doesn't deserve any response.

> This doesn't make me a kind of naive environmentalists as described in > Landsburg's essay.

Sounds like we're getting somewhere now. Let's talk about the good environmentalists like you, not the naive ones. What makes you a better environmentalist than the kind Landsburg talks about? What is your improved plan for keeping the air and water clean and available forever, without needing to recycle? Will your plan be cost and energy effective?

I didn't see Landsburg drawing a line between naive environmentalists and other kinds, did I miss something? He seemed to draw a blanket conclusion that all environmentalism is nothing more than faith. I know you don't agree with that.

> I understand that you personally prefer recycling though (for > religious/aesthetic reasons). I respect your choice.

I haven't stated a preference for recycling, nor given any religious or aesthetic reasons for said preference, so I'm not convinced you understand. Calling it religious is pretty disrespectful, which you already know. But you don't know me, nor my preferences on recycling, so all I can do is return the favor and say I respect your choices too.

<comment><USER26> > He forfeits any reasonable discussion automatically by comparing a general > desire to have clean air and water with religious fundamentalism

This doesn't seem like a fair characterisation of his position. Which part of his essay did he compare people who desire clean air/water with religious fundamentalists? He didn't, right?

> Let's talk about the good environmentalists like you, not the naive ones

I don't consider myself an environmentalist, but I think there are some things that can be done to improve the environment.

For example, one of the biggest environmental problems poor people in poor countries have is indoor air pollution, and the use of cheap and plentiful fossil fuels is one solution there.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptTdEoHklmE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptTdEoHklmE)

Fossil fuels are essential to fight poverty too, as people in China demonstrated.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v15q6M_z13Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v15q6M_z13Q)

In developed countries, loosening zoning and immigration laws and encourage development in big cities would be great for the environment too.

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/glaeser-triumph- of...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/glaeser-triumph-of-the-city- excerpt/)

Cambridge physicist David MacKay recommends some individual actions to save energy (e.g. not flying/driving often) for those who are interested in taking personal actions.

[http://www.withouthotair.com/c29/page_229.shtml](http://www.withouthotair.com/c29/page_229.shtml)

Recycling isn't one of them, but not buying clutter in the first place would be a good thing to do (which people are already financially incentivized to do).

I'm interested in progressive consumption tax though, as explained by Cornell economist Robert Frank. I want to see some experimentation done in this area.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/the_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/the_progressive_consumption_tax_a_win_win_solution_for_reducing_american_economic_inequality_.html)

<comment><USER20> > I don't consider myself an environmentalist, but I think there are some > things that can be done to improve the environment.

Then you are an environmentalist. It's hard not to be one, if you're a human and want to live.

> not buying clutter in the first place would be a good thing to do

Yes!!

> I'm interested in progressive consumption tax

Me too!

> poor people in poor countries have is indoor air pollution, and the use of > cheap and plentiful fossil fuels is one solution there. [...] Fossil fuels > are essential to fight poverty too

I can agree that fossil fuels may be good solutions to the immediate problems of today like poverty and indoor pollution. But I see from your wording you already understand, as I do, that fossil fuels are only one option, and may not be the ideal solution in the future. G7 countries are now setting goals to reduce dependance on fossil fuels. Why? Is their belief in cleaner energy a religious cause with only faith and no evidence? No, there are both environmental and economic reasons for the US to start avoiding fossil fuels.

> This doesn't seem like a fair characterisation of his position. Which part > of his essay did he compare people who desire clean air/water with religious > fundamentalists? He didn't, right?

Wrong. And it's not just me, The American Enterprise Institute characterized this article of Landsburg's explicitly as "Why naive environmentalism is like religious fundamentalism", which is accurate since that's exactly what Landsburg said.

[http://www.aei.org/publication/why-naive-environmentalism- is...](http://www.aei.org/publication/why-naive-environmentalism-is-like- religious-fundamentalism/)

Just a few direct quotes from Landsburg:

"We consider environmentalism a form of mass hysteria akin to Islamic fundamentalism or the War on Drugs."

"The naive environmentalism of my daughter's preschool is a force-fed potpourri of myth, superstition, and ritual that has much in common with the least reputable varieties of religious Fundamentalism."

"The underlying need to sacrifice, and to compel others to sacrifice, is a fundamentally religious impulse."

That point was stated explicitly multiple times, and is more or less the entire thrust of this divisive, mean spirited, and self-righteous rant from beginning to end. Are you reading the same thing I'm reading? You yourself adopted and used the term "religious" to describe recycling already in this thread, by what leaps of logic are you suddenly claiming to be not aware of this?

Forget the fundamentalist angle, just calling it "religious" is an attempt to discredit the environmental position as lacking any evidence or logical thought. Calling someone's reasons religious, without understanding them and when they wouldn't describe them that way is not just disrespectful, it's intentionally ignorant, it's trying to not understand and trying to disagree, self-righteously so. It's too bad Landsburg doesn't recognize the deep hypocrisy of his own self-righteousness, nor the fact that like you and I, he does actually believe that clean air and clean water being available now and to future generations is a mission worth fighting for. He, like you, is an environmentalist.

You might think Landsburg's writing sounds great, and that it makes a good reference in a discussion like this, but he said a lot of disrespectful things about a vague unspecified group of people without a single piece of evidence. He only states that their position is unreasonable and zealous, but hasn't shown that even once, nor clarified who he's even talking about. This paper is really weak, you are doing a much better job explaining your views on recycling than Landsburg did explaining his. You'd certainly make your points quicker and more agreeably if you left his writing out and spoke for yourself instead.

<comment><USER26> Landsburg says it's _naive_ environmentalists that are similar to religious fundamentalists (which I fully agree). Those are the kind of people who don't care about e.g. the cost-benefit analysis of recycling and simply believe recycling is A Right Thing To Do and attack people who don't share their view.

I don't want to call myself an environmentalist for the simple reason that I want to distance myself from those naive environmentalists (I view these people very negatively).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mojiBJ55G2g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mojiBJ55G2g)

But you are right that economists (and people who apply economic thinking to policy matters) are usually the best kind of environmentalists. I don't think we need a separate category called "environmentalists". We need people who can do calm and cold cost-benefit analysis of given policies (environmental or otherwise), which most people who identify as "environmentalists" can't seem to do.

<comment><USER20> > Landsburg says it's _naive_ environmentalists that are similar to religious > fundamentalists (which I fully agree).

Well, I suppose good luck to you both in your quest to sway any reasonable people, if you want to carry on with your ad hominem attacks. The comparison is flat-out inaccurate, and you know it. But worse, it's attempting to escalate the disagreement rather than find common ground.

As far as I can tell, you and Landsburg are both reacting to people acting self-righteously. Yeah, it happens. It happens everywhere in all subject matters and all corners of the earth. Smart people do it, and dumb people do it. Religious people do it, and secular people do it. It's fairly human for someone who is certain they are right to act self-righteously and attempt to demean the opposition with less than pure logic and evidence. I can point out examples of where both you and I have said self-righteous things in this thread. I will refrain from comparing you or me to Islamic fundamentalists, you're welcome, but I'm happy to identify the double-standard you've established for yourself.

Wouldn't it be better to identify as the kind of environmentalist you want to see other people being, and give it a better name, than to exaggerate your way to negativity and hate?

Steven didn't make a clear distinction between naive environmentalists and other kinds, didn't define what "naive" means, and did not qualify every intentionally inflammatory reference to religious environmentalism with the word "naive". Both the title and the very first quote I cited above fail to qualify with "naive", they are talking fairly unambiguously about all environmentalists. The implication was made absolutely and repeatedly clear that he's saying environmentalism is naive, not that there's a slice of environmentalism that is rational and right. It sounds to me like you don't fully agree with what he's saying.

> But you are right that economists are usually the best kind of > environmentalists. We need people who can do calm and cold cost-benefit > analysis of given policies (environmental or otherwise)

I appreciate the attempt to bridge our gap. I do agree that considering the larger benefits of environmental policy is a good idea. I disagree that economists are the "best" environmentalists - I'm not convinced economics is the best framework for evaluating the benefits of environmental policy.

[http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/323/](http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/323/)

> which most people who identify as "environmentalists" can't seem to do.

Do you want to provide some evidence for this claim? One of the problems with your argument, fueled by Landsburg, is you're providing only random amateurs as evidence against, and limiting to only the ones acting badly. You're happy to provide a line of professionals to support you, but you don't seem to be seeking out the professional contrary position. How about debating the people who've established some of the current recycling policy, rather than worrying about what people in a parade think when they're provoked?

<comment><USER26> > Steven didn't make a clear distinction between naive environmentalists and > other kinds

But you do agree that he did NOT say people who desire clean air are like religious fundamentalists, right?

Isn't it clear from context that he's talking about the intrusive kind of environmentalists who try to impose their preference onto others (not people who want clean water for their kids)? It was clear to me at least.

I think some words (like "environmentalist" or "feminist") are so tainted by bad actors (who mostly rely on superstition and indoctrination) who label themselves as such that good actors (who mostly rely on reason and evidence) who used to call themselves that no longer want to use those words to describe themselves, and I think it's an understandable sentiment.

I think fossil fuels are great, and I eat meat every day and I appreciate factory farming that allows me to do so, and I don't recycle. I don't have any data on this but I think most people who call themselves environmentalists probably don't want to call someone like me an environmentalist, and I'm fine with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> let's stop/reduce buying new glasses so there'll be no/less recycling.

i wore -4 diopter and i'm six months in 'no glasses' experiment after reading 'getting stronger' blog on eyes homeostatis. Here's what i found: \- i can read books without glasses at all. i used to wear my -4 for anything. no more. \- for laptop, i can use reduced (-2) and texts come sharp. i opt for no glasses and increase the text font size instead. \- for driving <motorbike>, daylight gives sharper vision (it's like wearing a -2, with no glasses). it's a bit blurry for driving, but i don't need eagle-sharp clarity, i just need to avoid collisions.

so instead of donating your old glasses, you can use them to train your eyes, say for example: no glasses for books, -1 for tvs, -2 for laptop, -3 for driving, etc

i chose cold turkey because i often forget where i put my glasses and it's frustrating.

there is a plus lens therapy which i don't practice much because i keep losing my plus glasses.

<comment><USER11> Please don't drive without glasses. You're likely violating the law and you are putting others in danger.

<comment><USER27> for motorbike, it's okay because the distance to front wheel is short and my vision is sharp up to the distance.

i can't read number plates and stuffs clearly; however, i don't drive to see those things clearly. my mission is move from a to b without collisions.

<comment><USER28> Motorbike without vision is so much safer than car without vision. I'm relieved to hear.

<comment><USER27> what a creative imagination for a spin</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What open-source e-commerce platform to use? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I need to use an open-source e-commerce platform. Until now I've tested only OpenCart, but this platform have some bugs...
In which open-source e-commerce platform do you trust to use in production?
Best Regards <comment><USER2> Firstly, I can not trust open source e-commerce softwares for use in production. Lots of them have security bugs. But if you wanna use open source solution, TomatoCart looks nice.</comment>


Finding a lost dog's owner with Perl - <AUTHOR> http://perlbuzz.com/2011/11/finding-a-lost-dogs-owner-with-perl-and-wwwmechanize.html

<comment><USER2> Nice hack. It's funny he had to write a script to hit the web server a bunch of times just to build a tsv file.

I wish more sites just gave you a dump of all their data.</comment>


Show HN: Sondra – A Different ORM and REST Framework for Flask and RethinkDB - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/JeffHeard/sondra <comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

Not all RESTful APIs will fit into a framework like this, and the choice of RethinkDB limits its applicability to a narrower community, but I intend on supporting other document-based DBs in the future. I really like RethinkDB's API and ReQL in particular, and it seems like a solid foundation to build something a little out of the ordinary on.

What makes it different from other ORMs? It's a rethinking of ORM mechanics for a "document-based" backend system.

* JSON documents are validated using JSON-Schema ([http://json-schema.org](http://json-schema.org)).

* It tries to make the exposure of non-CRUD operations relate as a method to a logical server-side object and have a consistent endpoint syntax. It also uses Python function annotations to generate request and response schemas for methods.

All API endpoints exist within a four-tiered path hierarchy of

* Suite - base level, serves as a collection of applications and repo for basic shared schemas

* Application - a bundle of collections representing a logical set of functionality, methods that bind at this level act like "library functions"

* Collection - a collection of documents sharing a common schema. Methods that bind at this level act like "class methods"

* Document - a single instance of a document schema, representing concrete data. Methods that bind at this level act like "instance methods" in traditional OO programming.

What helper features does it have?

* Reusable apps / collections.

* JWT based sample authentication app, auth.

* Automatically generated help from schema descriptions and python docstrings

* Self-describing schema endpoints for suites, applications, collections, documents, and their methods.

This is pre-release stuff, to be sure. I'm using it on personal projects, but it needs:

* More tests

* More docs for the Python side of things (I'm working on this first)

* A solid example application

* Automatic generation of JS API connectors</comment>


Functional, Stateless JavaScript Finite State Machines and Statecharts - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/davidkpiano/xstate <comment><AUTHOR> My coworker showed this to me as a suggestion to use for capturing our existing state flows with the aim of using it as a reference when we migrate our legacy codebase to react/redux. I think this is wonderful. Any thoughts on this? I would also love some alternatives you've used to document requirements specifically for migrating existing codebase to a more manageable one.

<comment><USER2> Hey @midhunsezhi, I'm the creator of xstate and am working on the next version (very few, if any, breaking changes) which includes adding documentation on one of the most important use cases of statecharts - as a refactor target. Would be happy to answer any questions you have!</comment></comment>


Udacity Cancels Free Online Math Course, Citing Low Quality - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/udacity-cancels-free-online-math-course-citing-lack-of-quality/38998?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

<comment><USER2> Great, here's a discussion I've wanted to have for a long time.

I very much appreciate the effort, but quoting yesterday's phk article, "Quality happens only when someone is responsible for it". In another yesterday's news, on Reddit they are starting to build yet another online university.

Don't take me wrong, I actively search for information on the Internet, follow many tutorials and even wrote some. I absolutely advocate for researching something on the net before buying a book. But when it comes to university- like education, well, only Universities currently provide it.

Some months ago I looked for courses on iOS programming for a personal project. After following some video tutorials, HOWTOs on blogs, and even "free courses", the only thing that has really taught me anything has been Stanford's iOS course. And I can't even be sure if I learned everything, because nobody graded me.

If nobody is grading you (a professor, a tutor, a supervisor, a boss, a customer), how do you know if you education is correct?

"Online universities" already exist. There is one very close to home[1] and its degrees are as accepted as any other regular university. The point is, you have to pay for them. You have to pay for the professors to prepare the courses, to correct the exams, to write material for you.

I would honestly love to hear from somebody who has powerful arguments which can support a free, high quality, online university-like studies. I just can't think of how that is possible.

Anything else is, at least, an abuse of the word "University"

[1] <http://www.uoc.edu/portal/en/index.html>

<comment><USER3> I have taken several of these online courses, and I think we will look back in fifty years and see an inflection point in massively distributing higher education happened in the fall of 2011. The margin of this web page does not contain enough space for me to explain how much I disagree with the general comments expressed here.

 _And I can't even be sure if I learned everything, because nobody graded me._

 _If nobody is grading you (a professor, a tutor, a supervisor, a boss, a customer), how do you know if you education is correct?_

Really? I mean, really? If I ever think I don't understand something, it's rather easy to turn to someone next to me and try to teach them. Or any number of dozens of tactics to make sure my knowledge map is self-consistent.

I'd imagine that needing someone to grade one's work must be one of the most constricting world views there can be. How can you come up with radical new ideas if they have to be graded by some knowledge gate-keeper? What if you are thinking way beyond your "grader's" level?

<comment><USER4> Radical new ideas are graded by the market.

Want a seed round? Your idea will be graded by angels.

Want a venture round? Your idea will be graded by VCs.

Want some revenue? Graded by users.

Want to IPO? Graded by mutual funds analysts.

I bet there are lots of people watching videos learning some stuff right now, but not fully learning anything. Is it good? Is it bad? I have no idea, but without tests I think it is really hard to know if you are really learning or just think you are.

<comment><USER3> If I don't breathe, the environment will "grade" me with death. Now, let's expand our view just a wee bit and move up seven levels in Maslow's hierarchy. Do you really think fully actualized people are paying all that much attention to things like markets? Great poets and writers have labored in obscurity, died unknown, only to be discovered a hundred years later. Now consider the unknown numbers of people just as good, still unknown. Did they waste their lives because "the market" told them they were worthless? Galileo was told, rather directly, that "the market" did not value his work, to the point of death threats. Did that in any way devalue his knowledge or understanding?

<comment><USER4> To be honest, I was never a big fan of the concept of fully actualized people. I always felt like it was perpetrated by those that teach since it fits their lifestyle. Since that is the only part of the pyramid that is interesting to most people, I view the entire pyramid as unnecessary to teach at all.

I have no clue what Galileo was truly after, but I would guess it was scientific discovery and the fame and wealth that could possibly come along with it. After all, if he truly didn't care about fame and wealth and he was only after full actualization he could have just written a bunch of books but never told anyone or published them.

Why do great poets and writers labor in obscurity, then be discovered hundreds of years later? I would guess one of two things happen in those cases. 1) they lack people skill necessary to get their work out, 2) their art was not appreciated at the time and is for some reason now appreciated.

Since they didn't benefit from their work, I view them and their ideas as having zero worth after considering that value that is created far in to the future is not worth as much as value created today.

<comment><USER5> _> Why do great poets and writers labor in obscurity, then be discovered hundreds of years later?_

There are many scenes in the arts that are far under the radar of both the mainstream and the arts establishments but nonetheless are very real and vibrant. Much of art is an act of discovering the depth of your own perceptions, which is rewarding in itself.

Institutions, the conception of the arts in textbooks -- these are all by- products of lives lived. They are the mementos and communications of moments. Real art is in the listener, the viewer, or the creator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My biggest gripe about udacity classes isn't the lack of quality, but the lack of depth. They offer a great service, and I really do feel like I've learned a lot by using their courses (especially the ones taught by Thrun), but some of the courses leave me feeling like the content was a bit thin.

<comment><USER7> Completely agree. In some cases it can work for you, i.e. an exciting class doesn't bog you down and lets you use your extra time to _experiment_ , but there are plenty of classes where it just leaves you wanting more (firing up the Googles).

Overall though I think one of Udacity's major strongpoints is approachability. If they can manage to preserve it while continuing to strengthen their offerings, say with an A and B class for primer and full course respectively, it seems like they could soon have something to offer for just about everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Universities have to assign professors to courses, and if the quality of teaching is poor they generally don't pull them. Online education sites are almost picking the person they feel is best for the job across the 20+ universities they partner.

In a lecture one person answers a professors question, in an online setting everyone does. Many online programs are now using a standard course format with deadlines and grading (even the humanities with peer grading). Grading is also overrated as a learning mechanism, most of the important work done in grad school isn't graded. For that matter, little of the work one does as a professional developer is graded. People learn programming faster by writing projects till they work, getting feedback from a combination of software pieces (debugger, compiler, etc.) than they do by writing a project for a university course, to be evaluted by a TA at about 10 minutes a student.

</comment><comment><USER9> Schools cancel classes all the time.

Schools teach bad discrete math classes not infrequently, I suspect. I took a bad one some years back--the instructor was definitely a sharp guy, but put very little effort into, sometimes (I suspect) glancing over a chapter before on the way to the classroom, once just not showing up.

</comment><comment><USER10> This stikes me as somewhat? Udacity put forward a bad class and they did the right thing and cancelled it. I'm over it and will continue to use their classes :) Now if the rest of the world would only start accepting Udacity education in place of accredited school I'd be a happy camper!

</comment><comment><USER11> IMO This seems speaks well for them. How many regular universities would actually cancel a similar math course for low quality?

I've taken classes on Udacity and quite like the platform.</comment>