How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind - <AUTHOR> https://www.sbnation.com/platform/amp/2018/7/31/17634370/lebron-james-school-akron-i-promise-different <comment><USER2> I am excited about this approach and I think LeBron's organization has put a lot of though and work with experts on this project.

\- This school is a true public school and not a charter school. In Ohio a lot of charter schools can have some degree of selection in their students and kick out families which don't meet the requirements which leads to more at- risk students left to the public schools. This school is making a point of taking at-risk students.

\- Longer school days, 3 meals, and a longer school year helps students stay focused. Unfortunately the home environment for a lot of kids makes it so hard for these kids to be able to focus at school. In my wife's elementary school classes some kids show up with just a hamburger bun for breakfast. Others fall asleep immediately at school since they live with 5+ siblings and there are literally no available beds at home. I am not trying to blame the parents in all the cases either, a lot of the time there are single parents just trying to get by and make ends meet and don't know what more they can do.

\- Focussing on the teachers will also help. Teachers and unions have been vilified by Governor Kasich but they are not the main problem at all (it is the tragic home environments) with ridiculous review systems and standards, but then there is little support in challenging districts like in Akron/Cleveland. It is a lot easier to work in the suburbs where the kids would progress and learn even without teachers, so that is where everyone wants to go since a good rating is automatic. I think this problem occurs in just about every field where metrics dominate the review system (medicine, call centers, QA, etc). The turnover for teachers at local charter schools is terrible and only seems to attract early-career teachers who couldn't get a job at a public school.

\- This doesn't seem to be a short term flashy project but has been years in the making. None of the features here are gimmicky, but just like many things in life it takes a lot of hard work!

\- Adding the goal of college education shows a path forward which a lot of students don't think is possible.

I am super excited to be from Akron and I hope this model proves successful!

<comment><USER3> > Longer school days, 3 meals, and a longer school year helps students stay > focused.

The middle one is absolutely true, the other two I _really_ doubt e.g. in Finland or Germany, schoolday starts around 9AM and ends around 2PM, yielding 3h30 to 4h studies a day accounting for breaks, 5 days/week, with little homework (maybe 5h/week total). Afternoon is usually dedicated to clubs.

<comment><USER4> You absolutely cannot compare Northern Europe with inner-city black America. Different worlds, different values, different histories, different attitudes, different challenges. No model fits all, especially in education, but these two realities are so dramatically different that they don't really belong in the same sentence.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Using Finland as an example is absurd. Finland has a very wealthy, very homogeneous population. Longer school days are designed, in this case, to keep many of these kids in a safe environment for as long as possible.

<comment><USER6> ==Using Finland as an example is absurd. Finland has a very wealthy, very homogeneous population.==

Finland is 21% less wealthy than America on a per capita basis.

Finland GDP per capita - $35,964.77

US GDP per capita - $45,759.46

-[http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Finland/Uni...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Finland/United-States/Economy)

<comment><USER7> Finland has a drastically lower poverty rate, lower income inequality [1] and lower violent crime rate than the United States [2].

This fact, combined with Finland's well-known social safety nets leads to the obvious conclusion that you would be hard pressed to find living conditions like those in the slums of Akron/Cleveland in Finland.

[1][https://data.oecd.org/finland.htm#profile- government](https://data.oecd.org/finland.htm#profile-government) [2][http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/compare/Finland/Uni...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/compare/Finland/United-States/Crime)

<comment><USER6> ==This fact, combined with Finland's well-known social safety nets leads to the obvious conclusion that you would be hard pressed to find living conditions like those in the slums of Akron/Cleveland in Finland.==

Isn't it possible that Finland's well-known social safety net is at least partially responsible for the lower poverty, income inequality and violent crime rates?

<comment><USER4> It's absolutely the case, no question; but the problem here is that a school model that works in that scenario is unlikely to work in the current American scenario. It's like writing programs for high-level APIs (that will take care of memory, sorting and so on) versus writing programs against the POSIX interface (where you have to basically do everything yourself).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From what I read it seems he's focusing on the pain points or barriers to learning from the perspective of the underprivileged from whence LeBron came. If you have someone that lived this giving him deep insight to the real issues AND he's a good person AND he has power to change, that is a fabulous formula for success. I hope this works out. Too many times you have people meaning well that have not actually experienced the life of the subjects being helped and you end up with wrong-fit solutions. We can all understand this as coders when we build something thinking this is how users will use it and then find out no, that's not the case.

<comment><USER9> I'm not convinced this 'diversity of thought' (aka direct domain expertise) is actually as useful as people love to claim these days. It's an extremely popular narrative that gets pushed with very little questioning or measuring of its utility.

a) is it really accurate that a smart person can't legitimately learn and be sensitive to life experiences from others or b) why can't they hire people to advise them while still managing the project themselves?

This sounds like a solvable problem by promoting being sympathetic and deferential, rather than replacing people outright from the process simply because they aren't 'from' that group. It's just as likely the people with the life experience don't have the other skills for managing or running a project as well.

Everyone is acting like this project is already a success when it has just launched...Id wait a couple years before calling LeBron a hero.

<comment><USER10> > a) is it really accurate that a smart person can't legitimately learn and be > sensitive to life experiences from others

There's are a lot of subtleties that lived experience can reveal. Even the smartest person might miss some knock-on effect, etc.

> b) why can't they hire people to advise them while still managing the > project themselves?

So, you're saying... diversity of thought might be useful?

<comment><USER9> Yes useful in advisory role, ie interviewing subjects throughout the process, particularly getting their feedback/input during research, product development, and design would be extremely valuable. Which is quite distinct from this idea that entrepreneurs, leaders, and employees internal must be 'diverse' themselves in odder for projects to succeed.

What should matter first is the team members skill/talent relevant to the project. While also hiring sympathic people who go out in the field to get feedback and interview subjects to determine the problems needing solving,+gýg environment factors, attitudes, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This "normal public school" line is bizarre to me. Yes, it's a part of the school district. But it accepts specific students and has its own expanded curriculum.

It's a magnet school.

<comment><USER12> Yes but it's a magnet of underprivileged and at risk students. Not your typical magnet. Props to LeBron for starting the school.

<comment><USER11> No doubt! I definitely don't mean to denigrate the project at all, it's an incredibly philanthropic move by LeBron and he deserves every ounce of the praise he's been getting.

I just see a lot of people using the "public school" line as a cudgel to bash charter schools, but charter schools are _exactly_ the mechanism to accomplish something like this for people who aren't revered/rich enough to exercise the kind of influence over their hometown that LeBron did to get them to agree to incorporate novel facilities and practices directly into their district.

<comment><USER13> What prevents non-charter/magnet schools from doing such things?

<comment><USER11> Regular public schools are limited to the curriculum prescribed by their school boards and generally can't deviate or experiment much. They're also, by definition, limited to students in a specific geographical area rather than any selection criteria. As others have noted, this goes both ways - charter/magnet schools can choose to serve the highest aptitude students (as most do), but they can also choose to serve at-risk or academically challenged students as this one does.

<comment><USER13> So why can't school boards prescribe such things? The geo limit doesn't matter much/at all.

<comment><USER11> No explicit reason, they just generally don't. When you're beholden to voters or a city council, your job is least threatened when you don't rock the boat. If you _do_ rock it, you better make sure you're right or it's not likely to end well for you. Meanwhile, your 'subjects' are unwitting participants who thought they'd be getting a normal education, not early adopters explicitly willing to try something new. All of these factors discourage experimentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> wow, the linked related article about NYC school segregation was depressing: [https://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/10980856/new-york-city- schools...](https://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/10980856/new-york-city-schools- segregation) especially the part about charters having two times during the year when low-performing students are forced out into the public school: one in October after per-student funding is allocated to the school, allowing them to grab the funding while pushing a now-unfunded student onto the public school, and again in Spring right before standardized testing, when they can weed out the ones who did poorly on prep tests. Seems like the city/state should step in and disallow this practice.

<comment><USER15> the lie perpetuated through the decades that segregation was a Southern thing may never really truly come to light as people really are shy on learning things they don't want to believe. the laws to stop it were written to block any attempts to desegregate Northern schools, or more to the point NYC

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-school- desegre...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-school- desegregation_us_56fc7cebe4b0a06d5804bdf0)

[https://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/10980856/new-york-city- schools...](https://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/10980856/new-york-city-schools- segregation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's nice to wake up and read a story about someone making a difference. Here is to a good day.

</comment><comment><USER17> In related news, RAND just finished its study of the Gates Foundation's "Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative".

RAND found that "With minor exceptions, by 2014–2015, student achievement, access to effective teaching, and dropout rates were not dramatically better than they were for similar sites that did not participate".

It's refreshing to see a holistic approach to helping at-risk students, instead of assuming that teachers are the most important component. Good nutrition, safe transport to school, and support for parents all seem like ideas that should be more experimented with.

[https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2242.html](https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2242.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> It's great to see superstars like LeBron doing something like this. Say what you want about him as a player but you cant knock him as a philanthropist.

<comment><USER19> I'm not a fan boy or anything but he's a rather remarkable person. To take advantage of the biological attributes he was given and work insanely hard to maximize them from a young age. All while not being distracted by all the other things that could lead to squandering his natural talents. And then not relying just on those but enhancing them through dedication and discipline.

Then you throw in all the pressure he had as a youth to be the next big thing and then going to the NBA and succeeding immediately in terms of personal ability.

Yes, he had that PR blunder when he left Cleveland but he had good reason to - he just took bad advice and went about it wrong. But he proved his point and then came back home and helped win a championship for his hometown team.

All this while remaining super charismatic, not falling into bad habits or getting involved in scandals. Being a good father and marrying his high school sweetheart whom he has 3 children with.

Doing things for the community that aren't vapid or short term PR grabs. But really trying to make a difference.

All the while coming from a very disadvantaged place economically and without his father around.

He's by all accounts a savvy and smart businessman and hasn't blown it like so many people with rags to riches stories. He has kept his good friends around and integrated them into his businesses in ways that make sense. He appears to show true loyalty to those that were with him before he became what he is today.

He's well spoken and thoughtful on top of it all.

I don't follow his sport much but he is a person who appears to just be exceptional in many ways. He just seems so genuine and without the veneer that other stars really suffer from. Granted he has a massive PR team and marketing team but it would have been so easy to have a slip-up. It would have been easy to make bad business decisions and it would have been easy to find new "friends" and women and all the other things that are short term. But he has a goal larger than being an NBA star and he's stuck with it.

<comment><USER20> And he's hilarious! I thought he stole the show in "Trainwreck".

<comment><USER21> Not sure why you're being downvoted; he actually did do a pretty good job in that movie

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Compare from the article: "I Promise will feature longer school days, a non- traditional school year, and greater access to the school, its facilities, and its teachers during down time for students. That's a formula aimed at replicating some of the at-home support children may be missing when it comes to schoolwork."

With John Taylor Gatto (NYS Teacher of the year and also schooling critic) [https://www.johntaylorgatto.com/uncategorized/two-social- rev...](https://www.johntaylorgatto.com/uncategorized/two-social-revolutions- become-one-undergroudhistory/) "Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there."

<comment><USER23> I've never heard of John Taylor Gatto before, but I just read the article you link, and it's a brutal takedown of public schools. One that I connect with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Elizabeth Warren pointed out that the US housing crisis was partly caused by inflated house prices in good public school districts. Middle income families were paying the education of their children in high property price.

Maybe LeBron should invest into the property around the school to reap some of the benefits and use them to finance the school. Holistic property development.

<comment><USER25> Warren is not a great thinker on Economics issues.

Good or bad school districts only change the relative prices. It doesn't alter the total amount of housing per population.

In other words, anyone moving to a house in a good school district leaves an empty house in a worse one.

<comment><USER24> Warren is academic expert bankruptcy and commercial law. She is third most cited academic in her specialty. She is pretty good at economics especially when it comes to consumer behavior and one of the best politicians overall.

"The Vanishing Middle Class" (2007) is a good book.

<comment><USER5> She is also a consummate politician, who has been known to say misleading and inflammatory things for political gain. She has also been busy steaming leftwards, a move that may endear her to young hyper-liberal voters, but does very little to help my country move past the political chasm that has opened up, and is crippling our government.

I don't think that she is a bad person, but I do believe that she is bad for American politics right now.

<comment><USER26> Not to get too off topic, but I have a hard time blaming the left for the current political divide in the United States. Saying that someone who pushes leftwards is bad for American politics because they're not closer to the "center" seems like promoting a false equivalence.

<comment><USER5> I agree, and I don't blame the left as much as I blame the right. I do however think that exacerbating the divide is a bad thing.

<comment><USER27> But anything but going closer to the Right is "exacerbating the divide."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wish Jeff Bezos can get his head out of his rocket and do something like this with his 100s of billions.

<comment><USER29> A friend of mine was ranting about how evil Bezos and Musk are. I generally don't see those two as the worst of the worst, so I spent some time listening to her thoughts.

Her basic assertion was that the simple accumulation of that much wealth is itself evil. They could do many things like build schools and since they choose not to they are evil.

I mentioned to her that they can't sell their stock without ceding control, so it might make sense to wait to spend the money. But mostly I was just interested in absorbing her point.

There was also a secondary claim about an imperative to use one's social media platform to correct abuses. But I believe that was a secondary point.

Anyway, I've just been tossing that over in my head. Does it say something about someone's heart if they aren't building schools and hospitals the moment they obtain enough wealth to do so comfortably?

<comment><USER30> The profit comes from the labour of people who work for you. Any profit you make is the difference between what their true labour is worth and what you pay them. So unless the owners are adding billions in value by themselves they are paying people less than the true value of their work.

The extent at which this happens is where some ethical issues lie. If you keep wages low while making large profit there is a point of view that you are ripping off your workers and this can be seen as unethical.

Cooperatives are designed to address this by making all workers joint owners. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative)

There is also the argument that large corporations that legally avoid paying tax and lobby to keep the loopholes open are making money by utilising public resources and not paying for them. These public resources support their workers and help the company to succeed. Bezos for example is particularly successful at avoiding tax and lobbying to keep it that way. Despite it being legal it could be considered ethically dubious as he is not contributing back to a system that helped him succeed.

<comment><USER31> Value creation is not a zero-sum game. A cooperative selling the same products and services as, say, Amazon might not make the same profit. Coherent vision and leadership can contribute a lot to the value creation process.

<comment><USER30> > Value creation is not a zero-sum game.

Who said it was?

> A cooperative selling the same products and services as, say, Amazon might > not make the same profit.

It might make more. It might make less because it's paying it's workers more fairly.

> Coherent vision and leadership can contribute a lot to the value creation > process.

Yes, this is also labour and should receive a fair value. Everyone in the company is a worker but "unless the owners are adding billions in value by themselves they are paying people less than the true value of their work".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The most interesting thing to me is that it is eschewing being a charter or private school and apparently expects to be able to work within the confines of the local school district and teachers' union.

I've never really understood why this is usually considered difficult or impossible for such a project.

Also, with 25-30 kids per class, $10k works to $250k-300k per year which seems sufficient for a teacher, aide, facilities and support.

<comment><USER32> I too was thinking along these lines but I think these are inflated numbers.

Average class room size is 21.6 for elementary schools that are self-contained (26 for departmentalized). [https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass1112_2013314_t1s...](https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass1112_2013314_t1s_007.asp) I think the desire is for 20 or less. When you're dealing with children, a lot of teachers are required.

So let's say LeBron is going for 20:1. Then it's now $200k per class. Let's say half of that goes to the teacher due to competitive pay and payroll tax + healthcare + benefits. You're looking at $5k/student for 3 healthy meals a day, facilities, and everything else.

Doesn't seem like very much anymore. You could dock teacher pay more but it won't probably be enough to outweigh the cons.

One could also try to up the ratio of students:teachers but then you're just going to give the kids a worse education and the teachers a much worse teaching environment. I think having a small classroom size is pretty important for kids who are struggling as they need more attention. And this school is literally for struggling kids - so there's gonna be a lot of competition for attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Off-topic, but can a mod please change the link to the non-AMP version[0]?

[0]: [https://www.sbnation.com/2018/7/31/17634370/lebron-james- sch...](https://www.sbnation.com/2018/7/31/17634370/lebron-james-school-akron- i-promise-different)

</comment><comment><USER34> This is such a cool story. I hope it works out for everyone involved.

</comment><comment><USER35> Just yesterday I was doing some research on the state of education in my home state of California, starting with a transcript of a 2003 Morrow Report TV program titled "From first to worst." The rough gist is that California for many years was mandated to allocate approximately equal (and generally inadequate!) funding between districts to correct inequalities of opportunity between school districts. Originally, this was done by adjusting how much the state kicked in above the local district funding; after Prop 13 it became mostly a question of state allocation, since districts could no longer effectively raise their own funds.

Foundations arose as a way for parents to ensure proper funding in districts that were lucky enough to have the donors. So, thank goodness that some districts haven't fallen through the floor, but we're back in the unequal situation we were in before.

Since that 2003 report, charter schools and an update to the funding policy called the "Local Control Funding Formula" have tried to address some of the shortcomings of the equal-across-the-board policy (namely, woefully inadequate funding for districts with greater low-income and english-learning challenges), but our state still funds in the low middle of the pack or at the dirt bottom of state spending per pupil, depending on whether you take cost of living into account.

LBJ's foundation would seem to have arisen along similar lines: like CA, the state is not doing nearly enough to support its public schools, so private citizens have to try to fill the gap through philanthropy. This is great for the children of Akron, but the limitations are clear: it's one school in one corner of the state! I hope this is a shot across the bow that convinces people that raising taxes to fund education properly is not the end-all boondoggle that so many people seem to think it is. A superstar per school doesn't sound scalable to me.

</comment><comment><USER36> 'Public' meaning run by the local government, if that confused anyone else like me who comes from a place where it means the opposite.

<comment><USER37> [[ In the British system the thing that makes a Public School different isn't whether it's run by the state (those are State Schools) but the fact that it's open _to_ the public. Historically some schools were exclusively for (children of) members of an organisation, for example a school might be for Roman Catholics, or members of the livery company of goldsmiths, or businessmen of a certain city. The Public Schools didn't care who you were, or where you came from, only that your money was good. ]]

<comment><USER36> The British term makes so much more sense to me.

British public schools are run by members of the public for any members of the public (who can pay and pass the exam).

American public schools are run by local government only for people the local government wants to admit (based on where you live etc).

<comment><USER38> > American public schools are run by local government only for people the > local government wants to admit

Eh? Everyone is admitted to public schools in America. You often don't get the choose the specific school, but everyone has the right to a place in a school.

<comment><USER39> Not being able to choose the specific school is a huge deal though.

In the same school system, some of the schools are out-of-this-world, while others are zoos.

If I had the choice between sending my kids to some of the schools I went to growing up, or letting them stay home and watch cartoons all day, I'd choose the latter. At least they're not going to get shivved watching Adventure Time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm wondering if this school will be sustainable in the long term. Given the correlation between low-income neighborhoods and poor school performance, how is I Promise going to be supported by taxpayers? Many school districts scrounge for basic supplies; how long will they be able to keep this free bike program going?

<comment><USER41> They could make it self-sustaining by adding some business model to support it. As others have said, maybe buy up and renovate/rent out homes near by driving up property costs (and taxes), or 'encouraging' college alums down the road to give back from their success.

Maybe the model itself proves something on a national level, and the government decides this is the 'future' and earmarks more money for schools like this...

Or maybe they just get more donations from wealthy people who want to help. Either way, I'm sure there are ways to offset the costs and keep it going long-term.

<comment><USER42> > As others have said, maybe buy up and renovate/rent out homes near by > driving up property costs (and taxes), or 'encouraging' college alums down > the road to give back from their success.

Thus defeating the entire purpose of this school. Gentrifying will result in the school being surrounded by housing that the students parents can't afford.

<comment><USER41> That's why I said buy up, fix up, and rent out (at the same rent as before, but beautifying the neighborhood more) thus raising property value.

<comment><USER43> If the property value goes up the rent will go up, because nobody will be willing to invest in capital construction or home management unless they can make their money back.

<comment><USER41> Why not create community 'owned' housing, similar to a worker co-op, where poorer communities collectively 'own' the location. Everyone pays area-rental fees, but each month rented = 1 share ownership. Once the mortgage is paid off, the rent goes towards buying more rental properties and rinsing/repeating. A % of all rents is divided out by shares to each renter or ex-renter. A % could also go to LeBron's public school as a donation.

Obviously the longer you stay at a place and the smaller the place the more shares you'd have in the place. Shares could also = voting rights on properties/etc... More votes = louder voice.

Think of it as privatized (not government-ran) socialism in the real estate market.

<comment><USER43> If the property values go up, other people will buy the houses surrounding the collective, forcing the collective to pay more for housing and thereby raising the rents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The most interesting and promising part of this school is the support for parents:

> Parents can use the institution's job and family services, study through its > GED program, or design meals at the on-site food bank to cook at home.

This solution seems way more holistic. It might totally fall on its face, but I'm really interested to see how it turns out.

</comment><comment><USER45> I hope this spurs some competition between super rich athletes to build better schools.

</comment><comment><USER46> It is SOOOO nice to see people with money actually putting good ideas into practice rather than using their money as a platform to spread opinions that mean nothing or to criticise people who try things instead of doing it themselves.

</comment><comment><USER47> I dislike some of what LeBron James has done, but he gets my utmost respect for this.

If more celebreties put their money to work like James has done, the world would be a much better place. Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER48> It would be awesome to also have services available to the parents of the kids: relationship/job/parenting counseling/classes/etc...

</comment><comment><USER49> This reminds me of the documentary "Waiting for Superman". It's kind of poetic that LeBron James is making this effort.

</comment><comment><USER50> What do they mean by "Accelerated Learning"?

</comment><comment><USER51> Greatest basketballer of all time, better human.

</comment><comment><USER52> First: longer days worries me if they aren't starting later. American schools start WAY TOO EARLY and probably make children chronically tired because of this. See [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/back-to- schoo...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/back-to- school/canadian-high-schools-resisting-calls-for-later-class-start- times/article36016933/)

Second: Even if this school has good results, it seems unlikely that it will scale well, because it's relying on more money (from outside donors, etc.). You can't throw more money at a problem, then declare you've come up with a general solution.

From Larry Summers talking with Tyler Cowen:

COWEN: And this is K–12.

SUMMERS: Yeah. That's likely to be the most effective thing that you can do, but that you need to be very careful not to succeed by cannibalization. Many, too many, philanthropists interested in education decide they're going to set up a charter school. Only their charter school is only going to admit highly motivated kids with highly motivated parents.

Their charter school's going to pay 20 percent more than the regular schools and cherry-pick the best teachers out of the regular schools. Then they're going to be really thrilled about how they have better achievement than the regular public schools when it's clear from the nature of their model, selecting the kids and cherry-picking the teachers, that it is supremely nonreplicable.

I would say impose a replicability constraint on yourself and innovate in the area of education. My general view has been that a lot of the way successful innovation happens is alongside big systems.

(Link: [https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/tyler-cowen- larr...](https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/tyler-cowen-larry- summers-blog-secular-stagnation-twitter-421a69ed84c8))

<comment><USER53> This feeds into the 'if everybody can't succeed, then put up roadblocks to _anybody_ succeeding'.

Sometimes charter schools are there to do exactly what's been described there: create at least one good school. Because the public system is largely underfunded/broken. To defy this impulse because it isn't replicable, is to deny the part the govt plays in creating the broken public schools.

<comment><USER54> > Sometimes charter schools are there to do exactly what's been described > there: create at least one good school.

Mostly, charter schools select for the best students by, _even if no other filters apply_ , selecting the students whose parents are engaged enough to select a non-default school.

There are mounds of evidence that "good schools" in the US—whether traditional private, traditional public, public-subsidized private charter, or public charter—are a product of getting the right student population rather than substantive differences between schools.

> Because the public system is largely underfunded/broken.

That's really not the problem.

The problem is that American _society_ is largely broken, and we expect the public schools to perform as if it weren't (or to magically make up for it.)

OTOH, the schools are an easy scapegoat and distraction, and because the problem isn't fundamentally there, there is no risk that changes there will ever relieve the outcome problems enough for it to stop being a useful distraction.

<comment><USER55> > There are mounds of evidence that "good schools" in the US—whether > traditional private, traditional public, public-subsidized private charter, > or public charter—are a product of getting the right student population > rather than substantive differences between schools.

I think a lot of this comes down to the metrics used for gauging good schools. Which are usually test scores, graduation rates, and discipline rates.

Assuming that the test scores measure something worthwile, test scores is always reported as a point in time measurement -- but really a progression would be more informative. What I really want to know is will my kid go up or down or stay the same in test scores if they attend school X, it's not super important what the average score is ; especially since the progression may vary significantly based on the input score.

Graduation rates could be low because of many factors outside of school, or could be high because the standards are low, and are often reported only at the high school level but kids who don't graduate high school were often not well prepared at other levels, etc.

Discipline rates can be meaningful, but if one school doesn't expel anybody because all the children are angels, and one school doesn't expel anybody because they haven't noticed the large numbers of murders during recess, the numbers look the same.

<comment><USER56> > Discipline rates can be meaningful, but if one school doesn't expel anybody > because all the children are angels, and one school doesn't expel anybody > because they haven't noticed the large numbers of murders during recess, the > numbers look the same.

I think any town not named Sunnydale would notice the dwindling class sizes in the latter case.

<comment><USER54> > I think any town not named Sunnydale would notice the dwindling class sizes > in the latter case.

Sunnydale noticed it, too.

<comment><USER56> Well, they noticed dwindling class sizes. If their discipline problems included murders during recess, that would likely be lost in the noise from vampires and other supernatural hazards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Am I going crazy, or is every comment hidden in here?

</comment><comment><USER58> That's amazing work Lebron did, he didn't shut up and dribble.

</comment><comment><USER59> From a linked article > I Promise kids' school days will start an hour later than their peers.

fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER60> Open question that wasnt really discussed in the article-

Why are charter schools demonized?

My local area HATES them, and I'm not sure if its politics or worthwhile.

EDIT: Why did I get 5 downvotes?

<comment><USER61> I worked for 2 years as an AmeriCorps volunteer in Atlanta Public Schools. I'll preface this by saying I don't know if I believe charter schools are bad or good, but here are some arguments against them:

\- Charter schools take money away from neighborhood public schools. Most schools are funded per-capita, so fewer students means less money. But many costs are fixed/discrete (e.g. school nurse costs N thousand dollars).

\- Charter schools have inflated performance metrics. Often charter schools don't serve special needs students. More than that, charter schools bias towards engaged and interested parents. Because of policies like No Child Left Behind, it is really bad for local neighborhood schools to have all of their high performing students leave for charter schools.

\- Corporatization is evil. Charter schools often run more like a business than a socialized institution. Some even pay kids for good grades. Often, the success of a charter school depends on marketing, and successful marketing depends on performing well on metrics. Charter schools are then incentivized to "teach to the test" and potentially force out students who don't perform well. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

<comment><USER62> > Charter schools have inflated performance metrics. Often charter schools > don't serve special needs students. More than that, charter schools bias > towards engaged and interested parents. Because of policies like No Child > Left Behind, it is really bad for local neighborhood schools to have all of > their high performing students leave for charter schools.

Thats an interesting way of saying that charter schools get better results.

<comment><USER63> It doesn't say that at all.

"better results" should mean given a similar set of students. If you cherry- pick the inputs don't expect comparing outputs to be the same.

<comment><USER53> Given the set of high-ability students, it does seem that charter schools have better results.

There's an attitude that everybody should do poorly together, and that's better than anybody succeeding. Like a bucket of crabs, each clawing at the others trying to get out and pulling them back in that keeps the poor, doing poorly. And well-meaning ivory-tower types fuel the culture with idealistic 'fairness' arguments.

<comment><USER64> The data does not back this up.

Charter schools like elite colleges gain 90% of their reputation from rejecting average or below students. There is variation among school quality adjusting for incoming students, however that exists for both normal and charter schools with many charter schools preforming worse than expected and many public schools preforming far above expectations.

However, if you want to support the value of some institution or approach it's really easy to ignore this fact and create biased research.

<comment><USER53> Citation? Its not about reputation (irrelevant) but accomplishment. And in the OP case, we're talking about one school helping one demographic. I wish this new school all the best luck in helping these kids.

<comment><USER64> _the predominance of such studies in the United States does not show positive impacts on average for the charter school sector._ [https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of- vo...](https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of-vouchers/)

 _Recent research on statewide voucher programs in Louisiana and Indiana has found that public school students that received vouchers to attend private schools subsequently scored lower on reading and math tests compared to similar students that remained in public schools._ [https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of- vo...](https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of-vouchers/)

Or do you want the actual research papers?

<comment><USER53> And are charter schools about reading and math? Cherry picking results is easy to show whatever you like.

Charter schools are about - whatever each is constituted to be about. Like you can't go to a hardware store and grab a random tool and rate it on how well it drills holes. You shouldn't rate charter schools on your favorite metric. Some are about upper-class folk raising their kids with better music and art appreciation. Others are about escaping backward school boards. Sometimes they are in areas so backward, that the charter school _still_ underperforms the national average. But if its an improvement for that area, its an improvement.

<comment><USER64> That's not 'better results' that's different results.

It's perfectly reasonable to look at the magnet school model as a good thing. However, you now have to defend the associated sacrifices.

I personally feel K-12 is to early to specialize so improvements at the cost of general achievement is a poor use of taxpayer funds.

<comment><USER37> The "sacrifices" involved in any decision here are actual children too.

For example for me specialization couldn't come too early. Specializing even at age 12 would have been fine. Everything else could have fallen by the wayside, I only was interested in and good at exactly one thing and only at University did I finally meet anybody who actually challenged me, only there did I find specialisations within the specialisation that were all attractive. In some ways the last 3-4 years of school were just waiting.

For plenty of other kids they got all the way to an undergraduate degree in some general subject area they didn't care about, still with no clear idea what they were about, no real direction, forcing them to specialize earlier would have hurt them severely by cutting off options.

Without fairly intensive Chemistry (and preferably some Biology) by age sixteen, you are not going to become a good medical doctor. Without putting many hours a week into mathematics (not just enough to grasp a vaguely analytical subject like engineering, serious fundamental mathematics) by age eighteen you are never going to become a serious mathematician. And sucks to be you if, aged twenty-five, you at last find out you are a natural with a basketball, or at soccer, or dozens of other sports which require peak physical performance that's unattainable in middle age.

All our options here suck, somewhere a kid will be betrayed by whatever happens, if they're able to specialise, some of them will pick wrong and regret it. No fault to them, just bad luck. If they can't specialise the mandatory general achievement will prevent some of the most talented in specific fields from ever achieving what was possible.

I have no recommendation here, just commiserations.

<comment><USER64> There are plenty of short term advantages to specialization. But, diminishing returns generally apply and the standard public school curriculum is a relatively low bar. So, IMO we should generally stick with them, but after that the sky's the limit.

That said, you have a good point that some fields really do require a lot of early work. I just think they should be added as supplement not simply replacing the foundations of a good education.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Terrible writing alert:

"Per the state of Ohio, Akron's schools were given just $10,028 in state and local funds per student in 2016 — more than the statewide average, but still a relatively low figure for a city of a little under 200,000."

Relative to what? You've already told us it was higher than the state average. To call it relatively lower means that there are some who receive more, but we're in the dark as to who they are.

<comment><USER66> Well, I don't think it's terrible, it says so there: relative to other cities of 200.000 inhabitants (probably in other states).

According to Google, it's below the U.S. average, and N.Y. cities spend 20.000 or more per student (up to 60.000 in one case).

[https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66)

[https://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/09/28/cities- spend...](https://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/09/28/cities-spending-the- most-and-least-per-pupil/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> The #1 factor for improving schools would be public school choice. Competition makes the participants in any system better. The schools need to use a lottery for acceptance of students.

We can drop all the regulation around testing results and simply let people choose which public school they go to. Some schools will be great and have a lot of demand. Some schools will be crap and will have little demand and they should get a reset.

The big challenge will be getting kids to the schools, but this can be done in conjunction with public transit using rideshare type shuttles to create custom routes

The next biggest factor is demand from students themselves. Making education exciting like sports could work. Create academic contests that can be televised, have small prizes at the school level (thousands of dollars), tens of thousands at the regional level, and millions at the state or national level.

Televise the competitions and have a variety like debates, math, science, etc.

<comment><USER68> In High School, I went to a magnet school where you had to be in the top 5% of your middle school class to be accepted. We took in students from something like 10 school districts. Freshman year was insane because the quality of student was all over the place. There were segments of students who couldn't read.

There are absolutely socioeconomic factors that played into this, and "letting bad schools fail" is only going to hurt the students that are already hurting.

I struggle a lot when it comes to education because "teaching to a test" is the bane of teachers everywhere, but if we don't set a standard, how will we measure success?

<comment><USER69> Test culture promotes lack of growth mindset as students tend to associate their capabilities with their scores from an early age. The earlier we start stratifying students by test scores the more we are likely to develop adults who believe in fixed ability and who don't want to challenge themselves. This is exacerbated when you start separating students into physically different schools based on test scores.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Got 'shadow downranked' on Hacker News - <AUTHOR> When commenting on HN, the comments usually sticks at the top postion for around ten minutes in order to get some visibilty. Then, the gravity pulls the post slowly down except it got many upvotes.
Since I posted that Instagram Ads are a joke performnace-wise all my comments afterwards are always and instantly below the first comment without never touching the first position. Always and even if the top comment is from a new account w/o any karma.
Why? Some hidden semi-ban? And if yes why? <comment><USER2> It might be better to ask the moderators using the |contact| link at the bottom of the page.

For what it's worth and now that I think about it, over the years 'comment stickiness' seems to be rather random. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. This leads me to think that server load might (or might not) play a bit of a role.</comment>


Ask HN: What codebase should I study to get better at 'X' language or framework? - <AUTHOR> Based on this post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15662394, I think it would be beneficial to have an aggregate of great codebases to learn from by reading the code within them! Thanks in advance for the suggestions! <comment><USER2> Very good idea. You just made a point that has been nagging me for a while. What many programmers need is a curated list of code with examples from various sources annotated and classified by language.I would give an arm for something like this in Ruby and Elixir

</comment><comment><USER3> You mean like this github repo?

[https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome)</comment>


Could hemp nanosheets topple graphene for making the ideal supercapacitor? - <AUTHOR> http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2014/august/could-hemp-nanosheets-topple-graphene-for-making-the-ideal-supercapacitor.html <comment><USER2> _Fully assembled, the devices performed far better than commercial supercapacitors in both energy density and the range of temperatures over which they can work. The hemp-based devices yielded energy densities as high as 12 Watt-hours per kilogram, two to three times higher than commercial counterparts. They also operate over an impressive temperature range, from freezing to more than 200 degrees Fahrenheit._

One wonders what the economic opportunity cost of the drug war has been.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just gonna put this out there, but I swear this plant is like a miracle worker. Imagine what advances we would have made if this war on drugs hadn't kept hemp out of our reach for so long. Though someone please clarify if you can get hemp without marijuana (I am curious).

<comment><USER4> It's not as miraculous as some people in the US will go on and on about. I mean, it is definitely a useful plant but it's legal in many countries and hasn't become a major crop.

<comment><USER5> It's not technically legal in any country because of a UN treaty. I think part of the reason it hasn't 'taken off' in countries where laws aren't enforced/it's decriminalized/etc is because you can't transport it over the border, you can't sell to big clients in America (or anywhere else), the laws regarding distribution on such a large scale aren't clear enough even in places where it is "legal" so no one wants to put all their eggs in the marijuana basket at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _His team found that if they heated the fibers for 24 hours at a little over 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and then blasted the resulting material with more intense heat, it would exfoliate into carbon nanosheets._

Sounds like a similar process to the carbon-complex stuff that the ryden battery people are making from cotton. Nano materials might be easier to get in industrial quantities than I had previously thought, if you can strip them out of plants rather than having to build them up chemically. There presumably is an interesting crossover point here with genetic engineering, where you could alter a plant genome to encourage the formation of particular structures.

</comment><comment><USER7> The energy density is still nowhere near Li-ion batteries. 12 Wh/kg vs. 150 Wh/kg.

<comment><USER8> Is it useful to compare capacitors to batteries in this fashion? It's not as though you could swap out one for the other, in pretty much any realistic application.

<comment><USER9> The hardware I work with uses a supercap to keep the real-time clock going during power failures. Previously, button cells were used for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> whenever the headline is a question, its answer is probably "no"

<comment><USER11> Could this comment be right?</comment></comment>


Top three beginner investing books ranked by amount of math - <AUTHOR> https://www.futureadvisor.com/401k/comics/top-three-beginning-investing-books

<comment><USER2> If you want something more 'top shelf', Active Portfolio [1] Management by Grinold & Kahn is considered the bible, though you'll need an understanding of undergrad maths.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Active-Portfolio-Management- Quantitati...](http://www.amazon.com/Active-Portfolio-Management-Quantitative- Controlling/dp/0070248826)</comment>


If you could shut down a highway to play with connected cars, what would you do? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a serious question, we need some hack ideas...

<comment><USER2> A Flying V formation ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mighty_Ducks_(film_series)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mighty_Ducks_\(film_series\)) )

More seriously, what equipment do you have? How many vehicles, what type, and how long of a stretch of highway? Can you damage the cars in any way (say tailgating and then sudden obstacle avoidance...would anyone be mad if the cars didn't avoid as intended)?

<comment><AUTHOR> With several miles of elevated highway, a moderate volume of volunteered & OEM supplied vehicles and open minded infrastructure partners a pretty broad range of hacks/trials could be accommodated. Actively driving vehicles off the road and/or damaging them would be frowned on. However, sudden avoidance of "soft" obstacles under different scenarios definitely works.

Not sure how to work in the scoring aspect of a flying v, but would definitely be fun to model fuel savings of cars doing the same.</comment></comment></comment>


Too much noise in HN? (Open question) - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I have been a RSS subscriber for a long. I love HN but I have to admit that I get a little frustrated by the increasing percentage of noise. Especially by off-topic links.
I spend now too much time sorting useless stuff (for my needs) for reading a few really good links.
Do you also think there is too much noise?
If many agree, maybe it will be a signal that it is now time to add some categories/filters. :)
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I have one suggestion that would possibly help: separate out "saved" versus "up-voted". For me, I rarely want to save something but I would love to go to the new page and up-vote more interesting stories to get rid of the noise. But maybe that's just me--I'm also the type who never submits anything unless I want to see the discussion on it. I'm guessing there's a lot of karma-whores and hence all the TechCrunch articles (I kid, I kid). Anyone have an idea for putting the incentives in the right place for submitting with that in mind? Fractional karma for submission up-votes?

<comment><USER3> I didn't even know we had karma here. I just submit articles I find interesting in hopes that they'll be interesting to the community.

Also, I'm not quite clear on what you're having problems with. Why can't you _"go the the new page and up-vote more interesting stories"_?

<comment><USER4> Upvoting a submission also adds it to a list of saved submissions. Thus, if one uses that list to remember interesting articles, discussions, or things that one wishes to read, upvoting many articles which one does not necessarily want saved would dilute that list.

<comment><USER5> Yea I just found out about that feature. I was trying to figure out how to add an article to my saved list and was dumbfounded to find the one I wanted to save already in my list! I thought for briefly (for as long as my intelligence would allow) Ycombinator had read my mind and it turned out it was cause I voted it up. Yep, so intuitive!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure all of us here are hackers and we don't always come here for programming articles. I read hacker news as an alternative to google news or watching tv. For me, it's mostly entertainment that alleviates my boredom with a weighting toward improving my skillset and keeping up to date in my industry.

If there were _only_ code articles or technology articles, it'd get boring and I'd probably come back less often. I probably spend way too much time here really, but I probably click on 75% or more of the articles on the front page. I click on them because they are interesting, not necessarily because they are about programming or technology -- they expand my mind.

I think mind expansion is good for hackers.

</comment><comment><USER7> One thing that can help the whole community is to look at the list of stories submitted by noobs

<http://news.ycombinator.com/noobstories>

once in a while and flag those that are plainly spam or very badly off-topic. Sufficiently many flags kill a submission.

<comment><USER8> cool I can save a ton of money on a used shipping container. Do these guys not realize that HN is no-follow?

<comment><USER9> They spam with such mass they probably don't even care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is a lot of noise but I prefer the classic view - <http://news.ycombinator.com/classic> over the existing homepage. It'd be nice to have a few features like _never show me techcrunch articles again_ but all in all I still prefer Hacker News over everything else.

<comment><USER11> I did a quick search and didn't see anything too relevant. What is the difference between the classic and standard views?

<comment><USER12> Classic counts the votes of only the users who have been with HN for > 1 year.

<comment><USER13> How did you know about this? I seemed to have missed the boat on this one.

<comment><USER12> I searched searchyc.com for about 10 - 15 minutes to give a link to the post where pg mentioned that he created "classic" view and that classic and regular are not much different - which means growth hasn't harmed us much. Sorry I couldn't find it. (Usually I'll obsess over it until I do find - but I have to change this habit)

<comment><USER14> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=607285>

edit: How often does Google reply with the answer when you comment that you can't find something using their site? Now that's service right there...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm trying to learn Lisp/Scheme/Arc right now so that I can play around with news.arc. I've a good amount of work with numerical algorithms (statistics, matrices, graphs, machine learning...you name it), and I think there is a great deal of improvement to be had in the scoring algorithms that are used by social news sites (not just HN, but Digg, reddit, and so on).

Maybe YC could sponsor a little "Netflix Challenge" for Hacker News, where the 1st-place prize is an automatic bid to the upcoming YC round.

</comment><comment><USER16> There is more noise by quantity because there are more links than ever, but the average quality hasn't gone down. It only seems like it sometimes, because the site has good and bad days.

Also, if you just want programming links, read <http://hackerhackernews.com/>. The topic here is much broader than only technical things.

<comment><USER17> It hasn't been updated since July 7th. Unless nothing else that's been up lately has been about programming...

</comment></comment><comment> 8-bit_Blaster I completely agree that there seems to be far too much noise on HN.

That's actually the reason why I haven't bothered checking this website for months, but got curious and decided to come back today to see if things have changed.

The thing that I find most noisy are the "ASK HN" posts. I wish there was a way to filter these out, so I only get news.

C'est la vie

</comment><comment><USER18> I was going to comment last night on the post on how to sleep better in the Summer, but I didn't in hopes that sort of thing would stop itself. But all- in-all that sort of stuff doesn't belong on Hacker News, after all the site is Hacker News.

<comment><USER3> What solution do you propose? I don't think merely saying "let's keep things topical" is going to work. People are going to keep submitting articles they find interesting, and upvoting articles they find interesting, regardless of the topic.

In the interests of full disclosure, I was the one who submitted the "How to Sleep Comfortably on a Hot Night" article. Yes, it's not topical. However, I'm not ashamed! I thought it was interesting, and clearly so did the 44 other people who upvoted it.

I'm quite pleased with the community that's developed here, who are discriminating enough to pick out many articles I find interesting.

However, HN could definitely be improved, so that people who are only interested in certain topics (such as only computer/hacking related articles) or not interested in other topics (such as off-topic, or political, or venture capitalist articles) could more easily filter through what's becoming a firehydrant of links.

I think the best way to do this is by implementing tags.

<comment><USER18> The way I see is that this is how things start: one article like this is submitted and then each week another one is added, like a Fibonacci sequence until you have how Proggit or Digg is today.

And you can say that Hacker News will stay pure or whatever but this is exactly how things began with other sites and then slowly but surely things became less and less relevant. I do think that it will take quite some time before Hacker News gets that way but I'd rather be strict now and nip it in the bud before regretting it later.

With the analogy of tags I would say that if you had the two most basic tags: "hacker-related" (programming, science, tech and related fields) or "non- hacker-related" (ie. sleep habits) Then I would only have hacker-related tagged material here.

Now I realize that in the case of Digg they did purposely branch out to expand their community. And I doubt pg would do the same. Thus the speed at which Hacker News would descend in quality would be much slower, but in my mind it's not a sense of speed it's a sense of direction. And right now Hacker News is descending from the direction and the kind quality we had.

<comment><USER3> So you propose we "be strict now". Could you elaborate on just what you mean by that?

If I could be so bold as to take a guess at what you mean, it seems you're suggesting that the HN community submit only topical links.

I think that suggestion will generally simply be ignored by those people who want to (for whatever reason) submit non-topical links because only a small fraction of HN submitters will even read your suggestion, and most of those that read it aren't going to care (or they wouldn't have submitted off-topic links in the first place).

In order to reach all submitters, we could have some sort of global notice reminding everyone to only submit topical links. Maybe a stern and clearly worded warning on the submission page itself.

But say we do that and people continue to submit and upvote off-topic links. In my opinion, this is precisely what's going to happen. So then what?

I think there is no solution to keeping HN pure short of having the site be moderated by people dedicated to keeping it pure. But clearly that's not the model HN wants to pursue.

As long as HN is self-moderating it will not stay pure, and the more popular it gets, the further away from purity it will drift (witness what happened to Slashdot and Kuro5hin).

So, given that HN is not and probably will not stay pure, how can we improve the situation? I think the solution is clear: tags. Tags will let each reader more easily focus on what they find interesting, no matter how "impure" the site gets. It's an easy solution and one that should scale pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think we can reduce bad submissions by prohibting new users and users with a karma less than 500 for example.

We can calculate a score based on user oldness and his score, so he can submit or not and the time between his submissions.

</comment><comment><USER20> By the way, polls are officially supported - it will add options to the header of your post that people can select of - independent of any comments or replies to thread, or links to your own karma. Details are here: <http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html> (See March 1st, "Polls") - I do not know if the 200-karma threshold is still in effect

<comment><AUTHOR> "Sorry, you need 20 karma to create a poll." :) I have... 1.. :) I created a new "linked" account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> imo, yes, the quality/type-of/whatever of submissions has become very different from what it was 2 years ago. but then again, that's a subjective analysis.

but imho tags/categories are awful. there has to be a better solution to this.

i don't think filtering domains will do much good either.

editors like slashdot aren't exactly great (and require an editor staff).

voting schemes reflect the taste of the community (more specifically the percentage of people that vote - not taking into account bots/cheaters). there's always slashdot's semi-random karma system, but it's not really that great either.

so really, what's the solution? no effing clue..

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

on the other hand, i'd really like to know the stats on the number of people who click on an article and the number of people who voted on the same article.. also, average points stories get and so on..

edit: oh yeah, nevermind that, forgot that only after some X karma you can downvote/flag

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

oh well, information overload.. it's a joy

</comment><comment><USER22> One thing I'm seeing more of lately are internet-isms in comments like "Fail" and "2. ??? 3. Profit!" It seems to dilute the quality of the comments for two reasons - first, they themselves aren't that insightful. But more scary is that like five other people typically jump in and reply with more internetisms afterwards. The comments here have historically been the best I've seen, but seem to be slipping just a touch lately.

I don't know how that would be tackled exactly. I suppose just introducing new people politely to the culture here, and for current members to refrain from upvoting comments that are ok but have the pseudo-clever semi-snarky internet vibe to them.

<comment><USER23> Technically "2. ??? 3. Profit!" was a South Park-ism (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_(South_Park)> ) And I realise that this comment was perhaps what you were complaining about - but it was worth pointing it out none-the-less.

(And for the record: "1. Collect Underpants, 2. ????, 3. Profit" seems to be a more mature business model than some that are featured here on hn.)

<comment><USER24> _Technically "2. ??? 3. Profit!" was a South Park-ism_

I for one welcome our new television meme overlords.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> <http://twitter.com/newsycombinator> only posts pages that appear on the front page. An RSS feed might get a little noisy.

</comment><comment><USER26> hnsort.com, and the greasemonkey script for sorting, really help. I sort by comments or points to find where the interest is.

But I agree that the RSS feed can get cluttered. Maybe a yahoo pipes thing could create a delayed feed that only passed items with certain characteristics.

</comment><comment><USER27> Yes, I agree. HN has many interesting stuff, but I have problems to follow all news, because it's just too much.

</comment><comment><USER28> No.

</comment><comment><USER29> Hacker forums are a lot like indie rock bands.

<comment><USER30> Are you saying that indie rock bands get louder and louder the more popular they get?

(Serious question -- I don't listen to rock bands, indie or otherwise, so I don't know how the time- and popularity-dependence of their volume.)

<comment><USER31> No, he's saying that the quality is variable. Sometimes they have one great album and the rest are poor, or an album has a few great songs and the rest sounds like filler.

<comment><USER32> I thought he was saying they stop being cool when too many people discover them.

<comment><USER33> That sounds about right.

Unfortunately I tend to find both right as they stop being cool. (I joined on erlang day)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think there's definitely a lot of noise. Having categories (or tags) would be a good aid to sorting through it all.

<comment><USER34> Oh please don't let this turn into reddit.

<comment><USER3> It's not tags which would turn HN in to Reddit. It's the community. If HN's community was identical to that of Reddit, HN would turn in to Reddit (minus the tags). But HN's community is not the same as Reddit, which is why the articles which are submitted and upvoted on HN generally differ from Reddit (with some overlap, of course).

I don't see how not having tags helps anything or anyone. It just keeps the article space flat instead of organized by topic.

Of course, the articles still have different topics. They're just not easily distinguishable from one another by automated means.

<comment><USER31> HN is more like a subreddit than reddit itself. Adding tags would allow the original Startup News users to sequester themselves into the article threads they enjoyed, while new people would join the community unnoticed and uninitiated. Eventually the front page would boil over with TechCrunch and Apple gossip.

Tags are bad because keeping the article space flat keeps out people with only marginally similar interests.

<comment><USER3> The question is, how much are the original Startup News users doing to keep the site pure? Clearly not enough, or this particular thread would have never been started.

The article space is flat right now, but that hasn't been enough to keep the site pure either.

I think the battle for purity has already been lost. Now it's just a question of whether the site is going to be rendered useless because the number of submissions is going to be too great to slog through with a flat article space, or if it's going to be made manageable with tags.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Android KitKat set to crush Apple? - <AUTHOR> http://corp.versus.com/blog/2013/10/31/behind-closed-doors-android-kitkat-set-to-crush-apple

<comment><USER2> "The only thing iOS does to improve is steal old ideas from Android and other operating systems."

Every time I see this I get irritated. What Apple does is take technology out there and do it better than anyone else. This is why they are the most valuable company and continue to make excellent product.

When I have to deal with an Android device at the office I feel immediate disgust because they all suffer the same flaws. * An OS that can hardly run well on any hardware * Garbage build quality * Too much customization * Vendor and carrier bloat

<comment><USER3> Have you used the HTC One?

<comment><USER4> I've been using an HTC One alongside my iPhone 5 for several months. When you first see it, you think "oh, this is great hardware, it's not far off from the iPhone." But then you live with it and use it and you realize it's a far cry from Apple hardware.

One example is with the hardware buttons. They are so flush against the body (both the sleep/wake and volume), that you almost always have to look to see what you're doing. I can't blindly turn down or up the volume nor can I wake up the phone in my pocket before I take it out like I do on my iPhone.

<comment><USER3> I think in the grand scheme of things that is a very minor complaint and a testament to how far android and in this case HTC have come.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your skin deep assessment of the Apple model so misses the point. What's that old saying? "Less is more". Apple understands this - the Android ecosystem doesn't.

<comment><USER6> And that's why they have captured 80% of the smartphone market of the world ... oh wait ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Google have built something technically equivalent to a trusted household brand. For starters, Android KitKat builds brand power on top of existing brand power via a licensing deal with Nestlé"

You cannot accrete X no . of brands and somehow end up with more "Brand Power" unless the optics are right.

KitKat and mobile devices are unrelated save for Googles running gag on Android code names - something which the majority of customers are not aware of and don't care about.

The author is really scraping the bottom of the barrel to support his argument.

</comment><comment><USER8> "... the future doesn't look so bright for Apple, who are currently sitting on an enormous amount of unsold stock"

What unsold stock are they referring to?

</comment><comment><USER9> iOs still has a higher adoption rate than Android. The App Store is still number one in revenue.

No, this will not crush Apple.

<comment><USER10> Yes, App Store is number one in revenue.

Android has something around %80 of the smartphone market. Higher adoption rate? Laughable. Not because Android is better, but because its cheaper.

<comment><USER2> The feature phone of this generation.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are various strategies for database rollback? - <AUTHOR> How do you rollback updates to database if an error occurs during runtime? What are the different strategies available to handle this situation? <comment><USER2> Off the top of my head

1) simple transactions--commit all or none of statements from 'begin/start transaction' and 'commit/rollback'

2) like (1) but with support for nesting

3) like (2) but simulated with snapshot restore points

4) everything is saved all the time but you mark which saved things are complete and actionable/visible, e.g. sagas.

maybe others?

Edit: stored procedures can also be useful as they can easily be retried</comment>


Tell YC: "Hacker News" needs clean profile URLs - <AUTHOR>

I would personally like to link to my YCombinator profile via: http://news.ycombinator.com/user/{username}<p>Do you guys agree this would be valuable? <comment><USER2> Nice suggestion, but no, it really doesn't "need" clean URLs.

The current system works more than adequately and is indexable as well.

<comment><USER3> _"... The current system works more than adequately and is indexable as well. ..."_

And is subject to breakage & link rot if any of the link structure changes. This happened when the "comments" term was replaced by "item" a long way back. So all the links I collected failed until I checked them. For instance try:

\- <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=3754> (FAIL)

\- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754> (OK)

Clean URI's are cool. They last a long time and just work ~ <http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI> These URI's smell funny. Having said that it doesn't really effect the running of the site, indexing or searching and require coding changes. But it will bite you at some time in the future.

I mentioned these type of things a while ago ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3671> so I don' think anything is going to change soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jonallanharper> isn't clean enough?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://news.ycombinator.com/user/jonallanharper> is more valuable from a search engine perspective, I think.

<comment><USER4> that's to assume pg wants search traffic

semantic urls are nifty but not that nifty

<comment><AUTHOR> He wants people to take pride in their comments/submissions. Knowing your info is easily searchable by your handle influences you to create more valuable content.

<comment><USER4> for what it's worth, my HN profile pops up within the top 5 google search results</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Trouble gaining streamers for streaming platform - <AUTHOR> I created a streaming platform called WatchBuddie that is based around social viewing. So the main concept is that a streamer can stream themselves watching a show, movie or sport and the viewer can watch along with them and get their reactions and commentary. Viewers can also subscribe to the streamer at a monthly cost and donate to the streamer directly from the site to support the streamer. My problem is that I am having trouble getting streamers to stream on the site. Would it be a good idea to pay people to stream on the platform at first to gain some traction and bring more people to the site? Thanks for all the help and advice.<p>The site can be found here: https://watchbuddie.com <comment><USER2> There's some severe chicken and egg issues with this platform. One possible way to break the stalemate is to leverage existing communities. Twitch streamers sometimes have "movie nights" that might benefit from a site like this. Figure out how to integrate with twitch so the streamer can have some kind of unified presence across both sites and create/manage a social viewing experience.

There's also a lot of good content on youtube that might benefit from a social viewing experience either with an existing community or just between friends. Allow an easy mechanism to view a video in sync with an integrated chat and cam.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats a good idea thanks for the advice.</comment></comment>


A Danish bank is offering mortgages at a 0.5% negative interest rate - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/danish-bank-offers-mortgages-at-negative-interest-rates-2019-8 <comment><USER2> I'll borrow a billion dollars of that pls. I'll even keep it as a deposit with the same bank instead of buying a house so they have 100% security, if that's ok.

<comment><USER3> From the article:

> _It should be noted that even with a negative interest rate, banks often > charge fees linked to the borrowing, which means homeowners could still pay > back more._

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder what that's doing to housing prices in Denmark</comment>


¿What sort of calendar do We want in this Millenium? - <AUTHOR> ¿What sort of calendar do We want in this Millenium?
Let me take a quick, unpracticed stab at this, on behalf of Lifesaver Labs and lifesavers.army.
There was a discussion earlier about the Kodak Calendar. Do We want to retire the 12 Month Julian in Our Long Now technical architextures, and operate on the 13 Month Kodak or, better yet, the 13 Month Pax Calendar?
i've been working on a Lifesaver Labs Calendar, which would intercalate, as the 7th Month, a Month called "Teaching" (تدريس, 教导, शिक्षण, Enseñanza), or altarnatively abbreviated as "Tea" or 茶, चाय, Té, or شاي (Tea), in i18n⁺⁴. Since Lifesaver Labs is a revision of the Pax, there would be no disruption in the weekly sabbatical cycle of any religious calendar, and carries all the advantages of the Pax base.
i've thought a great deal about the mechanisms and value associated with a changeover, as Amortized over a Century of Altared Life Moments.  We'll need to work together as a Calm⁴unity to socially "hack" large regulatory entities like Congress and the UN to enthusiastically consent with a 13 Month Calendar Plan, but consider the advantages of a Perennial Calendar.. they're mindblowing, enormous, and easy for anyone to see just by glancing at an old, useless paper calendar laying around, simply because of the Annual Offset, or the consistent 6% - 10% revenue and expense throw that happens from Janus (January) to Februar (February) to Mars (March). We can start "working up" Dv Standards by going to the mat on Mars and the 13 Month Calendar, in preparation for something larger and more important. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Calendar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Calendar)

A True Perennial Calendar that works much better than the Julian, and can be Adapted with a Contest for Name Changes for Each Month and Day of the Week (Restday | Bestday Coin Flip resolves the otherwise difficult Re:Naming of Saturday and Sunday, each asserted as the Day after Ædam's Creation in the Ædamic Branches).

i would start with the Proposition that the 7th Month, which is formally named now after a bloody and utterly horrific alpha-male military dictator, should be called "Tea:ching" (Teaching or Tea, with both flexibly used, in the ∆ English Calendar). It could be "Teaching Herstory" or "Teaching History", or the "Her.story ⇌ His.story" Month. All those are interesting options, and would love to see calmpetition for the Best, Principle.ed Names for Each of the Months.

i would suggest that We can use "lifesavers.army calendar" as the Provisional Title of the Calendar, to help guide Naming toward the Core Imperatives under which We All Self-Organize, but as with all things, i know myself to not be the Wisest at Nomic Naming Questions of these kinds.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar)

<comment><AUTHOR> This calendar is Dead on Arrival, because it would throw off the Sabbath again and again for HhÅÆI ⏣, HhÅÆJ ⏣, and HhÅÆC ⏣.</comment></comment>


UK's Royal Society Bows To Climate Change Sceptics  - <AUTHOR> http://www.thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1617-royal-society-bows-to-climate-change-sceptics.html

<comment><USER2> They didn't bow to the sceptics. They bowed to the scientific method. If you don't state how much uncertainty there is in your claims, it's as good as lying.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're not a sceptic - you're not a scientist.</comment>


Nginx no longer retries non-idempotent upstream requests by default - <AUTHOR> https://trac.nginx.org/nginx/changeset/91c8d990fb4540f9937e97426586b29be6185e21/nginx <comment><AUTHOR> Relevant discussion from earlier this month: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11217477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11217477)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not familiar with the way nginx develops its software, is this change slated for release in 1.9.13?

<comment><USER3> Most likely yes.

Even numbering is the stable branch while odd numbering is the development branch.

Since this is a breaking change and not a bug or security fix it's unlikely to go into the stable branch.

<comment><USER4> Except the development branch is stable, stable is legacy :/

<comment><USER3> One of the things that really annoy me yes. :)

Pretty much every nginx release is run-time stable, really the only difference is that the mainline branch is not API stable.

Good luck convincing package managers of that, though. So usually you end up running an old version just because of convention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Mailing list announcement is here. It's now in nginx 1.9.13 (mainline) [https://marc.ttias.be/nginx- announce/2016-03/msg00000.php](https://marc.ttias.be/nginx- announce/2016-03/msg00000.php)

<comment><USER6> Official mailing list link: [http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx- announce/2016/00017...](http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx- announce/2016/000172.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any idea when this will ship with NGINX Plus?

<comment><USER8> It will be part of NGINX Plus R9 scheduled for mid-April.

<comment><USER9> Perfect, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good idea!</comment>


Steps Outside the Comfortable Facade of the We - <AUTHOR> https://sungwoncho.io/steps-outside-comfortable-facade-of-we/ <comment><AUTHOR> This article is about how single-person founders/makers pretend to be a part of large teams.

I think startups and products should be more personal, and solo founders are well poised to do just that.</comment>


What the Ray Rice Video Really Shows - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/ray-rice-video-shows <comment><AUTHOR> This isn't tech or startup related, so I understand if it gets flagged. But it's one of the biggest stories today in the US.

I think it is an important parallel to how we delude ourselves in the tech world about the extent of male privilege -- how, in situations of gender conflict, we tend to assign the best possible intentions to males and the worst to females. What would we see if cameras captured the harassment and discrimination that occasionally lead to the high profile stories we hear about?

<comment><USER2> Great article, and great explanation if why you posted this. This truly points to bigger issues in Tech, in America, and the world.</comment></comment>


Fox News Reporter James Rosen's Private Emails Given To Justice Dept. By Google - <AUTHOR> http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/affidavit-for-search-warrant/162/

<comment><USER2> This is a warrant. They're legally compelled to give emails to the DoJ. This went through a judge, as well it should...

What is the problem here?

</comment><comment><USER3> well there goes freedom of the press. Because who will talk to the press now?

<comment><USER2> Everyone. They just won't use GMail anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The media needs to work on a whole solution for talking between each other and receiving information in a very secure way. It's clear the government is spying on many of them. We've just found out about AP, but who knows how many they are spying in the media. Probably all of them.

They need to start using stuff like Tor, DeadDrop, OTR-enabled apps, TextSecure, RedPhone, etc. These need to be part of the policy at the companies.</comment>


Professors Consider Classroom Uses for Google Plus - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/professors-consider-classroom-uses-for-google-plus/32131

<comment><USER2> I never thought of using it in this fashion, but it is strikingly obvious once you think about it. Pushing it even further, or in similar light, the workplace could also benefit from this. At our office we use SalesForce and their Chatter feature shares the similar vein of communicating within 'circles' or 'subgroups'.

</comment><comment><USER3> This type of social networking isn't really unique to Google+ though. The big gains are going to be made when students can come together to collaborate on a Google Doc, or a professor can share documents/other files with students.</comment>


"DRM-Free" Scares the shit out of me - <AUTHOR> http://everythingsysadmin.com/2013/05/dwd2013.html

<comment><USER2> > "DRM-free scares the shit out of me"

Why? DRM certainly doesn't prevent piracy, and from at least anecdotal evidence removing DRM reduces piracy and increases sales. There are a few studies that I found that bear out the last point, but I haven't read them fully and am unsure how correct they are.

<comment><USER3> Anecdotal evidence aside, here is some actual evidence of a company getting screwed by having a DRM free offering.

[http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2009/04/demigod-hit-by- massive...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2009/04/demigod-hit-by-massive- piracy-review-scores-take-beating/)

IMHO, DRM causes there to be a delay (provided the game is not leaked) between game launch and game available for free on the internet. When your target audience is known to be... impatient... that might make a lot of difference. Unfortunately it comes down to not being able to trust your own audience, as the author said. I would prefer DRM free everything as well, but if the economics support it, it would be pretty silly to ignore that.

<comment><USER2> That's anecdotal evidence too. There's nothing to show that it being DRM free caused it to be pirated more. I've seen figures that suggest that 90% of installs of a game come from pirates, so at 85% (18,000 legitimate installs from 120,000) anecdotally they seem to have reduced the level of piracy. The effect on their servers sounds like poor infrastructure design more than anything else, especially given they were able to deploy an infrastructure fix fairly rapidly.

My point was it's unclear that the economics does support it, and the evidence that's slowly accumulating suggests that in fact the economics supports the opposite.

<comment><USER3> They had server infrastructure for an estimated 50,000 players. 18,000 players bought the game and were trying to play. Over 5x that number in pirates logged in, and because they didn't use any multiplayer authentication (accounts or some such), they had to support them like paying customers. In other words, going DRM free caused an overload on their server. It sounds like an underestimation of the amount of pirates they would get more than anything - they had over 250% capacity for paying customers.

Also, only Ubisoft claims piracy rates over 90% as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER2> World of Goo (90%), Machinarium(90%-95%) and the PC Gaming Alliance (90% for high end titles) have all claimed piracy rates of 90% or above.

Also there seems to be a gap in your reasoning, going DRM free didn't cause the overload on their server, unless you're claiming that going DRM free caused people to pirate it. The huge pile of (previously) DRMed media currently being pirated would beg to differ with you. They did use accounts (or a code per game), so the pirates were unable to log in to the server, but the fact that they were trying to is what was causing the problems (from the update at the end of the article). If they'd had DRM, it would have been cracked, people would have pirated the game, tried to contact the servers and they still would have fallen over.

<comment><USER3> If they had implemented DRM for multiplayer access to the server, they would not have failed. Attempting to contact a server and being told 'No' isn't the same as having a connected player. I'm talking Steamworks-style DRM here, which is online logon for multiplayer, requiring authentication against the server and username / password tied to purchase. It works well for that purpose.

If they had used it, those early reviews would not have suffered, and their servers would not have been overloaded short of a DDoS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Guy is shilling a non-related book. Don't bother clicking.

</comment><comment><USER5> What does he want?</comment>


Study: School is not about learning and too much of it wastes billions [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.econ.brown.edu/students/alexander_eble/Eble_Hu_CPEE.pdf

<comment><USER2> The link text should be the title of the paper, which is "Demand for Schooling, Returns to Schooling, and the Role of Credentials". The paper does not use the link text given here.

The paper tries to "estimate the impact of extending the length of primary school by one year on individuals' later educational outcomes." It does not say that "school is not about learning." The text used in this HN link appears to be editorializing.

They paper concludes by saying they "interpret [their] results as suggestive that the signaling value of attaining a credential is the dominant driver behind schooling decisions in China in the modern era." They don't say that there are other drivers, which can include learning. They don't say that it's applicable to all other school systems.

The term "waste" is part of the editorializing. The paper does not use it. It states "We estimate that this policy, while redistributive, likely generates a net loss of at least tens of billions of dollars, reallocating nearly one trillion person-hours from the labor market to schooling with meager overall returns."

If the economy is the goal, then this can be seen as a "waste". However, if redistributive equalization is the goal then it is not a waste, though it is perhaps an inefficient way to get to that goal.</comment>