The Best Books I Read in 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Best-Books-2015 <comment><USER3> Here are some other lists of 'Best books of 2015':

Goodreads [https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best- books-2015](https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2015)

Amazon [http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=13108091011](http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=13108091011)

The Washington Post [https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/entertainment/best-b...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/entertainment/best- books-of-2015/)

The New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/books/review/100-notable-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/books/review/100-notable- books-of-2015.html)

The Economist [http://www.economist.com/news/books-and- arts/21679439-best-b...](http://www.economist.com/news/books-and- arts/21679439-best-books-year-are-about-north-korea-detroit-nagasaki-and- being-pilot-shelf)

<comment><USER4> The Goodreads top books list is just a popularity contest. People vote for the books they recognize.

<comment><USER5> And that is bad why? At least for me, it's a bigger chance that I would enjoy a book from that list than from a list made by some professional critic.

<comment><USER6> Speaking for music best-of lists, as compiled from votes of critics: I've found these lists are not very helpful in finding music I actually care about. It's frustrating, because there seems to be so much utility there.

I've explained it like this: To get on the list, something has to be considered at-least-good by a lot of people, and this tends to reward (1) herd mentality; (2) lowest-common-denominator. The list selects against anything in any niche, even when it's excellent.

As I look back through music that has meant a lot to me, there is just not much overlap with best-of lists.

Note: I'm talking about critics-vote, pooled, best-of lists. Single-critic best-of lists don't average out niche tastes and, for the right critic- listener match, can be very helpful indeed.

<comment><USER7> Moreso for music than books, but I personally find that most of my favorites tend to have at least as many people that hate it as love it.

Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea", for example, is an extremely polarizing album. Between Mangum's nasally vocals, beginner-to- intermediate technical talent, the inclusion of saws and theramin as instruments; it all adds up to a love/hate affair. I'm not a big fan of any of Mangum's other works, but AOtS has an allure that is just... indescribably gripping.

I don't go around recommending it, but when it comes up in my playlist, I find that I am simply compelled to stop what I'm doing and listen to the entire album, which is thankfully short, as far as albums go.

<comment><USER8> Thank you. Haven't thought about that album for many years, but now that you brought it back to my attention, I'll listen to it later today - which nicely supports the point you're trying to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cheatsheet, without the affiliate links (another commenter posted these with affiliate links then deleted it after being called out):

The Road to Character, David Brooks - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081299325X](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081299325X)

Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544668251](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544668251)

Being Nixon: A Man Divided, Evan Thomas - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812995368](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812995368)

Sustainable Materials With Both Eyes Open, Julian Allwood - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/190686005X](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/190686005X)

Eradication: Ridding the World of Diseases Forever?, Nancy Leys Stepan - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801450586](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801450586)

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345472322](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345472322)

Honorable Mention:

The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life, Nick Lane - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393088812](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393088812)

<comment><USER10> Nothing wrong with affiliate links if you're a regular user of this site: we're capitalists here. I make sure to include them if I link to a book, because I could use the money more than Jeff Bezos. Of course, I don't link to stuff just for the sake of linking to it, but only do so if I would have anyway. I think it's pretty clear whether someone is a spammer or not.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=hullo](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=hullo) seems to be the person who included some links. They have clearly been here a while, participates constructively, and doesn't seem to spew out a lot of affiliate links (any, actually, that I can see).

<comment><USER9> Perhaps, but taking a famous person's list of books and reposting it with affiliate links and no disclaimer is definitely crossing the line in my book.

<comment><USER11> Why? I'm genuinely interesting in your line of reasoning.

<comment><USER12> Profiteering in comment sections pollutes the incentives for commenters. Sure the links were useful, but they were much less useful than a person providing a really insightful comment about a typical article that shows up here. I don't want one person making monetary gain over another.

<comment><USER13> If only there was a system where we could somehow crowdsource deciding which comments are "really insightful" and which are not...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone who refers to David Brooks as "the insightful New York Times columnist" has lost me as a reader. I can't remember the last time he had an original, or even accurate, thought.

[http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-dont-think-david- brooks-i...](http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-dont-think-david-brooks-is- okay-you-guys-1702674607)

Here are two good books:

* The Korean War: A History - Little known fact: The US took the wrong side in the Korean War by putting the former officers of the Japanese imperial army in power in Seoul. It committed countless atrocities to achieve its stalemate, including fire-bombing half the country (Germany redux) and using napalm on whole villages, a foreshadowing of Vietnam.

* Old School - A novel by Tobias Wolff. If you're tired of tired prose, try Wolff. He cares about sentences.

<comment> ar-jan Indeed. Here's a Radio Yerevan take on Brooks' writings, from Language Log:

> Question to Language Log: Is it correct that if you show an American an > image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in > the tank and what it is doing, while if you ask a Chinese person to describe > a fish tank, the Chinese will usually describe the context in which the fish > swim?

> Answer: In principle, yes. But first of all, it wasn't a representative > sample of Americans, it was undergraduates in a psychology course at the > University of Michigan; and second, it wasn't Chinese, it was undergraduates > in a psychology course at Kyoto University in Japan; and third, it wasn't a > fish tank, it was 10 20-second animated vignettes of underwater scenes; and > fourth, the Americans didn't mention the "focal fish" more often than the > Japanese, they mentioned them less often.

From: Reality v. Brooks - [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=19531](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=19531)

<comment><USER15> That's a pretty lame critique. It seems they're purposefully reading the wrong study, since there is another study that focuses on Chinese students and backs up Brooks' article.

[http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1995-...](http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1995-09449-001)

[http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/n/x/nxy906/COMPS/CLT/cul...](http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/n/x/nxy906/COMPS/CLT/cultureandCLT/MorrisPengculturalconstrual.pdf) (full text)

<comment> ar-jan The critique is of how Brooks handles reporting facts in general. The joke I quoted is based on a specific example Brooks gave, which is traced to its original source (Brooks mentioned one of the authors, Nisbett - <USER2> [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=478](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=478)).

I linked to the other page because it contains links to about a dozen other posts looking into Brooks' writing.

There _might_ be other evidence supporting his general point, but then he should be citing that evidence, not twisting the facts or making things up.

<comment><USER15> Read the column. He's very obviously talking about multiple studies. The Nisbett study was about farm animals, not fish.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12brooks.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12brooks.html)

> When the psychologist Richard Nisbett showed Americans individual pictures > of a chicken, a cow and hay and asked the subjects to pick out the two that > go together, the Americans would usually pick out the chicken and the cow.

<comment><USER16> That one also appears in the llog posts if you follow the links: [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=478](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=478)

As far as I can tell, their critique is correct in that the research Brooks cites isn't enough to support the claims that he wants to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm always sad that lists like this from tech people never contain any fiction.

I have often seen the sentiment that everything you read should have some kind of educational value or it's just a waste of time.

Does Bill Gates not read fiction? Perhaps he understands that he would be looked down on if he were to include some in his list.

<comment><USER18> I feel like I can get my fix of fiction via TV and movies which is probably close to one hundred hours per month, perhaps more. More fiction is not what I need right now. I suspect most people's media consumption follows mine. Books are great for learning while TV/movies are great for storytelling. Yes, I understand the benefits of the novel, but its value proposition for me from a time perspective is very poor, especially since the standard length of the novel is a lot of filler to meet commercial expectations (I'm not paying fifteen bucks for 120 pages!). Most fiction books I've read can easily be edited down to novella length and lose next to nothing of substance.

Conversely, My wife consumes nothing but fiction. I find that pretty sad honestly.

<comment><USER19> Every time is see a post like this I get the urge to pretentiously rant about the ongoing decline of appreciation for aesthetic values. Tech culture often seems completely tonedeaf on artistic issues. Talking about the "value proposition" of the novel is borderline comical. If the fiction books you've read could be edited down to novella length, you should read better fiction books.

I have no idea how we got to a place where the value of Tolstoy, Cervantes, Flaubert, etc. needs to be defended from Breaking Bad and cinema (not that there's anything wrong with Breaking Bad and cinema). But apparently most people currently seem to be at a point where if they read the first few pages of "Lectures on Literature" they'd just squint their eyes, cock their heads, and proceed to not understand one part of what it means to "remain a little aloof and take pleasure in this aloofness while at the same time we keenly enjoy—passionately enjoy, enjoy with tears and shivers—the inner weave of a given masterpiece"

<comment><USER18> At my age I've already read those authors and pretty much all the celebrated classics. I'm not sure why you think I haven't. Also, to be completely honest, many/some of those classics are fairly over-rated.

>Every time is see a post like this I get the urge to pretentiously rant about the ongoing decline of appreciation for aesthetic values.

Everytime I meet someone like you I poke into their true reading habits and its a lot of YA stuff, chick-lit, top 20 pop-culture junk, etc. Just because you read a classic once doesn't mean that the entire medium known as books gets free pass. Sturgeon's law applies to all art if we're being honest with ourselves.

The fact that fiction comes at the cost of reading non-fiction cannot be swept under the rug. Its a completely valid concern. Those in my peer group can tell me all about $popular_scifi and $popular_chicklit but not much else.

Its pretentious to think that fiction is magically superior to all other forms of communication. I think we'll look back at how incredibly overly-entertained we are today and wonder how we lived such shallow lives. That's a narrative no one talks about: how much fiction we're constantly consuming and the incredibly low quality of it all. Most people have the information consumption habits equal to eating junk food for every meal and yet they have the gumption to pretend they're mighty intellectuals on the mountain barking wisdom to us idiots below because they falsely assume consuming carefully crafted fiction designed to sell is some strange esoteric intellectual pursuit. No, its the kid reading some tech manual and building something original who's doing something intellectual and esoteric, not the girl downing Hunger Games, Twilight, and Divergent trilogies on the bus and giving snide looks to the "nerds" around her who don't get "literature." Then she goes from the bus to the boob/youtube and zones out for hours until bedtime then back to work/school. That's a sad life and if you're honest with yourself, you'd agree with me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Gates has also reviewed all of these books in more detail on gatesnotes.com. Here's the link to the Thing Explainer review (which I ordered today) - [http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Thing- Explainer](http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Thing-Explainer)

Others Below:

Eradiation: [http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Eradication](http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Eradication)

Mindset: [http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New- Psychology-o...](http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New-Psychology- of-Success)

The Road To Character: [http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Road-to- Character](http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Road-to-Character)

Being Nixon: [http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Being- Nixon](http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Being-Nixon)

Sustainable Materials: [http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Sustainable-Materials- With-B...](http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Sustainable-Materials-With-Both- Eyes-Open)

<comment><USER21> Randall Monroe is currently doing a book tour so you can hear him speak and get a signed copy if you're in the right place at the right time.

He was at NASA in Houston today.....

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Did anyone read the books he recommended last year? Were they worthwhile?

<comment><USER3> In 2010, Bill Gates praised books by Vaclav Smil, a professor emeritus of environment and geography at the University of Manitoba.[1]

It's true that Smil's books are packed with facts and ideas about ecology issues.

But much before Smil, Buckminster Fuller had urged every engineer to ask the question 'How much does the structure weigh?' From that starting point, Fuller went on to design geodesic domes and other light weight structures of immense strength and no weight.[2]

Shortly after Bill Gates made Vaclav Smil famous as his go-to person on ecology, Wired got Smil's take on the problems facing America and the world.[3]

From the Wired article,

> WIRED: Let's talk about manufacturing. You say a country that stops doing > mass manufacturing falls apart. Why?

> SMIL: In every society, manufacturing builds the lower middle class. If you > give up manufacturing, you end up with haves and have-nots and you get > social polarization. The whole lower middle class sinks.

The share of manufacturing in all jobs has been declining steadily in the US since 1950. The service sector has always had a larger share than manufacturing. The ability of poorly educated males in the US in the 1950s and 1960s was due to limited competition from other countries. Once other countries also built up their educated people, the US wage rates had to suffer, relatively speaking. It does not matter which sector these poorly educated people are employed in – the problem is that they are poorly educated but want high wages, and this is no longer competitive.

> WIRED: You also say that manufacturing is crucial to innovation.

> SMIL: Most innovation is not done by research institutes and national > laboratories. It comes from manufacturing—from companies that want to extend > their product reach, improve their costs, increase their returns. What's > very important is in-house research. Innovation usually arises from somebody > taking a product already in production and making it better: better glass, > better aluminum, a better chip. Innovation always starts with a product. > Look at LCD screens. Most of the advances are coming from big industrial > conglomerates in Korea like Samsung or LG. The only good thing in the US is > Gorilla Glass, because it's Corning, and Corning spends $700 million a year > on research.

Under Smil's nose, Microsoft, Google and Apple and cellphones have changed the world – with hugely disruptive innovation almost equal to the invention of the printing press. But, if you are looking at the wrong place, you will not see innovation that has improved the lives of billions around the world.

> WIRED: Can IT jobs replace the lost manufacturing jobs?

> SMIL: No, of course not. These are totally fungible jobs. You could hire > people in Russia or Malaysia—and that's what companies are doing.

Not the IT innovation jobs. There's no IT innovation coming from these countries.

> WIRED: Restoring manufacturing would mean training Americans again to build > things.

> SMIL: Only two countries have done this well: Germany and Switzerland. > They've both maintained strong manufacturing sectors and they share a key > thing: Kids go into apprentice programs at age 14 or 15. You spend a few > years, depending on the skill, and you can make BMWs. And because you > started young and learned from the older people, your products can't be > matched in quality. This is where it all starts.

Again looking at the wrong place. The quality of Japanese cars beats almost any manufacturer in the price range. Toyotas are world-class – even beating VW.

> WIRED: You claim Apple could assemble the iPhone in the US and still make a > huge profit.

> SMIL: It's no secret! Apple has tremendous profit margins. They could easily > do everything at home. The iPhone isn't manufactured in China—it's assembled > in China from parts made in the US, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, > and so on. The cost there isn't labor. But laborers must be sufficiently > dedicated and skilled to sit on their ass for eight hours and solder little > pieces together so they fit perfectly.

Agreed – Apple could make huge profits even if the iPhone is assembled in the US. But, Apple would not pay them $30/hour, which is what you need to support a lower middle-class life.

> WIRED: But Apple is supposed to be a giant innovator.

> SMIL: Apple! Boy, what a story. No taxes paid, everything made abroad—yet > everyone worships them. This new iPhone, there's nothing new in it. Just a > golden color. What the hell, right? When people start playing with color, > you know they're played out.

Agreed that iPhone 5 is no innovation. But, iPhone and iPad did not come from Germany or Switzerland!

> WIRED: Your other big subject is food. You're a pretty grim thinker, but > this is your most optimistic area. You actually think we can feed a planet > of 10 billion people—if we eat less meat and waste less food.

> SMIL: We pour all this energy into growing corn and soybeans, and then we > put all that into rearing animals while feeding them antibiotics. And then > we throw away 40 percent of the food we produce. Meat eaters don't like me > because I call for moderation, and vegetarians don't like me because I say > there's nothing wrong with eating meat. It's part of our evolutionary > heritage! Meat has helped to make us what we are. Meat helps to make our big > brains. The problem is with eating 200 pounds of meat per capita per year. > Eating hamburgers every day. And steak. You know, you take some chicken > breast, cut it up into little cubes, and make a Chinese stew—three people > can eat one chicken breast. When you cut meat into little pieces, as they do > in India, China, and Malaysia, all you need to eat is maybe like 40 pounds a > year.

Agreed, if this can be done. But, that's not the world trend, Chinese per capita consumption of meat has gone up many times in recent years.

[1] [http://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Important-Books-About- Energ...](http://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Important-Books-About-Energy-by- Vaclav-Smil)

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

[3] [http://www.wired.com/2013/11/vaclav-smil- wired/](http://www.wired.com/2013/11/vaclav-smil-wired/)

<comment><USER23> Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but these quotes make Smil seem almost neo- luddite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If anyone is interested in the book Sustainable Materials, it's free: [http://www.withbotheyesopen.com/read.php](http://www.withbotheyesopen.com/read.php)

</comment><comment><USER25> For me, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is hands down the best book of 2015: [http://hpmor.com/](http://hpmor.com/)

<comment><USER26> Thanks, looks interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Waking up: A guide to spirituality without religion" by neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris. Don't be so quick to dismiss it please, give it a try. It's not mysticism.

<comment><USER28> _It 's not mysticism_

It's the opposite of mysticism. It's a great neuroscientist-based look at meditation. I'd highly recommend it if you're interested in meditation but put off by all the mumbo jumbo you get from many other sources of meditation info.

<comment><USER29> But my chakras..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you like fantasy, there are three series you need to read:

The Blade Itself (3 books)

The Kingkiller Chronicle (waiting on third and final book)

The Stormlight Archive (waiting on third and final book)

<comment><USER31> The 3rd book in The Stormlight Archive series will not be the last. It is planned to be a 10-book series

<comment><USER30> That's good news! Dunno why I thought it was three books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I've read two of Nick Lane's books: he is a fantastic writer, and writes about hard-core biology that will set your brain on fire.

</comment><comment><USER33> Thing Explainer is fantastic. Some of the best presentations of complicated ideas I've ever seen. It's a spinoff from this classic: [https://xkcd.com/1133/](https://xkcd.com/1133/)

Also check out a similar piece on general relativity: [http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-space-doctors- big...](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-space-doctors-big-idea- einstein-general-relativity)

<comment><USER34> I've just bought this for my son in the hope that it will encourage him to actually read something rather than always look stuff up on YouTube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If you like books on making things, you might like my book: [http://brianknapp.me/creative-pursuit/](http://brianknapp.me/creative- pursuit/) It's $0.99 on Amazon, but if you want a free copy, just email me email@example.com and I'll send you one.

</comment><comment><USER36> Re: "The Road To Character", an interview of the author on On Point in April:

[http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/04/20/moral-guidance-david- broo...](http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/04/20/moral-guidance-david-brooks-new- book)

</comment><comment><USER37> Here is a list of lists [https://popsnip.com/topic/863/Best-Books- of-2015-List-of-Lis...](https://popsnip.com/topic/863/Best-Books-of-2015-List- of-Lists)

</comment><comment><USER38> I wonder how much that video must have cost him! It's such a great production. I really like the way the table and the props match the theme of the relevant book. I'm guessing $10K for the one minute video?

<comment><USER39> I'm sure he's got video people on staff, so probably very little marginal cost. Look back at some older posts, there are a lot of videos. Here's one from last week about his dad's 90th birthday:

[http://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Happy-Birthday- Da...](http://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Happy-Birthday-Dad)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I second the review of _Mindset_ by Carol Dweck. This book is a result of her work studying these issues as a psychologist. Re-posting my summary:

Two mindsets:

 _Fixed mindset_ \- talents, abilities and intelligence are fixed, endowed

 _Growth mindset_ \- talents, abilities and intelligence are learned and can be developed

These mindsets are learned, and have fundamentally different reactions to challenges. The two-mindsets model is a simplification for the purposes of explanation.

 _Failure_

The growth mindset embraces failure as a necessary part of learning. In fact failure is a indicator of an area for potential growth, if the opportunity is taken to overcome that failure. The fixed mindset avoids and fears failure; it is taken as evidence of a hard limit of your endowed talent.

 _Motivation_

The growth mindset sees effort as necessary to mastery. Almost any level of mastery may be attainable with the right regimen of practice. Obstacles are a normal part of mastery and must be overcome as a matter of course in order to grow. Criticism is not taken personally, but used to indicate areas for improvement and growth.

The fixed mindset sees effort as producing only small effects compared to their fixed ability. May be more prone to give up in the face of obstacles since it is thought that there is no new mastery to be gained. Criticism is more likely to be taken personally, as the individual identifies with the perceived limits of their ability and thinks that improvement is impossible beyond a certain point.

 _Perceiving others_

The growth mindset is not threatened by others' abilities. Others' examples may serve to inspire. The fixed mindset is more likely to be jealous of others' abilities since they are perceived to be highly desirable gifts and the result of luck and circumstance.

 _Teaching Children_

Praise children by emphasizing their work and persistence. Do not use labels like "smart" or "gifted" that would reinforce a mindset of fixed abilities.

 _Relationships_

Growth oriented mindset is more likely to be understanding and ready to learn from experience. Fixed mindset sees problems as a result of unchangeable personal attributes and are pessimistic about change. More likely to have unrealistic expectations, like not having to work at a relationship that is "meant to be".

 _Examples_

Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth and Wilma Rudolph are given as examples of overcoming early setbacks with a growth mindset.

Last chapter is a "workshop" of situations and questions to help you develop a growth mindset.

</comment><comment><USER41> Is "The Mindset" a new edition? If so, is it worth reading if you are familiar with the original one?

For people who haven't read it BTW, I highly recommend it, especially if you are a parent.

</comment><comment><USER42> "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy

"Flash Boys: Not So Fast: An Insider's Perspective on High-Frequency Trading" by Peter Kovac

"Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson

</comment><comment><USER43> Anyone here like me who is happy to have read one (or very few) fiction books[0] during 2015?

[0]: Books you read primarily for someone kids not included ;-)

</comment><comment><USER44> Is The Three-Body Problem worth reading?

<comment><USER45> It's terrible sci-fi but the sci-fi bit is only there to draw moralistic parallels between aliens and the Chinese. Some gruelling stories about China's culturual revolution that were pretty interesting but otherwise it's pretty bad. I'm sure the quality of the writing is lost in translation so I'm not complaining about that - just talking about the story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> These are list of must read books next year- How i wish i was aware of this books before now, i would have digest all by now. Not late , will still read them

</comment><comment><USER47> I can't read any of that because I'm distracted by the mental image of Bill telling someone the best books he read, with some conversation, and that person asking some questions while writing notes, then spending hours in front of his laptop, emailing a draft to someone else, who asks Bill a few more questions then returns a draft to someone else who finalizes it and publishes on "GatesNotes" written as if he sat down on his blogging backend and typed it out in a textfield.

I have no idea the process behind this website, but it seems unlikely enough that he'd sit down and write it himself that I can't take it seriously. From what little I read, it doesn't sound like something produced directly from him without first passing through others, at least for formatting and correction.

<comment><USER48> I think people read these notes for the "big ideas" presented, not for the majestic prose of Bill Gates. Given that, why do you care who assembles and copyedits the information for him?

<comment><USER47> It's kind of like if you turned on TV to watch the President's speech, and noticed it was a computer-generated 3D representation. It wouldn't be distracting? He's saying all these things, and I can't receive the message because all I see is a puppet pretending to be a man. I'm wondering about who actually wrote it, how many people it took to animate, whether it's even an authentic message or if it's part of some propagandic theatre.

I think if someone is going to use their personal name on a website, they should actually write it. Otherwise, it's deceptive. If it's going to be a team effort, then call it a different name, and don't show a big picture of your face at the top of the screen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I was once berated for posting a blog article on how to build a multitude of data structures, in 3 different programming languages. The reason for this was because "This is hacker news, and this article is first year computing science stuff." \- Yet Bill gates reads a book about Richard Nixon, and suddenly it is the top item on here, even though it is in no way related to anything technical. I'm out, this place is most definitely a circle jerk at this point.

<comment><USER50> It might be that people see this headline and are interested in returning later to skim the book list and all of the other lists linked here in the comments.

Upvoting Bill's book list might not mean they like his list, think it belongs at the top of HN, or that they even read the blog post. The top-of-front-page ranking could just be the result of a large number of readers upvoting in order to have the discussion show up in their "saved stories".

 _edit_ : A "save story" button that is independent of the voting/ranking mechanism might actually change the front page significantly.

<comment><USER51> Conversely, the list of most saved stories seems more useful than most upvoted.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Free Service to Find a Therapist - <AUTHOR> http://www.neb.health <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone,

Our company, Neb, offers a free service to help you find a mental healthcare provider. You can submit a form or schedule a phone call to explain your needs and we come back to you with a few available matches within a week.

* we personally call all providers first to ensure they're available and a fit

* therapists and providers who can prescribe medication

* specialty, availability, culture, and other factors are taken into account

* in-network or affordable options if needed

* we can call your insurance on your behalf to help you understand your coverage

* based in San Jose, available anywhere in California

We formed our company in January and launched with another idea in mental health in June. We just finished Startup School, and launched this service last month. We've had 20 users for this service so far.

We did a lot of user interviews and found that the process of finding a mental healthcare provider is really complicated. You have to reach out to a lot of providers, it takes time, you have to call people, information online is outdated, and people don't know what to look for.

If you want help looking for a therapist, please check out our website (www.neb.health). Otherwise, feel free to ask us any questions. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> What is your source of revenue? How do you make money from this ?

<comment><USER3> Curious to know this too. It doesn't seem unreasonable to grow the service to a model eventually where e.g. you charge a fixed price and get an initial consultation with a therapist + their research and setup as a single fee.

<comment><AUTHOR> We aren't planning to charge users at the moment, actually, that's too much friction. We would charge mental healthcare providers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this should have "in California" at the end of the title for clarity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya, I should have done that. I don't know how to edit it now though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The site appeared as "Find the right rapist, free" because the width of my browser cut off the static text in the splash graphic. Not a joke, not an exaggeration. My browser width is fairly standard.

<comment><AUTHOR> ...I see what you mean. Changed the copy for now, and we have to fix the wrapping later. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are similar services/startups in NYC i've interacted with.

My experience was it is fruitless endeavor trying to find a therapist that _actually_ practices CBT for less than 200/hr.

<comment><USER7> How are the therapists at the lower rates otherwise?

<comment><USER6> In my experience, bad.

For me, it seems crazy in the year 2020 that a therapist wouldn't introduce basic analytics into the process with something like a brief mood survey after each session to know if therapy is ...for lack of a better term..."working".

Zero therapists I've found via the NYC therapist-finder sites do this.

[https://feelinggood.com/tag/evaluation-of- therapy/](https://feelinggood.com/tag/evaluation-of-therapy/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, we agree user feedback and monitoring are really helpful - hopefully the profession gets to that point.

<comment><USER6> Not to sound too frustrated here, but these CBT techniques are now 40 years old. So hoping the profession slowly comes around seems too mild of a take for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Honest questions:

-why should I use your service when most therapists will still want to talk with me before taking me on as a patient, repeating the same problems I am facing and evaluating whether we make a good fit?

-In my experience, a service like Psychology Today is good for narrowing certain qualitatives about a therapist. The challenge isn't finding a therapist practicing CBT or Gestalt techniques, it's finding someone I connect with human to human. Is this something your service makes easier?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for asking!

It sounds like you are a lot more informed about mental healthcare than a lot of people, which is great. Generally, most people don't know what to look for in terms of style or fit, and we're a lot more robust with our search.

To answer your questions:

1\. We almost always have to reach out to 20+ therapists, and routinely reach out to 30, 40, 50 to find someone with availability and a couple of criteria the user specifies (e.g. good with immigrants, or available Tuesday mornings). Also if someone wants an in-network provider.

2\. This would be great, and are thinking about asking providers and users what their communication styles are as a first step. How would you like us to address this? What questions about the therapist would you like answered upfront?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a crowded space with A-list players like Psychology Today.

How do you differentiate yourselves?

<comment><AUTHOR> The process of finding a mental healthcare provider is time-consuming and overwhelming, and directories like Psychology Today are just a starting point.

You have to reach out to 15-20 therapists to find an available match, and Psychology Today doesn't help you with that. We will reach out to 20+ therapists for you.

Also, we have a phone call with each therapist before we recommend them to you to ensure they're available and meet your criteria as best as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great service, I advice you to take a look on your page from an iPad, about the whole left half of the landing page's top area is out of the viewport by default.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we need to fix that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't help but mention the word "neb" is used as slang for this [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nebach](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nebach) in a some Jewish communities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, didn't know that.</comment></comment>


America is wooing foreign tourists for the first time - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21557782

<comment><USER2> It would really help encourage tourism into the USA if the USA _didn't levy a freaking tax on entering the USA to subsidize the ailing Florida tourism industry_. (Source: <http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/us-tourism- security.5tl/> ) Which is ailing because the process of entering the USA today, if you're a foreigner (like me) is marginally less friendly than entering the USSR in the mid-1980s.

(This is not a knock on the USA, it's a knock on the immigration/border control process. Which sucks. Horribly.)

<comment><USER3> I just took a trip out of the US down to Brazil and back a few weeks ago, and dear god, coming back into the country at the airport in Atlanta...

The tourists probably had about 20-30 minutes before getting out of the terminal, which is bad enough, but the US citizens were in a Disney World- esque line that was long enough that I missed a connecting flight scheduled an hour and a half after we arrived from Brazil.

That was bad enough that I sure won't be flying out of the country for anything less than at least a couple days worth of stuff. I feel bad for anyone coming through who isn't a citizen or can't speak perfect English. The immigration building had these massive screens overhead showing serene farmland scenes and images from across the country, while two or three thousand passengers are stuck in a line desperately waiting to get home or to their hotels at 1 AM. It's all very dystopian.

<comment><USER4> Atlanta is a particularly bad airport for entering the US. I far prefer to do SFO, IAD, JFK, etc. By far my favorite is SEA, although IAD on flights from the middle east (where ~90% of the US Citizen passengers are government employees or contractors) are treated exceptionally well.

MIA, ATL, BWI are the worst.

<comment><USER5> Totally agree on ATL being the worst and will never again fly through that city. They easily have the most unpleasant ICE employees I've ever dealt with. I usually try to fly into SFO or SJC, but I've always been pretty happy with DFW, which is a common port of entry for those coming from Brazil.

It'd be nice if someone put together a site in every language that rates ICE at each port of entry so people can avoid the airports where ICE is most unpleasant. At the end of the day, airports are businesses and if they see revenue dropping because nobody wants to travel through them then there may be some change.

<comment><USER4> SFO is also nice for domestic because the TSA screeners there are private employees (Covenant Aviation Security, LLC). They're both more competent at actually finding contraband, and in my experience, more polite, than USG TSA employees. Obviously they're under a microscope as one of the few (only?) privatized airports, but SF isn't exactly an easy recruiting market, either (even for airport screener type jobs).

They also are one of the 4 airports Clear covers, so you can bypass the lines, too. ($180/yr, but I got 3 free months through Regus BusinessWorld Gold (also free, somehow, for being a clear member; I was able to get both starting from having a free Clear membership from starwood before Clear shut down the first time; trying to find a way to get Clear for free after 3mo.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, tourism decreases as a consequence of our making it significantly harder to enter and much less pleasant and welcoming once you do, and our solution is a marketing campaign to convince people that's not really how it is. This seems so fundamentally flawed I don't even know where to start.

</comment><comment><USER7> As a Canadian citizen, I am close enough to the United States already.

It's great that they want to share their landmarks, friendly people, and history. The problem is the gatekeepers AKA the TSA and border police. A quick google search on TSA will give you all the information you need to make an educated choice on where not to spend your holidays.

Until this is fixed, I cannot see how the USA can beat places like Taiwan, China, anywhere in Europe (except maybe Germany), Australia, or Iceland for the image of "welcoming tourists." It's purely anecdotal as it's an opinion, of course. Take it or leave it :)

</comment><comment><USER8> America is currently the center of the tech world. This is largely due to two things:

1\. The internet is cheaper here than anywhere else in part because everyone else pays to connect to the US; and

2\. The university endowment system combined with some of the greatest research institutions on the planet created the tech VC system that fuelled the growth of Silicon Valley.

Manufacturing has already left the US (and most of the developed world). While the barriers are higher for skilled labour, it's not impossible. Many countries have a sufficiently stable political system and sufficient infrastructure to create tech businesses.

My point is that the US is outright _hostile_ to those seeking to enter the United States, be they as tourists, residents or temporary workers, and to those who choose to come here and put up with a level of invasiveness that rivals third-world dictatorships and the old Iron Curtain countries.

Now some of the post-9/11 measures I don't have a problem with. I see no issue with fingerprinting those entering the United States.

On the other hand, as a foreign worker I need to report every foreign bank account I own (separately or jointly), have a financial interest in or signatory authority over whether or not that money was ever earned in or otherwise entered the United States. This includes retirement accounts. Or does it? No one can really say because the rules aren't clear.

Failure to comply can result in civil penalties as high as 300% of the balance of that account and criminal penalties including years in jail.

When it comes time to renew my visa I have to leave the country to do it.

Should I want to leave my job and start a business here I don't believe I have any legal recourse to reside lawfully in the United States so I have to go somewhere else.

I'm actually encouraged by stories like this one just because I'm optimistic that the US is finally figuring out that it needs tourists. Maybe someday soon it'll figure out it needs foreign workers and entrepreneurs too. Hopefully before it's too late.

It saddens me actually because the fate of the US is the same as that of many companies. Early-stage companies are innovators. Eventually they get so large that they live in constant fear that their success will go away or something will kill the golden goose. Instead of innovating they simply play a game of defense and interference. This is Microsoft of today with its Windows/Office cash cow.

The US was formed my immigrants coming to escape the rigid structure and persecution of the Old World. In a mere century the US turned from an agrarian backwater of 2 million (in 1800) to an industrial superpower of 50 million, thanks largely to migrants. The US shut its doors at the outbreak of World War One has been building increasingly larger walls ever since.

What disturbs me most is the presumption of (criminal) guilt that seems to pervade state institutions, particularly when it applies to confusing, complex, special-interest bought rules like the IRS code. In no other country I've been have I felt _fear_ that I'd be locked up even when trying to do what I believe is the right thing. This doesn't just apply to foreigners either. The US seems just as hostile to its own citizens too.

EDIT: regarding Internet speed, so as to be clear there's a difference between Internet end-user cost (consumers and businesses) and service provider cost.

End user cost is indeed expensive, which seems largely due to the regional monopolies that exist in the US, meaning cable companies. That is however irrelevant (for the purpose of my argument).

I'm interested in the cost of a Facebook, Google, Ebay or Amazon providing their service in resource terms. Of course there's a latency component to this as well (the US being disproportionately represented in customer terms) but ultimately it has been cheaper and I believe that to still be the case, especially if you get to the scale whereby peering is possible and viable.

<comment><USER9> 1\. Wrong. Completely wrong. Internet is cheaper and much, much faster in many other countries. And many of those countries are rolling out FTTH/FTTN as we speak e.g. Australia.

2\. True but a bit irrelevant.

The reason the US is the capital of the tech world is 110% due to the success of the VC industry. It is so flush with cash (from its previous successes) that it can reinvest in whole rafts of companies to create tomorrow's successes. It's very much self perpetuating.

<comment><USER10> >> 2\. The university endowment system combined with some of the greatest research institutions on the planet created the tech VC system that fuelled the growth of Silicon Valley.

> 2\. True but a bit irrelevant.

> [...] US is the capital of the tech world is 110% due to the success of the > VC industry.

Are you disagreeing just to disagree? How is the thing you're giving "110%" of the credit irrelevant?

Access to money doesn't create success and without success that money would just go somewhere else. You can't seriously give it "110%" of the credit without looking at the reasons for the VC system and the underlying factors of the success.

<comment><USER9> I meant the quality of the universities. It might have been important decades ago but it isn't the reason Silicon Valley is the centre of IT today.

It's because of (a) money and (b) willingness of VCs to take chances and invest in companies with 23 year old CEOs and vague business plans. That sort of thing just doesn't happen anywhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For the first time? Have these people heard of Disney World and Universal Studios?

<comment><USER12> Everyone's skeptic meter should be triggered at the line, "...launched America's first-ever campaign to attract visitors from overseas."

30 seconds on youtube and you'll find this UK targeted ad than was uploaded 4 years ago.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkcYTVfXn74>

I'm sure there have been hundreds of ad campaigns in hundreds of countries.</comment></comment>


Show HN: HN Follow – Follow Your Friends on HN - <AUTHOR> https://hn-follow.desh.es/ <comment><USER2> Cool! I've been working on a little Chrome extension that does something similar (and has a quite similar name ;) ): [https://github.com/napoleond/follow-hn](https://github.com/napoleond/follow- hn)

Have been meaning to polish it a bit more, but I suppose now is as good a time as any to share it. One outstanding feature that I think will be pretty useful is caching user comments--right now it re-constructs the comment feed on every page load, which isn't ideal.

<comment><USER3> Same here. Finished it a couple of days ago.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh)

[https://github.com/fivedogit/hn2go- backend](https://github.com/fivedogit/hn2go-backend)

[https://github.com/fivedogit/hn2go- chromex](https://github.com/fivedogit/hn2go-chromex)

The funny part is that @raquo and I posted our "follow" apps/extensions (separate projects) this week and got no love from HN. And then this thread took off for some reason. Timing? Titling? God I hate the randomness of marketing.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's random at all. From a would-be user's perspective it makes complete sense to me that this post took off and yours didn't get too far. I want to explain why, not to be a dick, but because I feel like all hackers (myself included) have a hard time seeing things from the user's perspective.

First, the title of your submission: > Show HN: Search HN by keywords, user, score, Read online, on mobile or RSS

It's completely unclear what your product is. Honestly it sounds like you packaged up HN with some more CSS and an RSS reader or something? I don't really know. "Read online?" How else would I read HN? "Search HN?" I don't really have anyting to search for, and if I did I would just use Google.

The reason film42's post took off is because people were interested in following. Yours didn't even mention following.

Now let's look at film42's title:

> Show HN: HN Follow – Follow Your Friends on HN

My first reaction? "Oh cool, I have a lot of friends who use HN, I wonder what they've been saying."

Then perhaps the best part of film42's app is that he used HN's styling in a way that almost felt like you hadn't left HN. It is completely familiar, and, as others have pointed out, it feels like something that should have been part of HN already. The friction of onboarding was completely eliminated - I didn't have to sign up for or download anything, but I could use it and wanted more. The missing auth is probably a mistake in the long-run, but missing that feature probably reduced some friction getting started.

At the end of the day, you have 5 seconds to impress me or I'm gone. It's quite possible, when your app doesn't take off, that the only thing you did wrong was not use those 5 seconds.

<comment><USER3> You're talking about @raquo's post, not mine. I don't know raquo and they are separate projects. Mine read: "Show HN: Follow HN users and get notified when they do stuff". I deleted it when it got 2 upvotes in an hour.

I'd be interested why you think mine didn't work. Chrome extension link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/logdfcelflpgcbfebi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh)

<comment><USER4> Ah, I thought you were working together. My apologies.

It certainly could have been a matter of posting time - film42 posted early in the morning when most of the stuff was old. It only took a few votes to get to the front page, yet a lot of HN users were online and voting.

But I think perhaps the bigger problem is around simplicity and familiarity. A chrome extension is always a hard sell because to play with it I have to download something that I have to dig out and uninstall later. I want to play with something before I "buy" it. Now people are asking for film42's app to become a chrome extension, but I bet if he had posted a chrome extension few people would have downloaded it.

Getting people to a moment when they are pleased with your product before they give up on it is probably the most difficult aspect of marketing/growth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, this was a little weekend hack. I hope you find it useful! Let me know if you have any questions.

Feel free to check out my follow page: [https://hn- follow.desh.es/?user=film42](https://hn-follow.desh.es/?user=film42)

Another example, HN top 10: [https://hn-follow.desh.es/?user=hn- top-10](https://hn-follow.desh.es/?user=hn-top-10)

<comment><USER5> You should verify users by giving them a code they have to put in a comment somewhere.

<comment><USER4> Probably in their HN profile would make the most sense.

<comment><USER5> That's a much better idea. It wouldn't even require storing credentials since the profile page can be updated pretty quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Feel free to make a contribution! Source: [https://github.com/film42/hn- follow](https://github.com/film42/hn-follow)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I honestly don't know why this isn't already built into HN.

<comment><USER7> Because it would undermine HN's goal that we vote for and comment on content on its own merits, not whether it was posted or commented on by someone you like.

I don't think HN is doing that great a job in surfacing the best content or encouraging better discourse in comments, but making it easy to follow favorite users instead of going to the front page would make it worse, IMHO.

<comment><USER3> As I was building my "follow" chrome extension...

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh) (shameless plug)

... I definitely wondered about this. All of a sudden, it turns HN into a popularity contest where the elite get all the attention and everyone else is completely ignored.

<comment><USER8> It should be noted that YC founders have a special Orange username that's visible only to other YC founders. The purpose is to prevent flame wars between founders, but I have my suspicions that such submissions receive more up votes on average. (Cannot prove statistically without the list, unfortunately.)

<comment><USER9> > The purpose is to prevent flame wars between founders

I've never heard that one, and it's not the purpose. PG added it years ago when the YC alumni community had gotten too big for everyone to know each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been using HNWatcher for this - I especially appreciate the emails it sends.

I'll take a look. Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're scratching your head trying to think of 10 names, this might help jog your memory - [https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders](https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders)

<comment><USER12> 'tptacek maintains a "must read" list in his profile. I'd add kasey_junk to it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek)

<comment><AUTHOR> I made one with a few of the usernames on his must follow list: [https://hn- follow.desh.es/?user=tptacek-must-read](https://hn- follow.desh.es/?user=tptacek-must-read)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there a current open-source version of HN that one could use to create a small HN for a group of friends? How close of a clone to HN could one create using Wordpress?

<comment><USER14> You could start from the lobste.rs source, available here: [https://github.com/jcs/lobsters](https://github.com/jcs/lobsters)

There is a mirror floating around of news.arc[1], the original version of HN from pg, but it's pretty dated and missing tons of the secret sauce.

[1][https://github.com/wting/hackernews](https://github.com/wting/hackernews)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I haven't got any friends :(

<comment><USER16> Quit complaining, it simplifies a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Follow you enemies too !</comment>


LucidChart's Database Migration to Amazon Aurora - <AUTHOR> https://www.lucidchart.com/techblog/2018/05/08/lucidcharts-database-migration-to-amazon-aurora/ <comment><USER2> Awesome! I've had it in my backlog for a while to migrate our Postgres RDS setup to Aurora</comment>


Ask HN: How to be an activist for a more open government? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys, I'm coming from a country in which corruption is deep into the roots of the government and not many are willing to do something about it. I was wondering what kind of legal activism can slowly but surely offer progress in improving the situation? <comment><USER2> Hard question because activism commonly isn't straightforwardly legal. Legal activism kinda doesn't work because corruption is invested in the status quo and has the power to suppress rogue actors. But there's lots of technology companies you could build that could defeat corruption by making a technology that makes corruption infeasible. It's a circuitous route to activism though, and it doesn't feel as powerful or immediate as traditional activism. And you're likely to be subverted by the corruption, else losing your business or being branded a criminal. Illegal activism isn't much better though. Snowden & Aaron Swartz were modern activists that told truth to power and got hammered.

There's a reason your country has sustained corruption that has global implications. Do you know what foreign influences the corruption serves? A good way to tell might be finding out what corporations are invested in your countrieseconomy. Then as an activist you can target that corporation in your search to expose the truth of who funds and perpetuates the corruption.</comment>


Where does talent really come from? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07wwln_freak.html

<comment><USER2> This meme is wearing a bit thin. Yes, deliberate practice matters. So do environment and heredity.</comment>


Linear types can change the world (1990) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.ioc.ee/ewscs/2010/mycroft/linear-2up.pdf <comment><USER2> GHC might get linear types: [https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/LinearTypes](https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/LinearTypes)

<comment><USER3> Linear Haskell: Practical Linearity in a Higher-Order Polymorphic Language [1]

I'm going to see the talk tomorrow at POPL, should be good.

[1] [https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/hal-01673536/file/Linear%20...](https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/hal-01673536/file/Linear%20Haskell%20practical%20linearity%20in%20a%20higher- order%20polymorphic%20language.pdf)

<comment><USER2> To be honest I'm not very enthused about the way linear types are being added to Haskell. I think linear logic has a lot of potential to drastically change the way we approach programming and I'm not so interested in marginal improvements to current languages. I really like this paper [0] as an example of where we could be going. Note that the author is also part of the initiative to add linear types to GHC.

[0] [http://assert- false.net/arnaud/papers/A%20dissection%20of%20...](http://assert- false.net/arnaud/papers/A%20dissection%20of%20L.pdf)

<comment><USER4> What's the essential difference between the approach described in the linked paper, and the one Haskell is taking? And what makes you favor the former?

<comment><USER2> In System L the evaluation contexts are first class and treated symmetrically with values. This goes beyond the functional paradigm. The Haskell proposal seeks to implement functional aspect of linear logic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any discussion of Uniqueness or Linear types deserves a shoutout to Pony, which like Rust is built around the principle but in a really delightful way.

<comment><USER6> Also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_\(programming_language\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's a good language to try this out?

From the first few pages it seems to be really workable. I could see a good chunk of tailrecursive algorithms map neatly to constraints like nocopy and nodestroy

I'm no programming language nut, but it seems to me that in general if you have the language semantics to be able to explicitly narrow the capability of a structure it should lead to improvements when compiling (types in general do that as well). I remember playing around with ATS a little and it put a smile on my face that you could explicitly state that a function is tailrecursive, or mutually tailrecursive with another function. The other end of the spectrum is something like Scheme where it's not even clear from the semantics if you're capturing an environment or not! :) (which I still love and is really handy for writing stuff quick and simple, but I have no clue how a compiler has to work with that! No guarantees on mutability, stack size etc etc) ATS also is supposed to have linear types... so maybe I should revisit it some time

<comment><USER8> Rust is pretty much based around linear types (well I think technically it's a variant of that, I have heard about "affine types", don't know the difference), more precisely the move semantics.

EDIT: Oh, the expert has spoken while I was writing. See steveklabnic's answer !

<comment><USER9> > I have heard about "affine types", don't know the difference

A value with a linear type is used _exactly_ once. A value with an affine type is used _at most_ once. In other words, both types prevent double-use of single-use resources, but linear types additionally guarantee no leaks of said resources.

True linear types are far less common in practice, because in order to prove that a value is actually consumed, you have to prove that the program doesn't go into an infinite loop first. Which, y'know, good luck with that.

<comment><USER10> > Which, y'know, good luck with that.

Most dependent type systems like Agda, Coq, Idris, Lean, and ATS have termination checking, so it is possible! They can't determine whether arbitrary programs terminate, but you can capture a large subset of programs. Turns out most code doesn't actually need Turing completeness.

<comment><USER11> Since I've started paying attention, I've noticed that most of the code I write doesn't need anything more powerful than _formal_ regular expressions, and vanishingly rarely needs to go beyond deterministic context-free.

<comment><USER7> Now you've got me curious :) Could you give some examples? I've never come across regular expressions outside of string handling

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Their siblings, affine types, change the world in the form of Rust. ;)

<comment><USER13> Relevant: [https://hyper.rs/hyper/v0.9.6/hyper/client/request/struct.Re...](https://hyper.rs/hyper/v0.9.6/hyper/client/request/struct.Request.html)

<comment><USER14> Could you elaborate? There isn't much of a discussion there of the benefits from making Request affine.

<comment><USER15> headers_mut is only defined on Request<Fresh>, and you can only write body data using Request<Streaming>. This makes it so it's a type error to try to modify the headers after you already sent them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this about organizing side-effects in a way that compilers can optimize?

<comment><USER17> I asked myself a bit of a related question. Is this theory related to [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_single_assignment_for...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_single_assignment_form) ?

<comment> jw- I think SSA is related to CPS, but I'm not sure of the correspondence with Linearity. I think the key difference (but I'm not sure), is that SSA only asserts that a variable is assigned once, but might be consumed multiple times. Linearity says that things must be consumed exactly once. For instance, I think:

y <\- x + 1

z <\- x + 2

is a legal SSA expression, but it is not a legal linear expression because x appears twice.

(Corrections welcome)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's always fun to look at the flow of knowledge from academia to the industry, and how some things can take decades.

Reminds me of LinearML which was an experiment nearly 10 years ago.

[https://github.com/pikatchu/LinearML/blob/b1a49f153e02f3cffb...](https://github.com/pikatchu/LinearML/blob/b1a49f153e02f3cffb32784f2eeb7fca017b2791/README)

</comment><comment><USER19> After 17 years I think we can say they did not change the world!

<comment><USER17> Add 10 more years :)

<comment><USER19> lol ok we'll check back then, you and i

edit: haha!! just got what you said and realized my mistake :o

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So, why haven't they yet as 25 years have passed?

It is nor like they are hard or expensive to implement, more like nobody cares and the claim is overblown. Most mistakes in software are in boundary conditions nowadays and not invalid type handling.

Enforcing immutability is great until you get to deal with big number of additional values of immutable types because you cannot modify them. Easy to reason about, bad for performance.

<comment><USER21> Linear types are different from immutable types. You can change the value of a linear type as long as you used the previous value somewhere else (for example i = i + 1). Languages like Rust leverage affine types (another substructural type system similar to linear type systems) in order to guarantee memory safety.</comment></comment>


The Anarchists vs. The Islamic State - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/american-anarchists-ypg-kurdish-militia-syria-isis-islamic-state-w466069 <comment><USER2> This sounds a bit like Hemingway's foray into the Spanish Civil War.</comment>


F-35 Program Cutting Corners to "Complete" Development - <AUTHOR> https://www.pogo.org/investigation/2018/08/f-35-program-cutting-corners-to-complete-development <comment><USER2> The biggest design problem is a failure of conception:

> The Pentagon sold Congress on the F-35 in part with the idea of creating a > common aircraft for three services, alleging it would save money—despite the > well-documented and glaring failure of the tri-service F-111 program 25 > years before Congress signed off on the very same plan with the F-35 in 2001

The idea that the STOVL variant would have significant parts commonality with the others despite having a giant fan in the middle was pretty laughable right from the start. In general, three aircraft with three very different design mission profiles were not going to be able to share much without making bad compromises.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. And the depressing part is that SOME parts still could have been shared between the different aircraft even in a more modest proposal (e.g. warfare systems). They just decided to go that extra mile, and wind up with an aircraft that likely won't ever save money and is too complex for its own good.

I hope we're done with manned aircraft after the F-35, and it is all drone swarms from here on out.

<comment><USER4> I've thought that drone swarms are an "obviously" good idea, but that assumed that the communications/navigation were not easily spoofed. Then Iran captured one of the US's most advanced drone, pretty much intact. Now I'm not so sure.

<comment><USER5> The idea of drone swarms doesn't go well together with aerodynamics and basic physical intuition. If you shrink an aircraft down, the aerodynamic cross- section (i.e the drag force) scales with the area (scale^2), but your engine thrust is going to drop roughly by the decrease in volume (scale^3).

So you end up losing maximum airspeed _and_ fuel efficiency (in terms of the mass you're moving) the smaller you go. Unless the drones in your swarm were really big, it doesn't work out.

Although, I imagine we'll see some smaller, unmanned jet fighters in the future (assuming someone figures out how to control something like that remotely, or autonomously). A smaller aircraft has the advantage of a smaller radar cross-section and being more difficult to hit. Doing away with the pilot cuts out a lot of weight and frees up room for a larger engine and fuel tank, offseting the downsides of the smaller size somewhat. There should be a sweet spot where that works out.

<comment><USER6> Shape is the major determining factor for radar return, not size. From Ben Rich's Skunk Works-

>I really wanted a photographer around for historical purposes to capture the expression on Kelly's big, brooding moon-shaped mug when I showed him the electromagnetic chamber results. Hopeless Diamond was exactly as Denys had predicted: a thousand times stealthier than the twelve-year-old drone. The fact that the test results matched Denys's computer calculations was the first proof that we actually knew what in hell we were doing. Still, Kelly reacted about as graciously as a cop realizing he had collared the wrong suspect. He grudgingly flipped me the quarter and said, "Don't spend it until you see the damned thing fly." But then he sent for Denys Overholser and grilled the poor guy past the point of well-done on the whys and hows of stealth technology. He told me later that he was surprised to learn that with flat surfaces the amount of radar energy returning to the sender is independent of the target's size. A small airplane, a bomber, an aircraft carrier, all with the same shape, will have identical radar cross sections. "By God, I never would have believed that," he confessed. I had the feeling that maybe he still didn't.

<comment><USER7> >with flat surfaces the amount of radar energy returning to the sender is independent of the target's size.

it is basic geometry. Like a flat mirror, no matter the size, will reflect to you the same Sun spotlight (to be precise - as long as the mirror is bigger than 32 arcminutes as seen from the receiving position)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is possibly the biggest and most tragic case of Sunk-cost fallacy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost)

I honestly think the american defense contractor industry poses a national security risk. In time of war,the country needs efficiency as much as capability and how much cash you burn through(even if you just print more money) can also decide who wins the war.

<comment><USER9> Real war (aka not fucking about in third world countries) does a really good job of weeding out this kind of behavior, once the bad actor's own property starts being targetted.

<comment><USER10> In a real war you wouldn't have time to design a new replacement. Let's hope the enemy has its own boondoggles.

<comment><USER11> I've always wondered why they don't reuse old frame designs with new materials and components. They're proven to fly well, so why a completely new design every damn time?

Russia seems to do it with the SUs and MiGs...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> F-35 program is in large part complex software project but it's not just any software project

\- it's a large software integration, sensor integration project with many suppliers and interfaces

\- it includes incredibly advanced logistics, inventory, health and maintenance software ALIS that is essential for the program's success. Without ALIS F-35 can't keep readiness and availability needed

\- It's technically bleeding edge: augmented reality, mesh networking, ... (bleeding edge is rarely painless)

\- almost everything is safety critical or at least mission critical.

The project has so much momentum and so much sunken cost that it may take a decade to see if it can really deliver.

The ultimate test will be a high sortie rate mission that lasts few weeks. Lockheed engineers (civilians) are now on site doing custom work and repairs for individual parts to make the planes fly. If operational tempo increases, it's likely that the system can't keep up.

<comment><USER13> Those are all nice words, but I doubt reality will resemble marketing.

First, it is already _old_ (first flight in 2006). Those sensors, augmented reality, mesh networks and such are unlikely to be bleeding edge by now. We may already have better options, but they probably cannot be swapped in because safety, because it is such a complex mess and of course because secrecy.

Second, successful aircraft (efficient, envelope pushing, not money guzzling) are designed quickly by a relatively small team empowered to break barriers or ignore red tape. Look for example at Skunk Works, their products and their timeline. F-35 is opposite: a multi-national, multi-service monster with bureaucracy, oversight and special interests that alone will drive good engineers away.

Sorry, it is just a feeding trough. Let's finish what absolutely must be finished and limit our losses before it acquires another zero in the total price tag. My 2c.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Several of these flaws, like the lack of any means for a pilot to confirm a weapon's target data before firing, and damage to the plane caused by the tailhook on the Air Force's variant, have potentially serious implications for safety and combat effectiveness._

Tail hook? That 2nd one is pretty basic for a Navy carrier aircraft! Just how bad is it?

Reading again and further, it's the Air Force plane, not the Navy plane:

 _Testers have also identified an issue with the arresting hook on the Air Force's F-35A conventional takeoff variant. The F-35A, like other Air Force aircraft, is equipped with a single-use tailhook for emergency-landing situations when the pilot suspects a braking failure. Testing on the F-35A's tailhook began in 2016. Testing engineers found that the arresting hook is causing damage to the aircraft due to "up-swing."_

It's a "just in case" piece of emergency equipment for emergencies. Not nearly as serious. I wonder if this article is a bit of a hit piece?

<comment><USER15> It really reads that way. Stuff like this makes me think it is:

> " F-35 test teams rated this a Category I "High" deficiency, but the Board > downgraded it to Category II "High," without any indication of whether plans > exist to correct it."

So they're both "High" but one group thought it was Category I and the other thought it was Category II? There's never been a disagreement about issue severity in the history of any development project, that's for sure.

<comment><USER16> >There's never been a disagreement about issue severity in the history of any development project, that's for sure.

Right, but take a look at the groups doing the categorization. The team that rated the issue Category I was the actual QA testing team, made up of engineers and aviators. The Board that downgraded it was made up of managers and bureaucrats, the majority of which, according to the article at least, have a vested interest in the process rather than the result. This reads to me as a Dilbert comic.

Engineer: "We tested the product. It has these 111 critical defects, any one of which can destroy the product, or the user. These need to be fixed as soon as possible"

PHB: "Would you call these fixes an upgrade to the current system?"

Engineer: "Yes, in that it would upgrade the product to "not death to look at"

PHB: _Downgrades issue_ "Perfect. So we can fix it after we ship and charge an extra 40% as part of our exclusive upgrades contract"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The only difference between the F-35 program and the Fed's quantitative easing programs is that the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street businesses and households. In all other respects both policies were designed to protect companies deemed too big to fail.

Boeing had the better solution for the next generation fighter, but LM had the greater need and its interests prevailed.

<comment><USER18> The F-35 project is (so far) the ultimate expression of our permanent war economy which has propped up the United States since the end of world war 2. As such it is no less misguided than QE since the object of this type of military spending is to consume excess production.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."

<comment><USER19> Who's the quote from?

<comment><USER3> Dwight D. Eisenhower

<comment><USER20> I believe it's from Eisenhower's "Chance for Peace" speech, one of his two major speeches against military spending. The other major speech was his farewell address, where he discussed the military industrial complex. If anyone's interested, I'd highly suggest watching Why We Fight, a documentary from 2005

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This program is going to end up like the M-16. Even after its flaws are fixed the reputation isn't going to be shaken off. People still see the M-16 as unreliable even as its the most common form factor used by militaries today. Ironically the AK-47 wasn't as reliable in its initial iterations and now its simplicity is its only major advantage today.

Currently a lot of the flaws of the F-35 program have been fixed. Even the cost per fighter is reasonable now, its approaching a sub $100M cost per aircraft. Its a much better plane than its contemporaries, and its costs are in the same category.

Designing an advanced fighter aircraft in the 21st century is hard and expensive. Designing one to do 3 roles and built in the thousands is even harder. But its easier and cheaper than the alternatives. The F-35 is going to end up being a good aircraft and will fulfill what it was designed to do.

<comment><USER22> Sorry, I don't follow miltech stuff very closely. Which of its alternatives have cost more than $1.5 trillion?

<comment><USER21> Each F-35 costs about $100M now. When you want to compare the entire project scope, you should also account for how many planes have been planned to build. Because that $1.5T number includes purchases and lifetime expenses. About 3000 planes and decades of use.

Strictly measuring the R&D places the program at $50B. A price tag that includes making virtually 3 kinds of planes for more than a dozen operators.

So when you say its cost $1.5T, then try to point to alternatives, I'd have to ask, which other alternative planes have had 3000 constructed and then operated over the course of its life in the past 2 decades? What exactly are you trying to compare that $1.5T number to?

Do you want to compare this to the Rafale, of which there are only 150?

To use a metaphor:

I went out and bought 10 bags of apples for $100, but that guy only needed to spend $10 for his bag of oranges.

<comment><USER23> The most current lot was $89M per aircraft.

<comment><USER24> True, but that's only for the F-35A. The other two variants are more expensive per copy due to their lower production numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> F35 isn't so much a fighter jet as it is a political graft and jobs program, and in that light it's a smashing success.

<comment><USER26> Military industrial complex for the win.

In all seriousness, at least they aren't putting more peaceful drug users in prison to make their money.

That's a much bigger problem IMHO than overspending on an obsolete airplane.

<comment><USER27> That money being spent on the obsolete plane could instead be providing evidence based drug treatment, instead of letting people fall victim to the abstinence-based rehab schemes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Are we surprised? This project has been a giant boondoggle for over a decade(!)

<comment><USER29> At least it's not two decades with fake tests, like the Bradley.

<comment><USER3> It lost in an air to air trial to an older aircraft, and they covered it up. Are you sure?

<comment><USER24> That wasn't a trial of air-to-air combat. It was a control law test of the F-35. An F-16 aircraft, which was already being used during the mission as a "chase" aircraft for test execution safety reasons, was also used by the F-35 pilot as a visual reference.

There was no coverup. Rather, the reporter who was sent the document and wrote about it simply didn't have the engineering knowledge to understand what he was reading, nor did he ask anyone experienced with flight testing to review what he had been sent and what he had written.

<comment><USER3> The document was the opinion of the F-35 pilot just to be clear. Here's a direct quote from the pilot:

> The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see > behind the aircraft. There are multiple occasions when the bandit would've > been visible (not blocked by the seat) but the helmet prevented getting in a > position to see him

#

> The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage in a turning fight and > operators would quickly learn that it isn't an ideal regime.

The original documents can be read here:

[https://medium.com/war-is-boring/read-for-yourself- the-f-35-...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/read-for-yourself- the-f-35-s-damning-dogfighting-report-719a4e66f3eb)

Perhaps you're going to claim the pilot themselves aren't qualified to criticize the program either?

PS - This resulted in mechanical changes to the aircraft as well as changes to the headset resulting in millions more in expenditure.

<comment><USER24> I think you are making some of the same mistakes as the author of the piece you linked to. You are not understanding the context of the whole test, nor are you reading all of the pilot's observations.

Look at what the pilot says about pitch rate, and I'll pick out the part that makes all the difference. Brackets and emphasis mine:

"Insufficient pitch rate exacerbated the lack of EM. Energy deficit to the bandit would increase over time. Therefore there were multiple occasions where it would have been tactically sound to accept excessive energy loss in order to achieve a fleeting WEZ. [Weapon Engagement Zone]. _The CLAW [Control Law] prevented such shot opportunities (and hindered defeating shots)_."

In other words, the control laws prevented him from doing what he wanted. But, as he knows, because he's helped develop the aircraft, the control laws are trying to be conservative. Therefore, in his conclusions and recommendations, he says:

"Consider increasing alpha onset." and "Consider increasing pilot yaw rate control authority".

These fixes were put in the CLAW really quickly.

As for your jab about "pilots themselves aren't qualified to criticize the program either", well, look, the reporter didn't do his due diligence. You can criticize anything you like, but when you don't do the work to make your criticisms informed by relevant experience and knowledge, you're just another guy with an opinion and a blog.

<comment><USER3> > But, as he knows, because he's helped develop the aircraft, the control laws > are trying to be conservative.

And are based on the physical construction of the aircraft, which is why they increased the size of the control surfaces after this.

> You can criticize anything you like, but when you don't do the work to make > your criticisms informed by relevant experience and knowledge, you're just > another guy with an opinion and a blog.

According to you nobody that criticizes the F-35 sacred cow does their due diligence. You paint people one of two ways: You either think the F-35 is wonderful and thus are informed, or you don't know anything.

I also love how you keep going back to an article that isn't even relevant in this thread, nobody brought it up, nobody has linked it, and yet you're strawman-ing this mysterious article to death as a defense of the pilot's own criticism's of the F-35 in 2015.

<comment><USER24> The size of the control surfaces was NOT changed after the report that you linked to. Where do you even get this misinformation?

You yourself linked the article that I'm referring to, and you mentioned it originally.

And I am informed on the F-35 and don't think it's wonderful, but I don't think it's a horrible piece of garbage, either.

<comment><USER3> > You yourself linked the article that I'm referring to, and you mentioned it > originally.

I haven't linked to any article like what you're referring to, nor did I reference it. I linked to the pilot's original mission report, I also referenced the same report. You seem to be attacking some editorial, and since you haven't linked it, nobody knows which one.

> And I am informed on the F-35 and don't think it's wonderful, but I don't > think it's a horrible piece of garbage, either.

Nobody was claiming it was a "horrible piece of garbage."

<comment><USER24> [https://medium.com/war-is-boring/read-for-yourself- the-f-35-...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/read-for-yourself- the-f-35-s-damning-dogfighting-report-719a4e66f3eb)

You linked to this yourself.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Which is nothing but the pilot's report un-editorialized. You've been attacking some strawman editorial all throughout this thread that nobody linked or referenced here.

<comment><USER24> I've been replying to you, not attacking some strawman editorial, as you put it.

David Axe, the guy you linked to, has a long history of misunderstanding the F-35, like also, this piece.

[https://medium.com/war-is-boring/test-pilot-admits- the-f-35-...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-can- t-dogfight-cdb9d11a875)

You described that this was "covered up". You would have only gotten that idea if you read the piece I just linked to.

<comment><USER3> Glad you finally linked it, that only took almost ten posts.

But no, I've never read that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The F-35 will be complete when the enemy says it's complete.

</comment><comment><USER31> 90% complete, 90% to go

</comment><comment><USER32> "...Officials in the F-35 Joint Program Office are making paper reclassifications of potentially life-threatening design flaws to make them appear less serious..."

Hey this must be the company where I used to work a while ago. QA finds a 'crash' enter it as 'showstopper' in BUG database. As time goes by PM slowly 'erodes' it to 'Major', then a few months later it's closed as 'will not fix'.

</comment><comment><USER33> The F-35 initiatives for a "one platform for all branches" mirrors the F-4 Phantom and McNamara's push for standardized platform to emphasize on a perceived technologically advantage-guided missiles that made dogfighting rebundant....

We all know that played out in vietnam....

Now they are saying it's okay if the F-35 is beta, nobody can detect our stealth planes!

Like the unshootable Nighthawk stealth bomber in Belgrade that was taken out by a SAM. Of course the f-22 has no equal but I wonder just how much this stealth edge is going to last.

Somewhere someone is sitting on a slush fund to figure out (or have figured out already) how to detect stealth and counter measures.

</comment><comment><USER34> The F-35 has been a huge success for China. We funded everything, made every mistake in the book, and now the PLA can pick and choose the parts they like best and fold into their own, perhaps better working, model.

</comment><comment><USER35> Very scary but also a reminder of the high cost of politics and agreements and strong personailities and "you're damned if you do and damned if you don't"

I was reading earlier about the UK saying they were going to buy 150 of them at $100M a pop. Probably already signed the agreement and then will get the shock of the service pricing and the idea that once you have it, it costs you more to mothball and replace than to keep paying good money after bad.

Shudder.

<comment><USER36> Wouldn't be quite so bad if we weren't in the process of completing two carriers that can only be used with the F-35B as they don't have CATOBAR capabilities - so far that's over $10 billion just on the ships.

<comment><USER37> We don't want CATOBAR, using STOV(R)L aircraft is cheaper in the long run.

<comment><USER23> CATOBAR is far better in the long run. You can take off with more weapons/fuel, and bring back more of both instead of dumping them. The RN made a huge mistake in not putting in catapults and arresting gear.

<comment><USER37> Nope. You need to keep much more fuel in reserve if doing arrested landings compared to vertical ones. You probably also need airborne refuelling provided from the carrier.

Another extra cost comes from needing to keep practicing landings, plus trainers like the T-50 to learn how to do them. There is more chance of losing an aircraft in a landing accident too. Not needing to keep practicing landings means that the mix of F-35s and helicopters can be changed at short notice.

<comment><USER36> Actually, my main concern is the risk created by coupling one very and expensive project (the carriers) to the design of a particular model of new aircraft.

At least with CATOBAR there is the option of falling back to other designs.

<comment><USER23> Correct. Harriers are out of service for the RN/RAF, and good they should be. The French were prudent in using CATOBAR with their carriers. They get the advantage of Rafale, F-18, E2, etc etc. Plus they wisely chose nuclear power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The article left out the part about the lightning rods : [https://www.businessinsider.com/marines-order-lightning- rods...](https://www.businessinsider.com/marines-order-lightning-rods-to-keep- their-f-35s-from-getting-fried-2018-8)

</comment><comment><USER39> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Defense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Defense)

</comment><comment><USER40> Oh... they're just _now_ cutting corners? I think the problem may have been they added too many stupid corners to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER41> Maybe it is time to declare victory and move on. Except, they have no apparent plans to move on to something more sensible.

</comment><comment> village-idiot What's the worst that can happen?

<comment><USER42> War breaks out.

Divide by zero error.

Air supremacy handed to enemy.

<comment><USER43> Arthur C. Clarke's short story "Superiority" depicts what can happen in an arms race if one side never stops racing to introduce new technology:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_\(short_story\))

[http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html](http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html)

<comment><USER44> Never get tired of re-reading that short story.

The story also re-stipulates the quote very likely misattributed to Stalin, but likely is from Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.:

      Quantity has a quality all its own.

While provenance of the quote is tricky [1] [2], it is generally accepted the US leans towards the "quality" side of the spectrum. This shouldn't be an issue with the purported ideals of the US, unless the US finds itself precipitating a hot war by the MIC and neo-conservative foreign policy establishments with a numerically superior foe.

I'm personally for a "tick-tock" release schedule into a Swiss defensive posture: ratchet up quality in one period, then in the next period distribute the quality gains into a massive materiel and training dispersal program focused on defense of the nation's land itself.

[1] [https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Stalin&old...](https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Stalin&oldid=1993027#Misattributed)

[2] [https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all- it...](https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-its-own)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ex-pralite-monk There are problems and complaints with every weapon system: the P-51 Mustang was designed for high-altitude bomber escort but the original engine couldn't produce power > 15k feet. Oops. The British put a Rolls Royce engine in it and it was gold.

</comment><comment><USER45> gotta get that sprint burnt down

</comment><comment><USER46> My favorite F35 hack: just buy whatever the latest out of Sukhoi is. It will be cheaper and work better, and we can afford more of them than the Russians can.

Hey, we do it for everything else!

<comment><USER15> Perfect plan, if you want a good plane for target practice for the F-22 and F-35. Or if you need to test your radar systems against something and you can't find a Piper Cub.

[https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/stealth- aircra...](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/stealth-aircraft- rcs.htm)

<comment><USER46> Has the US ever managed to shoot down even an old Su-27? Guessing the answer is no. F22 might do it. F35, only in a beyond visual situation. Remember in Vietnam when the doctrine was that missiles were so good all combat would happen BVR? Yeah, it's not gonna happen now either.

<comment><USER15> Are you serious right now? An F-22 "might" take out an Su-27? And the F-35 just simply wouldn't?

This isn't 1968. That was 50 years ago. Things have changed ever so slightly. Your knowledge of things seems to extend little past lines in Top Gun.

<comment><USER46> I've written extensively on the topic, under my real name even. Pierre Sprey, one of the fighter mafia guys who came up with our Gen-4 fighters agrees with me. Who are you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> At the end of the day, they are going to put all the fancy gizmos on the more capable platform - the F-22, while keeping its more powerful radar. There is going to be an F-22E that will be able to deliver more ordinance than the F-35. There is going is going to be an F-22x which will get the F-35s IRST so that it can get around without emitting. Or maybe this will be a pod to avoid compromising stealth. Oh, and the A-10 isn't going anywhere.

<comment><USER48> Do you have a source on the F-22 variants? I thought that one of the things that locked us into the F-35 was the tear down of the F-22 production line. Can we still make F-22's?

<comment><USER24> We cannot make an F-22 right now. A few years ago, Lockheed Martin was asked how much they thought it would cost to restart F-22 production. The cost was several billion dollars. Plus, the people with the intimate knowledge of how to build an F-22 are dispersed throughout the rest of the industry, retired, or deceased.</comment></comment></comment>